Sustainable Solutions Winter School 2024 - 2025

The schools of Public Policy and Earth and Sustainability are co-hosting the United Nations Global Sustainable Solutions Winter School 2025, a free online workshop on 7-28 January 2025. The programme is free for graduate students from partner universities (UMass, UNU and McMaster) 

The course will offer students an opportunity to learn from and network with practitioners and scholars in the international sustainability field, with a particular focus on nature-based solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and water security. The program for the workshop, which will be capped at 50 students, is available online, and the deadline to apply is Friday, Dec. 20.

“The climate and biodiversity crises are huge and urgent global challenges,” says Marta Vicarelli, assistant professor of economics and public policy, who is the founding director of the program. “One way to accelerate solutions is to create new experts and empower our workforce. Our youth are part of the solution. The Winter School program was designed to allow students to directly connect with and learn from global experts.”

The course will be composed of seminars every Tuesday and Thursday featuring talks from world experts including senior staff from the private sector, the UN, the World Bank and other organizations. There will also be class discussions, both during the plenary sessions and in smaller groups, as well as weekly assignments.

“The extensive discussion sessions with our guest speakers have been vastly appreciated by our students,” Vicarelli notes. “We have welcomed students specializing in a diversity of fields from engineering to economics, public policy, regional planning, finance, chemistry, physics, computer science, forestry, ecology and conservation. This high level of cross-disciplinarity generates exceptionally rich discussions, new professional connections and many opportunities for personal growth.”

This is the third year for the U.N. Winter School, which is a collaboration between UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, the United Nations University and McMaster University, along with the Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR), a global alliance of U.N. agencies, nongovernmental organizations and institutes. Funding from the UMass Amherst School of Earth and Sustainability has allowed the program to expand and welcome more students, including from other UMass campuses.

“UMass Amherst is emerging as a center for excellence in sustainability science and the School of Earth and Sustainability, with its growing community of outstanding scholars, is quickly consolidating its reputation as a sustainable solutions accelerator both at the local and at the global scale,” Vicarelli adds.

For questions about the course, email Vicarelli at mvicarelli@econs.umass.edu.