This seminar will take place on September 22 at 11:00. The seminar will be in a hybrid format with:
- in-person session in the IST Alameda Campus, Department of Engineering and Management's Meeting Room
- online, via Zoom https://zoom.us/j/95637796302?pwd=eROa7ajvkWgMnLTlQiM2PkbYtuE8nl.1
Our seminars are free to attend and open to everyone. Please share with whomever may be interested.
Summary
Even though many cities and regions pledge to become more sustainable and/or carbon neutral, actionable platforms that would enable the needed place-based transformation are not yet in place. In this study, we argue that successful university-municipality collaborations can play a key role in accelerating the uptake of sustainability innovations, with direct benefits for the region. We propose pathways that include operational mechanisms for universities and municipalities to co-develop institutional capacity for local/regional sustainability transitions. The study explores how higher education institutions that have developed relevant sustainability competencies, succeeded in connecting to local processes of sustainability transitions. We pursue the following research question—Under which contexts could higher education institutions (HEIs) productively contribute to sustainability transitions locally or regionally, and how could such a mandate become institutionalized within universities that choose to do so? In the selected case studies, we identify multiple entry points for regions to tap into university sustainability competencies, capabilities and skillsets.
Speaker's bio
Dr. Markus Dettenhofer is currently Senior Scientist at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague working in the areas of biodiversity and climate change drivers in food security, funded through three separate Horizon Europe grants. Concurrently, he is Senior Consultant for Research and Innovation Governance with the World Bank in Serbia and Romania, tasked as International Institutional Consultant for eight research institutes spanning the natural science disciplines. Formerly he was a Member of the Science Advisory Council for the National Scientific Investigator System for the country of Panama. Markus was Executive Director of the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC). CEITEC is a scientific consortium of 6 universities and research institutes in Brno, Czech Republic, which has up to 550 scientists working in the fields of life sciences, advanced materials and technologies. Prior to joining CEITEC, Dr. Dettenhofer was Project Leader in pre-clinical development for viral vaccine and antibody discovery at Crucell (Johnson & Johnson). His work at Harvard Medical School was in the field of genetics and developmental biology, including studies on genes which control bone development and memory function. Dr. Dettenhofer was a visiting scholar at the Institut de Biologie Molécularie et Cellularie in Strasbourg, France, and Visiting Scientist with the Joint Research Centre of European Commission. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. from UC Berkeley.
Personal homepage: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markus-dettenhofer/