Knowledge to Shape the Future – Investing in the Sustainability Leaders of the Next Generation

In 2015, PlanAdapt was invited to join an accreditation panel that inspected and verified the design of the two-year dual degree study programme that has been jointly developed by Arizona State University in Phoenix/USA and Leuphana University of Lüneburg. The verification process culminated in the approval of the new study programme, first offered in 2016/2017. The Masters Programme in Global Sustainability Science provides an academically well balanced education in environmental and sustainability research on the Master level. The goal is to provide the theoretical, methodological, organizational, and communicative skills that are necessary to develop, realize, and reflect on one’s own disciplinary and interdisciplinary research work and projects in the field of environmental and sustainability sciences.

The programme aims at students committed to engage in the wide nexus of sustainability. By focusing on normative as well as transformative aspects of sustainability, the study programme links the current state of the art of research with practical implementation of sustainability. Rooted in a wide array of disciplines and aiming at their joint focus on the “great transformation”, students are educated to foster and facilitate sustainable development in all its relevant aspects. Typical fields for future jobs include sustainability assessments and further development of implementing transformation across scales, including governmental, social, economical and ecological aspects.

Due to the internationality of the double-degree Masters Programme, the students acquire extensive intercultural, collaborative, and language skills in addition to their professional training, in particular through the integrated one-semester study period at Arizona State University. Since these skills are increasingly recognized and required of the next generation of sustainability scientists, in both research and applied fields, students of the Masters Programme in Global Sustainability Science will be well prepared to enter their field. On successful completion of the programme, students will be awarded a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Global Sustainability Science from Leuphana University of Lüneburg and a Master of Science (M.Sc.) from Arizona State University.