サステイナビリティ学最前線

In the academic year of 2026, the course is scheduled on June 6, 13, and 20, from 9am to 6pm, as an intensive course. The detailed schedule will be announced here. The following information is the one from AY 2025 for your reference. --- Lecture 1: Introduction (Michinori Uwasu, Osaka U) This lecture first explains the course objectives, duties, and scope. I then briefly cover the concepts, definitions and approaches of sustainability science and SDGs while discussing current states and challenges of global sustainability. Highlights in our talk include the research challenges the SDGs initiatives face, which aims to equip you with ideas/views useful for going through the series of lectures and the group work. Lecture 2: Pathways for resilient climate change development (Makoto Tamura, Ibaraki U) IPCC AR6 proposes climate resilient development, which stresses the importance of synergies for mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development. The lecture overviews current climate change issues and their countermeasures for achieving sustainability. Lecture 3: Climate change mitigation: History of international negotiation and where we stand today (Yasuko Kameyama, U Tokyo) This lecture covers how multilateral agreements on climate change were developed in the last 30 years, trend of greenhouse gas emissions in the past and future estimations, and policies implemented to reduce emissions. Lecture 4: Policy development toward decarbonized & sustainable society (Satoru Morishita, Ibaraki U) Policy development for realizing decarbonized & sustainable societies has been rapidly progressing on a national and global basis. Realization of decarbonized & sustainable societies requires innovative and holistic changes of existing technologies and systems in all sectors, leading to ensuring relevant industries competitiveness. Since such transitions require long-term financial support, the governments, including Japan, US and EU, have been setting up their comprehensive policy frameworks that encourage　private sector to make investments for system changes. Among them, energy transition is the key. In other sectors, such as production, manufacturing and transport, enormous efforts are also on-going. Introduction of carbon pricing is the key driver for the development of decarbonized and sustainable societies. Lecture 6: Evolution and landscape of sustainability science and its future research (Osamu Saito, IGES) This lecture illustrates the evolution and landscape of sustainability science through the extensive literature survey, citation analysis, and my experiences as the managing editor of Sustainability Science journal published by Springer Nature since 2006. New relationship between science and society that leads scientists to go beyond ensuring a scientific foundation for policy and decision making based on specialized disciplinary knowledge to participating in the coproduction of knowledge for action through transdisciplinary research. Drawing on consultations with the editorial board members of the Sustainability Science journal and a review of relevant literature, Sahle et al. (2024) identifies 12 key research topics. These topics are interpreted within a strategic framework encompassing three key themes: (1) goals that drive sustainability science, (2) approaches to attain these goals, and (3) tools to advance sustainability science research. My lecture will also introduce IPBES NEXUS assessment report (IPBES, 2024) which reviewed state-of-arts knowledge on interlinkages among biodiversity, climate, food, water, and health. Lecture 7: Future Design (Keishiro Hara, U Osaka) The fundamental challenge of sustainability issues lies in intergenerational conflicts. As unborn generations have neither a say nor way of negotiating with the current generation, it is no wonder that decisions made now under current social systems are based primarily on the interests of the current generation, creating problems, such as climate change and resources depletion. This lecture will introduce the new research field “Future Design '' that aims to deal with the fundamental challenge above, addressing how to design society and to make decisions taking into account the preference of future generations. Along with theoretical background and motivation, examples of participatory practices at local municipalities will be introduced, followed by discussion on how we could facilitate policy making while taking into account the interest of future generations.

This course consists of lectures by leading experts in SSC partner universities and general discussion and interaction sessions (Group work). Lectures will be offered from each university through ZOOM conference systems and this course is the required course of “Joint Educational Program of SSC”. The entire course is offered in English. In the academic year of 2026, the course is scheduled on June 6, 13, and 20 as an intensive course. The main topic this year is climate change, adaptation and social transformation. After a series of lectures, group works will be done to discuss the images of society in the future and necessary measures adopting the concept of Future Design which will be explained in the course.

Grade evaluation will be made by attendance and active participation to discussion among students.

Attendance and active participation to discussions are the must.