Thematic Communities
In our communities, unexpected connections and new perspectives arise. There is room for debate, reflection, and creative collaboration in research and education on key sustainability challenges. Both within the university and with societal stakeholders, at local, national, and global scales. Here, new ideas are born and social engagement comes naturally.
Critical Pathways
Critical Pathways uniquely bridges the Social Sciences, Law, and Humanities with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, fostering trans-faculty collaboration and interdisciplinary research that amplifies underrepresented, invisible, and diverse ways of knowing. The community critically interrogates the narratives and power structures shaping sustainability and exposes historical erasures and injustices in both discourse and practice. We centre marginalized voices (human and non-human) and build reciprocal bridges between academics, artists, activists and global communities. By disrupting silos and fostering radical collaboration, we drive transformative change within and beyond academia.
Digital Pathways to Sustainability
Bringing together experts concerned with the sustainable development of digital technologies. Addressing the widely known and yet fragmentarily studied relationship between sustainability and digitalization requires a collaborative effort. As such, the community bridges disciplines and builds new perspectives on digitalization that emphasize long-termism, sustainability, sobriety, and prudence. We focus on both critically addressing the environmental impact of and power structures that shape current digitalization endeavors and exploring alternative pathways for sustainable digitalization in diverse domains such as the circular economy, sustainable cities, and reduced energy consumption.
Energy in Transition
The Energy in Transition (EiT) Community accelerates local energy transitions with a global perspective. Local ranges from UU campuses to sites across Europe, while global perspectives address the unequal benefits, risks, and losses of these transitions, which informs together just and inclusive transition pathways. Building on members’ research, educational activities and networks, the community fosters reflection, learning, and co-creation through stakeholder engagement and collaborative initiatives. Its distinctive strength lies in applied transdisciplinarity—integrating academic research and education with external partners and linking local action to global impacts to advance sustainable, secure, and socially just energy futures.
Future Food Utrecht
Future Food Utrecht is the transdisciplinary platform for research, education, and societal collaboration on food system transformation. We aim to build regenerative, inclusive, and resilient food systems where science, policy, and practice converge. Our mission is to promote sustainable and healthy food for people and planet by connecting disciplines, sectors, and generations. In the 2026–2030 period, we will strengthen our role as a strategic connector within and beyond the university, investing in education, policy engagement, and co-creation with societal partners, from farmers to policymakers.
Science for Sustainability
The Science for Sustainability (S4S) community is an inclusive and inspiring platform for interaction between students, lecturers, and researchers, in the sciences. We provide the fundamental science basis for solving sustainability challenges. Thus, we focus on fundamental research to provide new insights in both causes and consequences, facilitate interactions between people from different disciplines within the Geosciences and Science faculties. In doing so, we bridge the often-perceived theory-to-practice and practice-to-theory gap through (existing) collaborations with societal partners, such as the chemical industry, sustainable energy suppliers and advisory bodies, and facilitate initiation of new ones through our community building fund.
Sustainability Education
The Sustainability Education community at Utrecht University stands out as a unique hub where research, policy, and practice around sustainability education converge to catalyse transformative change. Our strength lies in connecting diverse stakeholders: researchers, teachers, policymakers, and practitioners, both within UU and beyond. By fostering transdisciplinary collaboration, our community not only drives innovative ideas but also actively impacts sustainability education at Utrecht University, ensuring real-world impact and lasting change. Our holistic approach ensures our impact is both evidence-based and action-oriented, positioning UU as a leader in shaping lifelong sustainability learning for a just and resilient future.
Sustainable Ocean
The Sustainable Ocean Community is the national transdisciplinary platform that translates critical knowledge into transformative action needed for sustainable ocean futures. We unify expertise around ocean challenges, including equitable ocean governance and climate solutions, and will further enhance ocean literacy through education, outreach, and engagement and by empowering the next generation of ocean professionals. For the 2026-2030 period, we will maintain the strength of our established national community while strategically connecting with international networks to expand our global engagement and ensure our research aligns with worldwide sustainability actions.
Towards a Circular Economy and Society
Towards a Circular Economy and Society community is the place where scholars are linked with both each other and stakeholders. It is the place where research meets policy, where research is not just influenced by national and regional policy, but new policy is influenced by research. The community is connected to a wide range of policy makers, social organisations, NGO’s, businesses and local initiatives. Our networks have put Utrecht at the centre of Circular Economy developments in the Netherlands in both in academia and policy communities. Our pathway is to connect and reshape together.
Transforming Cities
The Transforming Cities community brings together researchers and societal actors aiming to codevelop radical innovation and social change in cities. We focus on infrastructural change as a conceptual and practical basis for understanding sustainability transformations. We do this by studying the synergy between urban infrastructures, practices and imaginaries and unravelling how changes can lead to socially just and ecologically regenerative cities. In 2026 – 2030 we work with actors in the city of Utrecht to realize the potential of Utrecht as a city of hope, imagination and experimentation.
Water, Climate and Future Deltas
Deltas are impacted by urbanization, land-use changes, climate change and land subsidence. A longterm, transformative shift towards sustainable delta management is needed to maintain the liveability of deltas and preserving their ecosystems. This requires a profound understanding of the interacting social and physical dynamics of deltas and delta resilience. The WCFD Community brings together interdisciplinary expertise from within Utrecht University, as well as from external academic and non-academic stakeholders to develop action perspectives and pathways for dealing with challenges in deltas, facilitating the transformation to sustainable and resilient future deltas and delta management. We focus on two thematic lines: ‘solutions and pathways for water security challenges’ and ‘nature-based solutions for resilient deltas’.
You can actively participate in our Communities. Please contact the Community that fits your expertise or interest.