Organization and the ecological crisis - – a lecture series

Lecture 7: How to organize academic collaborations in an ecological crisis

 Time: October 20, 2026, from 15:00 -16:00 followed by informal conversation.

Location: Kilen K2.53

Sign up here

This is a series of public lectures in which scholars present research addressing the ecological crisis and organization. Drawing on their different fields, speakers focus on how their research offers concrete suggestions for how we can make organizations that can better respond to the ecological crisis and/or on how to better organize more productive forms of scholarly societal engagement today. The lecture series serves as a platform for discussion, networking, and collaboration among scholars, educators, students, and experts.

Lecture 7: How to organize academic collaborations in an ecological crisis

This session takes the form of a panel discussion rather than a traditional lecture. We have invited directors of research centres that address the ecological crisis from different disciplinary perspectives and through different forms of collaboration. The aim is to learn from their experiences in building and leading interdisciplinary research initiatives. Each panellist will: (1) introduce the research centre they direct, including its purpose and organizational structure; (2) explain how the centre organizes collaboration across disciplines and with practitioners outside academia; and (3) reflect on what has and has not worked in their efforts to build successful and impactful collaborations.

Speakers

• Professor Steffen Dalsgaard: IT University Centre for Climate IT
• Professor Frida Hastrup: University of Copenhagen Centre for Sustainable Futures and Green Solutions Centre
• Professor Michael Z. Hauschild: Danish Technical University’s Centre for Absolute Sustainability
• Associate Professor Barry Ness: Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies

 Program
15:00 – 16:20 Panel and Q&A
16:20 – 17:00 Reception and networking

Bios

Steffen Dalsgaard is Professor in Anthropology of Digital Technology at the ITU. With a background in Anthropology and Ethnography (PhD from Aarhus University 2010), his research investigates how digital technologies attain and inform value(s) and meaning(s) in various parts of social and cultural life (including political, economic and organisational meanings). Currently he is conducting research focusing on how technologies are deployed to mitigate climate change in different contexts. This work is funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant (for the project DecouplingIT). In addition, he is the founder and head of the Center for Climate IT (CCIT), which is ITU’s platform for cross-disciplinary exchange and discussions of climate-related research in IT. 

Frida Hastrup is Professor of Ethnology at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen. She directs the Centre for Sustainable Futures, which aims to develop the humanities’ contributions to green transition of society, and she is also a member of the Development group for the University of Copenhagen’s interdisciplinary Green Solutions Centre. Hastrup’s main research areas are agriculture landscapes, livestock systems, climate change, environmental crisis, interdisciplinary knowledge production and ethnographical methods, including exhibition work.

Michael Z. Hauschild is Professor in quantitative assessment of sustainability at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) where he leads the DTU Centre on Absolute Sustainability. He has been overall responsible for the university’s Life Cycle Engineering research activities, teaching and professional training for more than three decades and has served as chair on working groups under UNEP developing the scientific consensus model USEtox (www.usetox.org) for assessment of chemical impacts on health and environment. He has acted as a consultant to the European Commission, creating the groundwork for the Commission’s standard methodology for life cycle assessment (LCA) of products and systems. In 2018 he received the SETAC Europe Lifetime Achievement in LCA Award. He has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer reviewed scientific publications and a leading textbook on Life Cycle Assessment with more than 180 000 downloads.

Barry Ness is Associate Professor in Sustainability Science and Director of the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS). His research focuses on sustainable societal transformations through inter- and transdisciplinary methods, sustainability assessment, experimentation, and urban living labs. His work spans socio-ecological systems, food-water-energy innovation, energy transitions, and sustainability-oriented innovation. At LUCSUS, Ness has held key research, teaching, and leadership roles, including Director of Studies for the PhD Research School and the LUMES programme. His teaching addresses sustainability science, transdisciplinarity, life-cycle assessment, scenarios, research ethics, and energy. Across these activities, he advances collaborative sustainability science for transformative change.