Annual Pathways to Sustainability Conference
Our annual conference is an inspirational day that brings to the stage the voices, experiences, ambitions and concerns of a diverse range of actors from within and outside academia, and across generations and cultures. The conference is a crossover; between different groups of scholars, between the university and a variety of stakeholders, between science and culture, and between global North and Global South.
28 November 2024
Save the date for the Pathways to Sustainability conference on 28 November 2024 in TivoliVredenburg! More information to follow during the year.
4 April 2023 - See the future
We deliberately followed another conference format. Taking the year 2060 as our point of arrival, we get new insights into the challenges of transformation, the big shifts that we must consider if we think about sustainability in terms of forty years or more. Together we look back, piece together and learn. What do the changes that we were able to bring about look like? What/who were the crucial triggers for this transformation? And did we (or better: who did) see them coming in 2023?
2021: Making Change Happen
How can fundamental change of the magnitude needed to avoid climate breakdown be realized? Can it be achieved within the existing systems? Are they fit for this purpose or does it require a paradigm shift? We will have to zoom out to regain perspective and to slow down to take a turn and adapt. This conference brought together the voices, experiences, ambitions and concerns from a wide range of actors.
Conference 2020: Accelerating the Transformation
How do we speed up the sustainability transition? Just prior to the outbreak of the corona crisis in Europe, scientific director of Pathways to Sustainability Prof Maarten Hajer took us on a journey into accelerating the sustainability transformation. Now that we are all in a ‘surplace’ and all our daily routines are broken and need to be reinvented, we can experience this journey together online. Be inspired by the multimedia story of the exchange of world leading experts with the 500 participants of the third Pathways to Sustainability Conference.
Conference 2019: Narrating sustainability futures
With the plastic ‘Skyscraper’ whale towering from the ice in the canal next to TivoliVredenburg, inside a vibrant and collegial Pathways to Sustainability conference took place. Almost 500 participants listened to keynotes varying from a memorable speech by Diederik Samsom to a more reflective take on the sustainability challenge by Harvard Professor Sheila Jasanoff. The afternoon break-out sessions showed engaging conversations over various sustainability challenges. During the final panel discussion several experts debated how the university needs to change to really live up to today’s sustainability challenge.