Thursday and Friday (April 4-5) were dedicated to our PhD students, offering two parallel running PhD conferences hosted by professors from the UAS and UNA Europa network. As the majority of presentations refers to ongoing research projects these are not included in the conference documentation. For further information on the workshops you are welcome to contact the UAS Team: uas@fu-berlin.de

PhD Workshop: “Sustainable Development Research – an Interdisciplinary Chance or Challenge?”, April 4-5, 2019

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN, reflect the global consensus about improving sustainability. The goals have important implications for policy and research in areas ranging from climate protection to gender issues. The SDGs are complex and interwoven; the success of one goal is often closely linked to the success of another. Timely and impactful implementation of the goals therefore requires interdisciplinary research.

The workshop offered the opportunity to discuss the complex topic of sustainability from an interdisciplinary perspective with an international group of PhD students and professors. Participants were asked to provide a short abstract outlining their research and a reflection of how their topic interacts with one or more SDGs. Through the workshop participants developed a broader understanding of interdisciplinary research collaborations in the field of sustainable development and explored opportunities for joint interdisciplinary research projects.

Rather than presenting general overviews of sustainable development research, the workshop was interested in topical areas of individual dissertations, which should be reviewed in the light of the 17 SDGs.