Tracks

The transformation to the sustainable use of energy and materials
Scientific approach: Natural sciences and social sciences

Energy and Materials is a multidisciplinary natural and social sciences track that focuses on the analysis of energy and materials systems. Current systems are clearly unsustainable as they have a significant negative impact on the environment and are based on finite resources. This track is dedicated to the study of cleaner and renewable production options and a more efficient consumption of energy and materials needed for sustainable development. The focus of the track is both global and local, with examples and topics on global, European and national or provincial level. There is limited focus on specific challenges in developing countries.

Courses

Please note that some track courses build on specific foreknowledge, notably concerning energy analysis and thermodynamics (consult the Study Guide for current students for more information). Students lacking this foreknowledge are responsible for acquiring this knowledge independently before entering such courses.

Research themes
Here are some examples of themes you could focus on in this track:

1. How will global energy and material demand develop in the coming decades?
2. What is the role of wind, nuclear, and solar power in the future energy supply system?
3. What is the role of material efficiency and product design in a sustainable society? How can circular economy contribute?
4. What policies can be implemented to effectively improve energy and material efficiency?

The sustainable use of land and water
Scientific approach: Natural sciences

Environmental Change and Ecosystems is a multidisciplinary natural science track focusing on the interaction between humans and the physical and biotic environment. The track brings together the fields of physical geography, hydrology, (landscape) ecology, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Students will have the opportunity to examine changes in land use, the dispersal of substances (in water, soil, and air) and their impact on ecosystems, biodiversity and remediation options.

Courses

Please note that some track courses build on specific foreknowledge, notably concerning mathematics and systems analysis (consult the Study Guide for current students for more information). Students lacking this foreknowledge are responsible for acquiring this knowledge independently before entering such courses.

Research themes
Here are some examples of themes you could focus on in this track:

• How do the substances generated by various human activities spread through water, air, and subsoil?
• What impact does environmental pollution have on ecosystems?
• How can ecosystems and biodiversity be protected more effectively?
• What options are there for regenerating damaged ecosystems?
• How should future water management adapt to climate change?

Policy and governance for transformations towards a sustainable future
Scientific approach: Political science, policy and governance studies, public administration, and other social sciences

The Earth System Governance track is especially designed for students who want to learn how policies, institutions, and governance can contribute to realizing solutions for complex sustainability challenges. We believe that it is possible to create more sustainable and just futures, and we seek to understand how this can be realized. We start from the premise that sustainability problems are – to a large extent – problems of politics and governance. Therefore, solutions are urgently needed through changes in policies, institutions, and governance. We focus on careful and critical analysis to understand the complexity of sustainability problems with a focus on finding solutions. This brings in aspects such as: power relations, multilevel and cross-sectoral interactions (among governments, civil society, and other actors), normative aspects (e.g., democracy, equality, justice), and theories of action and change for how to transform politics and governance towards sustainable futures.

In this track, we study governance arrangements across all levels, from cities and communities to nations and the international level. We study processes of policy and institutional change, and how this can inform real-world policymaking. We study social science methods for gathering evidence and insight into specific issues. And we study how real-world change happens in organisations and society from a critically informed, forward-looking perspective. We situate our study in a planetary frame because contemporary sustainability problems are connected across scales, contexts, and timeframes, meaning that action needs to be recognize wider interdependencies (ie, an ‘earth system’ perspective). This is a track for future agents of change in governments from local to national, supranational bodies such as the European Union and international organisations such as the UN, civil society and advocacy groups, business, and academia, among others.

Courses

* This course has been updated. To see the new course description, please visit the OSIRIS Course Catalog. Select academic year 2025-2026 and enter the title of the course.

The track is open for students from all backgrounds. However, our focus will be on theories, methods and approaches from political science, policy and governance studies, public administration, and sometimes also other social sciences such as sociology, human geography, planning, and law.

Research themes
Here are some examples of themes you could focus on in this track:

• How can policy and governance contribute to transformative changes in different domains in society (e.g., climate change, biodiversity, food, water, cities?) How do governance systems themselves transform to address sustainability crises? How does this intersect with different interests and values within diverse societies?
• How and why do specific policies change? Under what conditions are policies effective, equitable, and legitimate? How can ambitious policy goals be realized in divided societies?
• Why do problems and conflicts arise between different stakeholders in policy making, and how can these be addressed?
• What different types of policy, institutional, and governance action are needed at different scales, from local (e.g., community, city) to regional (e.g., regional government, multistakeholder groups) to national (e.g., ministries, across government), to international (e.g., EU, UN) levels?
• What are the consequences of unequal power relations and historical injustices for the design of policy and governance in the present? How can the voices of marginalized and vulnerable groups be brought into policy and governance?
• How can policy and governance be more democratic and equitable, to protect people, non-humans, and the planet? How can new visions of the future be pursued?
• What are the implications of living in the Anthropocene for policy and governance?

Exploring the political implications of ecology and the ecological basis of politics
Scientific approach: Social and natural sciences

Politics, Ecology and Society is an interdisciplinary social and natural sciences track focusing on the political, economic, cultural, material and social structures that underpin social and ecological injustices within and across global regions. This track emphasizes the co-constitution of ecological, social, economic and political processes and addresses it by critically examining global socioecological interconnections and injustices, as well as political interventions seeking to transform them. This track moves beyond both alarmist narratives and standard ‘best practice’ fixes or ‘solutions’. Instead, it focuses on historical and interdisciplinary explanations of contemporary environmental inequalities, while maintaining a focus on progressive options for a healthier, more sustainable, and more interconnected and inclusive world. It does so by building on critiques of dominant social, political and economic institutions, and by forcefully directing attention to community-led social innovation initiatives and social movements fundamentally challenging models of development rooted in capitalist modernity, colonialism and other forms of social-ecological exclusion and domination which co-constitute socioecological injustices.

This track places crucial efforts into interrogating the limits of Northern intellectual traditions (e.g. classical European social theory) and taking seriously the contributions of Southern theory, indigenous perspectives, and critical theory (e.g., Marxist, Post-structuralist, Decolonial, Post-development, Feminist, Race Theory). Similarly, it emphasises practical and ethical engagement with people, groups and communities experiencing social and ecological injustices and/or trying to fundamentally transform their root causes. This track provides students with knowledge related to scientific methodology, ethics and positionality, field work, and research methods to be used in academic research for the critical examination of socioecological interconnections and justice issues, as well as political interventions seeking to transform them. It combines theoretically-informed analysis and empirical research, with insights from political ecology, anthropology, human geography, development studies, sociology, science and technology studies, ecology and environmental sciences.

Courses

Research themes
Here are some examples of themes you could focus on in this track.

• How does history (e.g. of colonialism, capitalism, socialism, market-driven reform) matter in our understanding of and actions to address contemporary environmental problems?
• How does sustainable development intersect with processes of ecological decline, colonization, modernization and political transitions?
• How are social innovation and alternatives to development contributing to socioecological transformation across different global regions?
• What do socially and ecologically just transformations look like in different socio-cultural-political contexts?
• How are deeply seated understandings of wellbeing, progress, justice, development, and nature discursively used to prevent or promote different approaches to transforming society?
• How are spatially distant world regions interconnected and interdependent through flows of energy, natural resources, ideas, people, and what social, economic, political structures and knowledge determine such interconnections?
• What innovative designs can be developed for the just and sustainable management of natural resources?