The Sustainability and Development Initiative is developing curriculum in partnership with the University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation that will equip learners with actionable knowledge to critique, assess, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Those who successfully complete the Sustainability and Development MasterTrack Certificate will earn credit towards the University of Michigan’s Master of Science in Environment and Sustainability, if admitted to the program. Students will be introduced to the main theoretical currents in Sustainability and Development as a field of study with an in-depth understanding of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the methods and skills necessary for designing innovative solutions to sustainability and development problems.

We are delighted to announce that our massive open online course (MOOC), “Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Addressing Sustainability and Development,” is live and open for enrollment on April 22nd, 2020 commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. 
 
Please join us in exploring three of the most pressing challenges undergirding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including climate change, poverty and inequality, and ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss with case studies to guide and challenge our thinking. We will discuss the trade-offs, co-benefits and synergies between these challenges, especially as they relate to designing innovative solutions for achieving our sustainability and development goals.
 
This MOOC will be the first course of our Sustainability and Development MasterTrack Certificate with the first session beginning in September 2020.

As a resource for those working in the field of Sustainability and Development, we are curating a multidisciplinary syllabi sharing archive on courses spanning the social and natural sciences from colleagues across the globe. Our hope is to provide students, teachers and practitioners with the latest states of knowledge on a wide variety of topics related to the challenges of sustainability and development. If you would like to participate in this project, please send your syllabi to John Mullen and we will upload them as soon as we are able. A hearty “thanks” to all who have already contributed!

For further details please contact John Mullen, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, SEAS