UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Heritage and Environmental Management

A residential autumn school running from 5th to 11th October 2026

An art exhibition by Nimble Weavers from 22 May to 9 August 2026

Read about Janne Thomsen's experience of the 2026 NESS conference in Uppsala

A number of workshops were held in Canada focusing on how to strengthen exchange and learning between biosphere reserve regions that are working to address shared sustainability challenges

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As a paleoecologist, Peter Emil Kaland saw the need for knowledge about Norwegian heathlands. This led to the interdisciplinary Lindås project about the coastal landscapes of Nordhordland and the effects of the industrial development related to the Mongstad oil refinery. The project involved many natural, cultural, and social scientists from the University of Bergen.

The Lindås Project was later followed up by the creation of the Heathland Centre (2000) and Nordhordland UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (2019).

One of the biggest research questions professor Kaland focused on during the Lindås Project was why the prehistoric coastal forests of Nordhordland had disappeared. Was it due to a change in climate making it unfavourable for the forests ("The Fimbul Winter"), or was it because farmers had cleared the lands?

Paleoecological research during the Lindås Project solved the mystery.

After the Lindås Project in the 1970's, paleoecologist Peter Emil Kaland was one of the people who initiated the Heathland Centre - a living museum working to preserve the Norwegian coastal heathlands.

Arne Lie Christensen was an ethnologist in the Lindås Project, who interviewed older inhabitants in Nordhordland about their lives in the coastal areas before the development of the Mongstad oil refinery.

Peter Emil Kaland dedicated a large part of his scientific career to the Nordhordland region and started the initiative to have the region appointed a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.