This autumn, HELSUS and the RESET (Resilient and Just Systems) project will continue co-hosting a Brown Bag Lunch Seminar series.
This year’s conference brought together around 250 registered participants from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to work towards bursting the sustainability bubble, to challenge sustainability myths and explore new perspectives on sustainability transformations.
Formerly known as Sustainability Science Days, the event has evolved into Science for Sustainability, reflecting changes not only in its name but also in its scope and content. The new concept broadens the focus beyond sustainability sciences to bring research closer to other societal changemakers, including businesses, cities, and communities, and to accelerate sustainability transformation across sectors.
Jointly organised by the University of Helsinki and Aalto University, the conference gathered experts from diverse fields to burst sustainability bubbles: to challenge prevailing sustainability myths and explore fresh perspectives on sustainability transformations.
You can read about the highlights of the conference
You can watch the keynote and panel talks on our
We know you want to change the world with your research. Join this unique training to understand how you can do it through the media! Let’s do it together!
Welcome to reflect, learn and improve the researcher's media relations on 28th August 2025 from 14-16 at UH Main building old side, room U4062 (Unioninkatu 34).
What? Media training for HELSUS members
When & where? Thursday 28.8. at 14-16 at UH Main Building, old side, room U4062
Why? Because your valuable sustainability related research should have more visibility in the media
The event will be a mix of presentations, interactive discussions, and practical tips led by media expert Marja Heinonen. In addition, Kati Toivanen from the UH communications presents opportunities and support that the campuses give for researchers.
After completing this training, you will have the opportunity to participate in a workshop on September 4th from 14:00 to 17:00, which delves deeper into the world of communicating your research.
You can register for the workshop at the end of the first media training session. The workshop will be tailored to your specific issues. Therefore, during registration, we ask you to indicate the particular goals you would like to achieve from the workshop, such as presenting to the media or finding focus in an individual research project. Due to the workshop's personalised focus, we will limit the number of participants to a maximum of 10. After the media training and workshop, we 100 % guarantee you visibility in the media.
The event is open to all researchers, regardless of their level of experience, and is designed to make you feel comfortable with the media and inspire you to seek more publicity for your research.
The coach of the training Marja Heinonen has an extensive career in journalism and media. She has worked for e.g. Kauppalehti, Yle, Suomen Kuvalehti and CNN. She has a PhD in communications (University of Helsinki)
Join Gianluca Grimalda and Stuart Capstick on May 16th, 13:00-15:00, at Think Corner for a seminar and panel Q&A (and drinks) about how academia remains caught in a carbon-dependent working culture and what we can do about it. Why does the academic community still allow carbon-heavy and climate-unjust practices to define success and prestige?
Welcome to a public event featuring a leading scholar in World Politics, Professor Mathias Albert. He will deliver a lecture titled “The Challenges of ‘Planetary’ Science: World Social Sciences, Natural Earth System Sciences — and a View from the North Pole”. Following the lecture, professor Leena Järvi and professor Heikki Patomäki will provide interdisciplinary perspectives.
Please register for the event by 24 February.
In this event, sustainability researchers meet media representatives in a panel discussion to discuss the role of media in sustainability transformation. The event is also a launch of a new e-course “How to Run an Environmentally, Socially, and Economically Sustainable Media Company” with a global perspective on these themes.
Gytis Dovydaitis is giving a guest seminar (hybrid) talk on 21st November at 14-15 at HELSUS Hub Lounge. His current research project "Laboratory for [Living] Tree [as] Architecture" asks: how can we grow the path towards climate neutrality by accounting for diversity of perspectives and inter-species wellness as key elements in sustainable futures?
Researchers from HELSUS, Syke and Luke shared their learnings and current thoughts on sustainability science, and debated the future pathways of this research field. Recording coming soon to Viikki Sustainability Science Research webpage.
Post-Fossil & Post-Capitalist Futures: An International Workshop
10.10. 13.00—15.00, @ Tiedekulma
Kohei Saito: Marx's degrowth communism and just transitions away from fossil capitalism
Stefania Barca: Labour, ecology, and reproduction in the age of climate change
Discussant: Professor Reetta Toivanen
11.10. 10.00—12.00 @ Metsätalo lecture hall 1
Jeff Diamanti: Critical Raw Cartographies – Interminable Transition and the Thud of White Geology
Comments and discussion
Public lectures are open for everyone and will be streamed. Welcome!
This year Sustainability Science Days was organised in collaboration with SRI Congress. Please visit SRI Congress' website for more information! Sustainability Science Days will be back in 2025.
Professor Julia Leventon gave a talk at the HELSUS Hub Lounge on ‘Political’ Science of Transformative Change for Sustainability’. Julia Leventon is a professor in sustainability science, and is the Head of Department of social dimensions of global change, in the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The RESET kick-off event presents the project both to the academic community and to a wider audience. Event registration until 26.4.
Yavor Paunov from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm gave a talk on his recent research project "Few and far between: A scoping review of the underrepresented mechanistic evidence in empirical research on household energy consumption". HELSUS-professor Michiru Nagatsu hosted the seminar.
Two Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange Projects for sustainability and climate change competences available in Autumn! Join the seminar to hear more.
As the University of Eastern Finland is arranging the 20th
HELSUS Youth Forum is an event organised for high school students to interact with sustainability researchers and to introduce recent sustainability research that can be used in developing school communities’ sustainability initiatives. The students are given an opportunity to take part in scientific discussion. The event is organised on 2.6.2022 at 13-15.
The Sustainability Science Days is an international, two-day conference organized jointly by Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and Aalto University on 24 - 26th of May 2023. The theme for the conference in 2023 is Pathways of Hope - Knowledge, Actions, Solutions.
The Sustainability Science Days is an international, two-day conference organised jointly by Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and Aalto University on 18th-19th of May 2022. This year the conference will focus on the theme of systemic transformations to sustainable futures in a globally connected world and highlight the urgency to act now.
This year marks 50 years since the publication of the report The Limits to Growth. To celebrate this, the key author of the report, professor emeritus Jorgen Randers, will arrive in Helsinki in September. The event is organized in Tiedekulma, Helsinki on Thursday 22 September at 13:00-15:00.
HELSUS is organising a multidisciplinary panel discussion at Think Corner Stage on 3.6.2022 at 13-15 on how can sustainability science help in foreseeing and preventing crises? Learning from the war in Ukraine. The panel discussion revolves around globalization, sustainability and the war in Ukraine and how sustainability science recognizes connections and past trajectories that could help forsee and prevent future crisis.
The HELSUS Sustainability Discussion Group (SDG) was a monthly meeting for bringing together HELSUS PhDs and Postdocs (as well as others working in sustainability fields).
HELSUS Science-Policy Forum is a discussion platform that foster the interaction with researchers and policy-makers on topical sustainability discussions, research themes and on-going policy planning processes. The Forum calls together different Ministries, Cities, Universities and Research Institutes in Finland to discuss further on science-policy research collaboration.