Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)

CDE is Switzerland’s centre of excellence for sustainable development. One of the University of Bern’s strategic research centres, we are tasked with mainstreaming sustainability throughout the university’s research and teaching.

We conduct research and teaching on behalf of a more sustainable world. Our aim is to chart pathways to sustainable development and to initiate transformations in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In our strategy, we show how we are committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda through our theory of change. We combine sound research with inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to analysis and transformation. Our research agenda is created within long-standing partnerships spanning the global North and South.

News

CDE at the IASC Conference in Nairobi

The XIX Biennial IASC Conference “The commons we want: between historical legacies and future collective actions” puts the commons at centre stage. The conference combines a future-oriented research and practice perspective with a look back, as many legal and structural legacies predetermine possible development pathways. Learn more about our activities at the IASC Conference taking place in Nairobi from 19 to 24 June 2023.

“The EU handles research cooperation with Africa in a much more forward-looking way than Switzerland”

While the EU is boosting its research cooperation with Africa and creating innovative funding instruments, Switzerland clings to old approaches. “The potential of countries in the global South isn’t recognized,” says Thomas Breu, Director of CDE and President of the Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE). Yet now is when we urgently need more momentum to tackle global challenges and crises in concert. “It’s in our own interest,” he emphasizes in an interview.

Solidarity economy – an alternative economic model for a sustainable food system?

This film uses four best practice examples from Switzerland and France to show how solidarity economy strategies in agriculture, processing, and trade are helping to transform today’s unsustainable food system by building alternative value chains. The film was made as part of a CDE research project that explored the link between organic agriculture and solidarity economy as a progressive and innovative strategy. The film is available in German, French, and Italian on CDE’s YouTube channel.

In the heart of empty Spain: The uncertain future of olive oil

“It has stopped raining, and there is no more water in the ground.” That’s what a Spanish olive oil producer recently told our PhD student Léa Lamotte. On the heels of her research on cocoa in Ecuador, she is now uncovering the realities of olive oil production in Spain. Join her on a trip through sparsely populated landscapes that produce olive oil for a large part of the world market, and learn more about the challenges facing Spanish cultivators.

Call for consideration of social aspects when implementing the 30x30 biodiversity conservation target

To halt species loss, the signatory states to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which include Switzerland, agreed at the end of 2022 to protect 30 per cent of the Earth’s surface by 2030. The outcome of the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Conference (COP15) was widely hailed as groundbreaking. Now researchers, including Julie Zähringer from the Wyss Academy for Nature and CDE (both at the University of Bern), are calling to include social aspects when implementing the 30x30 biodiversity conservation target.

Online Summer School on Sustainable Development

Achieving human well-being and eradicating poverty for all people on earth – while protecting our planet’s climate and biodiversity – will require transformative change. You can be a part of this change. But to help transform the world, we first need to understand the complex global challenges we face and our role in these. Join us at the 2023 International Summer School on Sustainable Development to deepen your understanding of these issues – through creative, interactive, and participatory learning.

COMMONPATHS – Transition pathways to urban sustainability

Increasing resource use and growing inequality in urban areas pose serious problems for sustainable development. Social movements for green cities, affordable housing, and sustainable food systems are creating opportunities to address these challenges. But why do certain urban commons projects succeed while others fail? In Ghana and Switzerland, the COMMONPATHS research project is investigating how to improve the conditions for success of commons movements.

“Diversity is the key to decolonizing research”

From climate change to biodiversity loss or conflicts over resource use: today’s crises are global. In tackling them, North–South research collaboration plays an important role, especially by providing knowledge for strategies and policies to meet these challenges. But such collaboration is still largely determined by the economic and political power imbalance between the global North and South, as well as by colonial patterns. So, it’s high time to decolonize research. CDE scientist Ravaka Andriamihaja investigated the issues at stake for the Swiss Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE).

Think new and act differently: CAS Sustainable Development

From knowledge to action towards the 2030 Agenda: The CAS Sustainable Development offers space for reflection, conveys knowledge, presents fields of action, and provides support for putting theory into practice. Register for this continuing education course today and learn to be a networked thinker and doer. More information in German.

Vorherige Weitere

More News

Events

15.00-17.00 scnat. Kongresszentrum Kreuz, Zeughausgasse 41, Bern Braucht gute Forschung Demokratie? Akademische Freiheit und internationale Zusammenarbeit unter Druck. U.a. mit Sabin Bieri, CDE

26 May

svial / asiat. 4. Future Food Symposium. Technopark Zürich "Möglichkeiten & Grenzen lokaler Wertschöpfungs-Gemeinschaften & Verbundsysteme": Bettina Scharrer, CDE

13 June

Vorherige Weitere

Social Media

Tweets von @unibern

Vorherige Weitere