About us
The Centre for Sustainability Studies (Centrum voor Duurzaamheidsonderzoek - CDO) at Ghent University, founded in 1995, is dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge on what a sustainable society can look like and how it can take shape.
We explore transformative pathways towards socially just and ecologically sustainable futures in a wide variety of settings, ranging from local communities to global contexts, from industrial sectors and consumer behaviour to policy settings and educational practices.
As an interdisciplinary research group, CDO is formally hosted in the Department of Political Sciences and is actively connected through various networks within and beyond Ghent University.
Our team of researchers combines backgrounds in diverse disciplines within the social sciences such as political sciences, economics, sociology, educational sciences, and science & technology studies.
While the research at our centre is pluralistic in terms of theories and methods used, we share an interest in combining or integrating multiple scientific disciplines (interdisciplinarity), in crossing the boundaries of academia through collaboration with other actors in society (transdisciplinarity), in conducting engaged research, and in exploring the ‘political’ aspects of sustainability issues that often involve diverse and sometimes irreconcilable values, preferences, interests, worldviews, etc.