ERA Chair in Sustainable Futures

The main goal of the ERA Chair in Sustainable Futures (SustainERA) is to establish a new high-level interdisciplinary research group in the field of Sustainable Futures at Tallinn University (TLU), Estonia.

The ERA Chair project has two main goals: 1) to establish an Open Lab in Sustainable Futures research that will facilitate collaboration between different Schools of TLU as well as with various external private and public partners in order to enhance interdisciplinary research and policy development in the field; 2) to build interdisciplinary research excellence, capacity and capability of TLU in the fields of sustainability and non-growth by bringing in new researchers including the ERA Chair Holder and doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.

The ERA Chair project will achieve its goals by implementing a five-year Research Strategy comprising five ambitious objectives, which are focused on strengthening TLUs position as an important research centre in the field of sustainability and non-growth research both locally and internationally. The main approach is achieved through interdisciplinary social science research for non-growth.

The Open Lab and toolbox is established for public stakeholder engagement to develop educational interventions for sustainability and the research based recommendations for policymakers, organisations and businesses on how to work towards sustainable futures.

Numerous training and workshop events will be organised to increase the level of research management and dissemination skills.

Impacts of SustainERA are increase in number of R&I talents moving to TLU; increased participation of Estonia and TLU in EU R&D funding programmes; increased awareness of sustainable and nongrowth approaches; increased international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral mobility of researchers and innovators for nongrowth research; more entrepreneurial and better trained researchers and innovators; the reforms in nongrowth capacity building in TLU.