The worlds of ‘working for the betterment of society’ and ‘private enterprise’ are often seen as incompatible. This course will attempt to breakdown that perception in order for participants to see the social sector as a place of opportunity, both to ‘do good’ but also to innovate and build a financially sustainable social enterprise, whether non-profit, for-profit, or some combination of the two. The course suggests that in order to get a socially beneficial idea off the ground, effectively grow it, and make it financially sustainable, social entrepreneurs need to think creatively beyond models of traditional non-profits or for-profits.
This hands-on and dynamic course will expose participants to a number of cases of social entrepreneurs who have converted their desire of building a better world into a reality. The course will include case studies where participants will experience first-hand a social enterprise. The course hopes to inspire participants with an entrepreneurial spirit, help gain an understanding of the challenges of the start-up process and the complexities of growing and managing it. In order to do so, students will have the opportunity to expand their overall knowledge about a topic they are interested in. Not only the science behind it, but also about the context that sustains its status quo, the efforts being made to solve it, and the possibilities to move forward towards its solution. Students will be given the time, space and structure to learn and to propose a doable solution to it.
We undertake dozens of projects every day, most of them excessively small to even think about them as projects. Others, sometimes way to big and complex to deal with without the proper planning. A project could be as simple as organizing a dinner party with a small group of friends, and as complex as relocating a whole factory to a different continent without stopping production, and everything in between.
A project is considered to be a success if it achieves the objectives according to the acceptance criteria, within an agreed timescale and budget. Project management, therefore, is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve those project objectives. This short course is meant to provide the key concepts, standard terminology and guidelines of managing a project.
The justification for the proposed course is
addressing crucial issues in our contemporary society. The roles and
responsibilities of business as well as governments and social sector are becoming
more urgent and complex, and concepts related to societal responsibility and
sustainability – like human rights, gender issues and impacts on the
environment - are gaining recognition as essential elements in business
management. The need for responsible global citizens, leaders and managers is
urgent and this course will help students in sharing and providing ideas,
frameworks, and case studies to ensure that they will understand their role as
future responsible citizens, leaders and managers. A more “responsible”
workforce will allow governments, corporations, NGOs and communities to
contribute, rather than detract from the sustainability of the world. Recent
empirical research shows that profitability is sometimes greater for those
companies that are actively engaged in the resolution of global issues and that
a better interconnection between all sectors will achieve a more sustainable
development and world economy.
The course will be taught as a combination between theoretical frameworks and
practical exercises, some of which will be introduced by external experts from
the public, corporate and social sectors. For all topics addressed, the course
is aiming for a reality check – that will result for some in a reality shock –
by introducing different and sometimes opposing models and research outcomes to
similar issues because responsible managers should be able to deal with the
complexity of contradictory viewpoints and interests that are often there in
reality.
This course aims to help participants take the next step in their professional and personal journey. It focuses on a human paradigm of leadership and provides structure to introspect, reflect on the people you collaborate with, and emerge with powerful frameworks for engaging people. Using cutting-edge concepts in positive psychology, human centered design, and appreciative inquiry, the course will give participants the space, support and motivation to answer some fundamental questions regarding signature strengths, purpose, relationships, meaning and impact.
The course does not offer a singular definition of leadership nor just one approach to positive leadership. Context matters greatly and shapes how different situations might be approached by individuals embracing their unique and authentic leadership style. However, the frameworks we will be sharing and analyzing are based on research that transcends cultural differences.
This interdisciplinary course analyzes case studies of environmental, energy, and climate justice through the len(s) of abolition ecologies, sacrifice zones, and feminist environmentalism(s). Drawing on diverse literature within radical planning, gender & sustainable development, and feminist climate policy, we will document histories of grassroots environmental activism in the Global North and South. We will also explore environmental racism, economies of care, and feminist approaches to COVID response & recovery. Finally, we will investigate the use of social media, film, podcasts, web series, climate fiction, and other digital tools for feminist climate storytelling. Students should leave this course with a better understanding of the role of race, class, sexuality, ability, and gender in shaping political identities within frontline and fenceline communities as well as strategies to center joy, hope and healing during/despite disaster.
