UNIC International Sustainability Leadership Autumn School

1 May 2025

Happening On 16/09/2025

Join us at University College Cork for the inaugural UNIC International Sustainability Leadership Autumn School, September - October 2025. Applications now open!

Delivery Mode: Online and in person Autumn school
Length: 4 x 2 hour online sessions (starting Sept 16th) plus one week in-person Autumn school (13th-17th October, 2025)
Accreditation: Micro-credential (5 ECTS)
Location: University College Cork
Target audience: The target audience for the Autumn School are postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers

Course Description:
Urgent transformative action is needed to address the sustainability crises we are collectively facing such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion. Beyond the requirement for radical technological and business innovations we need new forms of individual and collective leadership. Sustainability leaders are those who inspire and drive us towards a more sustainable world and have the competences to understand and tackle sustainability challenges under conditions of extreme urgency, rapid change, and uncertainty.

The focus of the UNIC International Sustainability Leadership Autumn School is on leadership skills and sustainability competences which complement the deep domain-specific knowledge acquired within academic disciplines e.g. systems thinking, futures thinking, sustainability values, societal impact, and interdisciplinarity. Within this Autumn School we will develop a “sustainability mindset” to think, plan and act with empathy, responsibility, and care for our planet.

The Autumn School will also draw upon living laboratory methodologies for co-creation, critical reflection, and experiential learning developed and
refined within the UNIC Centre for City Futures.

Competences and skills learned within the programme will be applied to a citybased challenge within Cork City. The theme of the 2025 Autumn School will be: “Walking and pedestrianisation for liveable, net zero cities”

A micro-credential (5 ECTS) will be awarded from University College Cork based on successful completion of a group project and individual assessment. 

Learning outcomes of Autumn School:

• Analyse, synthesise, and interpret complex problems across different domains and scales to solutions that address the environmental, social,
  governance, and economic aspects of sustainability
• Understand how to work across diverse stakeholder groups showing empathy when collaborating with others
• Understand futures thinking approaches and methodologies to envision and craft “rich pictures” for preferred sustainable futures
• Collectively design and implement interventions, transitions, and transformative governance strategies to become an agent of change for
  sustainability
• Be able to map, reconcile, and negotiate sustainability values and principles as applied to planet and society and reflect on own values
• Articulate the concept and practice of sustainability as it relates to the self, community, your research, and the wider world
• Deepen awareness of individual leadership style and identify areas for
  growth

How to apply:

Please follow this link to submit an expression of interest:
https://forms.office.com/e/TMcmMPHdkP 

Deadline for Expression of Interest: 5pm Friday 16 May 2025

Applicants will be notified of the outcome by Wednesday 4 June

For more on this story contact:

Tanya Fitzgerald, University College Cork (TFitzgerald@ucc.ie)