UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Heritage and Environmental Management

Dr Inger Måren has held the position of UNESCO Chair since 2017 and carries out research into social-ecological systems. The UNESCO Chair is part of UNESCO's international network UNITWIN of the UNESCO/UNITWIN Chairs programme, including almost 800 Chairs at 700 institutions in 116 countries, covering universities across the world and a wide range of topics.

Bilde
A womean standing next to a sign of UNESCO
Photo: Inger Måren

What we do

The UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Heritage and Environmental Management shall promote an integrated system of research, training, information and documentation on sustainable heritage and environmental management, with a special focus on UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and The Man and the Biosphere Programme (external link)

Projects

We are involved in a number of projects:

MONTAGE: Mountain Heritage and Governance for Climate-Resilient Communities (external link) is a trans-national project under the Centre for Mountains in Transition

ACTIONABLE - Adaptive Co-management to Enhance Biocultural Diversity and Sustainable Development in Coastal Communities runs from September 2023-2027 and is led by Alicia Donellan Barraclough

Nimble Weavers Artist-in-Residence - A transdisciplinary collaboration towards local, artistic, and scientific knowledge exchange and creation for eco-socially sustainable futures

BECOME - Biospheres as Effective Conservation Measures is a transdisciplinary project led by Alicia D. Barraclough, working with partners from Canada, Chile, France, Portugal, South-Africa, and Sweden. The project is funded by Biodiversa+'s call BiodivProtect, and runs from 2023 to 2026

BIOSPHERE - Activating local resources; cultivating regional cooperation for sustainable land-use, led by Katja Malmborg and runs from 2021 to 2027

 

Where we work

Nordhordland Biosphere Reserve - an area north of Bergen covering environments ranging from the alpine to the outer coast

Centre for Mountains in Transition (external link) - understanding and addressing the impacts of climate and environmental change in mountain regions

UNESCO Vestland - initiatives in Vestlandet county related to UNESCO

UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme - an Intergovernmental Scientific Programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people (i.e. 'Man') and their environments

The Lindås project - fundamental to much of the ongoing research

Teaching

Courses for the 2030 Agenda (Sustainable Development Goals/SDGs)

SDG200 - Ocean-Climate-Society: Sustainability summer course

This course will employ the SDGs as a platform from which to gain a comprehensive understanding of planetary sustainability. This includes building skills for interdisciplinary cooperation needed for humanity to thrive for generations to come, simultaneously avoiding large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental change. The course aims at recruiting a highly interdisciplinary student group to facilitate incorporating individual differences of opinions and actions, cultural and social backgrounds and learning negotiating across these differences.

SDG207 - Energy Transition

The main objectives of this course is to introduce the science of energy transition and sustainable energy sources, and to provide the students with an understanding of key cross-disciplinary challenges related to the transition towards a low CO2-emission society. The course directly addresses UN Sustainable Development Goal 7, and will give the students perspectives to discuss the UN SDGs in the context of how we mitigate the ongoing changes in climate through a transition to a more sustainable energy supply.

SDG213 – Causes of Climate Change

The seminar aims at giving an introduction to the science of climate change. It provides the basis for understanding the underlying physical processes governing climate variations on different timescales in the past, present and future. The seminar focuses on explaining the main external forcing mechanisms such as the sun, volcanoes, and changes in greenhouse gasses and aerosols, which can contribute to changing the global energy budget and initiate climate variations.

SDG214 – UN Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life below water

Through active learning and working in teams, the student will acquire knowledge and skills related to science, policy, and society necessary for understanding and contributing towards sustainable development of life below water. The course will end with a symposium where the students will present a group project as a poster.

SDG215 – UN Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on land

Human influence on the natural processes of the planet has been so massive in the last 200 years that the Holocene epoch in the time after the last glaciation has ended and we now live in the Anthropocene era, with mass eradication of animal species, climate change and physical changes in the Earth's surface. Thus, humans have transformed their natural environment over thousands of years by cultivating the soil and dominating plants and animals.

SDG303 - Global Health - Challenges and Responses

The objective of the course is to equip the students with concepts and perspectives for the analysis of global health challenges and responses in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. This course aims for an understanding of the determinants of health, and health systems anchored in specific political, socio-economic, cultural and epidemiological settings.

SDG607 - Energy Transition

The main objective of this course is to introduce the science of energy transition and sustainable energy sources, in light of the UN sustainable development agenda, and to provide the students with an understanding of key cross-disciplinary challenges related to the transition towards a low CO2-emission society. The course directly addresses UN Sustainable Development Goal 7, and will give the students perspectives to discuss the UN SDGs in the context of how we mitigate the ongoing changes in climate through a transition to a more sustainable energy supply.

SDG613 - Sustainable development, climate and climate action

The course aims at giving an introduction to the science of climate change. It provides the basis for understanding the underlying physical processes and feedback governing climate variations on different timescales. How different anthropogenic emissions influence climate and what are the main factors driving the changes in emissions. In addition, physical and economical climate change impacts and risks will be presented along with an outline of international frameworks for climate assessment, adaptions and mitigation.  The course will give the student the perspective to discuss the UN's SDGs in the context of the ongoing changes in climate.

Outreach

Policy outreach

Barraclough A.D. et al. 2025. Accelerating the Global Biodiversity Framework by Strengthening Biosphere Reserves (external link). This comprehensive document has a policy focus, providing specific recommendations for policymakers to maximise the potential of biosphere reserves in achieving global biodiversity goals by 2030 and beyond.

Måren, I.E. and Barraclough A.D. 2022. The role of UNESCO biosphere reserves in the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: policy brief.

Måren, I.E. 2020.  Innspill til nasjonal handlingsplan for bærekraftsmålene (external link). Policy advice regarding the national action plan for the sustainability goals addressed to the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation 01.11.2020. 

Måren, I.E. 2020.  Innspill på FNs miljøforsamling og nytt globalt rammeverk for natur under konvensjonen om biologisk mangfold (external link). Policy advice regarding the United Nations Environment Assembly and a new global framework for nature under the Convention on Biological Diversity 05.10.2020.

Vandvik, V. 2020. Innspill på nytt globalt rammeverk for naturen under konvensjonen for biologisk mangfold (external link). Addressed to the Ministry of Climate and Environment 21.01.2020. 

Last updated: 12.02.2026