SDU establishes new climate centre
At the end of 2021, the University of Southern Denmark will have a new climate centre seeking to promote pioneering and excellent climate research and education across all faculties to support a climate-conscious and sustainable society.
Denmark and the rest of the world face a major challenge in curbing the impact on global climate. An important part of the efforts towards a climate-conscious and sustainable society is research into and education in new technologies and the implementation of these.
Therefore, SDU has chosen to establish a new interdisciplinary climate centre that builds on and gathers deep disciplinary knowledge while developing interdisciplinary insight at the highest international level to promote the transition to a low-emission society.
The centre will allow SDU to contribute with basic research and concrete solutions to the long-term societal, technological and political climate challenges through a coordinated and interdisciplinary effort.
Science must flourish where it is useful
According to Sebastian Mernild, Professor of Climate Change and Vice Rector at SDU, it is crucial that action is taken, and the centre will help contribute to this.
- There is an urgent societal need to bring science to the table to give us a better understanding of how the climate is changing, a better understanding of the consequences of a changing climate, and a better understanding of how we can adapt and mitigate some of the consequences of climate change.
- Also, it is at least as important to consider how climate change affects us humans from humanities and social science angles. The centre allows us to reach out to the community – and to all of the five faculties at SDU – because we want to create interdisciplinary understanding and make the research flourish in collaboration with the business community, so that political decisions can be made on an informed basis, says Sebastian Mernild.
International level
The centre is expected to stand out nationally as well as internationally by housing a number of major research consortia and projects, establishing interdisciplinary research and community networks as well as an academically broad group of leading international and international researchers.
In the longer term, the centre will form a framework for programmes at Master’s and PhD level, as well as continuing education, where an interdisciplinary profile is also sought, and where students upon graduating can act in a complex world with many opposing issues within climate change.
During the autumn of 2021, a manager will be hired to head the centre, which is expected to open later this year. The climate centre is physically and organisationally located at DIAS – the Danish Institute for Advanced Study – at SDU.
Would you like to know more?
Read more about SDU Climate Cluster