In this course we will critically examine research methodology. Our course is designed to take students sequentially through the process of thinking about and designing research. Together, we will explore the basic structure of research and examine the philosophical origins of different research approaches. I will guide students as they learn to link different information-gathering methods to different research approaches. My emphasis will be on qualitative research methodology but we will introduce quantitative data gathering and sampling. To ensure that students gain hands on experience with the process of developing methodologies and implementing different information gathering procedures, I will complement lectures with workshops where students will learn by doing. Furthermore, learning about methods requires analyzing how these methods have worked (or not) in real-world case studies; thus, in class discussions of published research will complement workshops and lectures.
The Master of Arts Degree in Responsible Management and Sustainable Economic Development (RMSED) emphasizes economic and management perspectives of peace while focusing on the concepts of sustainability and responsibility. Its creation was based on the belief that to better contribute to the promotion of sustainable peace, it is imperative to explore what role the economy plays in the world today and its impact on our environment and societies’ wellbeing. Issues of rural and urban poverty, growing inequalities and disparities, environmental degradation, financial crises and globalization are challenging political economic stability and social cohesion in all societies. Modern society faces the growing challenge of sustainability; finding solutions that will maintain and protect social systems for future generations. Students from the RMSED programme will become responsible managers with strong emphasis on sustainability that will be able to work in the corporate sector, public sector or social sector, both in industrialized and developing countries.
What is now generally defined as “development” has not come without a cost. The industrial model standing at the roots of our current standards of living has been based on a linear system of production, where natural resources are extracted from the Earth; processed in manufacturing plants, used by consumers around the world; and finally get either incinerated or discarded as waste in landfills or in Nature. The current system, which relies on large quantities of cheap, easily accessible materials and energy, is coming up against constraints on the availability of resources, and our capacity to manage its huge amounts of waste. Resource constraints, as well as increasing volumes of waste and pollution compounded by the rising demand from the world’s growing and increasingly affluent population, are likely to impose mounting threats to welfare and wellbeing. All the key indicators confirm that the problems of a linear economy are grounded in the global economy.
The ‘circular economy’ is an industrial system that is restorative by intention and design. The idea is that rather than discarding products before the value is fully utilized; products should be designed for ease of reuse, disassembly, recycling, and remanufacturing. The transition towards a circular economy offers an opportunity to reduce our ecological footprint by lowering raw material consumption and minimizing waste generation. This, no doubt, is a major prerequisite to stay within the Planetary Boundaries.
This course includes an introduction to the Circular Economy concept. It provides an array of case examples, a solid framework, and guiding principles for implementing it. Ultimately, the Circular Economy is about the optimization of entire processes and systems rather than single components. The transition towards a circular economy is one of the biggest challenges we face in order to create a more sustainable society. This transition requires an interdisciplinary approach, combining socio-technical, managerial, and environmental considerations.
Economics play an important role in organising human activity. This course is an introduction to the histories, actualities, and futures of economic thinking. The purpose is to review the most influential economic theories, and related concepts, in the light of contemporary ecosocial challenges. While reviewing the spectrum of theories from growth to non-growth, and degrowth economics, we analyse the following questions: what is economics; how do economic processes work; what and who is economics for; who are the economic actors, and what kinds of roles have they been assigned (and by whom); why and when is economics important; and what are the underlying assumptions behind different economic theories? The course will provide the students with an understanding of, and ability to operate with, main economic theories and concepts.
This course is an introduction to development studies and international cooperation. The course covers the historical origins of development thinking in the post colonial world. It reviews modernization theory and the implications it had for foreign policy during the cold war period. This is contrasted with a critical review of dependency theories and structuralism. The course then uncovers the precepts of the Washington consensus as an introduction to the thinking of Amartya Sen and the world of alternative participatory development, the fields of popular education and participatory learning and action. This review (first week of the course) combines the description of developmental theories and concepts, with a deconstruction of the policies pursued by the man development agencies (World Bank, UN Agencies, BINGOS, CBOs, etc.). The second week of the course introduces students to the sustainable development goals and the concept of multilateralism. The SDGs are presented as a set of indicators that can lead humanity towards collective action for urgent systemic change. The final week of the course explores key current hot topics in development practice Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, Gender Mainstreaming, Disaster Risk Reduction and Multistakeholder Partnerships.
Through a combination of lectures and workshop dynamics students will learn to distinguish between the main concepts, theories and tools of development thinking and practice. The course will allow participants to explore "development" and "International Cooperation" as ideas, professions, institutions and narratives. The course is structured into 14 lessons, each composed of a lecture and two group work activities designed to build skills of students in the use of technical tools commonly used by development practitioners. Classes and lectures are designed to reinforce a sense of urgency and hope for transformative development practice among participants.