International Affairs

Transnational Centre for Just Transitions in Energy, Climate and Sustainability (TRAJECTS)

Aims

TRAJECTS is the Transnational Centre for Just Transitions in Energy, Climate and Sustainability. Its aim is to support and strengthen transcontinental exchange, research, and education on transitions towards a sustainable future. TRAJECTS main objective is to focus on climate change mitigation, in the following two key sustainability transition issues:

  • Fossil fuel phase-out and,
  • Changes in land management and ecosystem protection

Given the complexity of these issues, TRAJECTS groups a large diversity of expertise and actors, offering local as well as transnational answers and perspectives towards just transitions necessary to protect our shared climate and environment and achieve a sustainable future.

Partners

TRAJECTS constitutes of three main regional hubs based in Colombia, South-Africa, and Germany:

  • The Instituto De Estudios Ambientales (IDEA) at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL): Main hub in charge of coordinating activities in LATAM, as well as academic/logistic exchange and cooperation between hubs.
  • The Energy Systems Research Group (ESRG) at University of Cape Town (UCT): African regional hub in charge of coordinating activities in Africa.
  • The Workgroup for Infrastructure Policy (WIP) at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB): European hub handling communication with DAAD, as well as academic/logistic coordination between hubs.

Aside from the above-mentioned regional hubs, Universidad del Magdalena (UMS), Humboldt Universität Berlin (HUB), the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) and the Europa Flensburg University (EUF) provide additional support as implementing partners.

Outcomes/objectives

TRAJECTS’ main project outcomes are focused on:

✓ Creating new study opportunities in the field of just transitions

✓ Strengthening and expanding research capacities in TRAJECTS main research topics, especially in the Global South

✓ Promoting joint transdisciplinary capacities and

✓ Enhancing South-South as well as North-South international exchange and cooperation.

Contact

Prof. Dr.

Pao-Yu Oei

Project lead

pao-yu.oei@uni-flensburg.de

Max César Vidal Carranza

Project Management

coordination.eu@trajects.org

+49 30 314-20051

Organization name International Projects

Outputs

In the field of teaching, TRAJECTS sponsors students and doctoral candidates to pursue studies in the field of just transitions and in an international environment. New teaching modules will be developed and implemented at all partner universities based on the latest state of scientific knowledge.

To support the objective of enhancing research capacities, TRAJECTS sponsors international exchange for junior and senior researchers at the TRAJECTS partner institutions. The Centre sponsors publications of its implementing partners in the Global South.

TRAJECTS maintains links to stakeholders from the areas of science, politics, business and to civil society. The Centre ensures thereby that the research supported is application and demand-oriented.

Activities

TRAJECTS is implementing a wide range of measures and activities. By the end of 2025, the Centre will have funded 40 master scholarships and 20 PhD-scholarships in its main research topics. Also, the Centre will have sponsored over 100 research stays for junior and senior researchers as well as for practitioners in the Global North and South.

In addition to the renewal of teaching modules at its partner universities, the Centres organises Sustainable Transition Dialogues as well as Mobile Sustainable Transitions Schools. In the Sustainable Transition Dialogues contentious topics in the field of Just Transitions are discussed in a more informal format, which is open to anyone interested. The Mobile Schools are formats in which members of TRAJECTS partners and associated institutions engage in a close dialogue with societal groups and organisations directly affected by / fighting for transitions to sustainability.

The publications associated with TRAJECTS, either through direct funding or through sponsorship of their authors, will be published in the TRAJECTS Virtual Lab, an open-access online platform containing the knowledge generated around the Centre.

International networking

Along with the aforementioned partners, TRAJECTS is supported by a large global network, with over 40 institutions (and growing) in civil society, academia, think-tanks, public administration, and business. The following figure provides a clearer picture of all the organisations involved in TRAJECTS until now.

Scientific concept

Acknowledging the importance of an overarching approach to study and understand Transitions to Sustainability and the key role of dialogue between academia and practical approaches (e.g. policy/decision making and technical/social innovation) to progress this research agenda, the partners behind the TRAJECTS have been making numerous scientific and practical contributions to transitions to sustainability from multiple angles.

 

TRAJECTS focuses on climate change mitigation in the two focus areas of fossil-fuel phase-out and changes in land management and ecosystem protection, and will extract demand- and policy-oriented research and teaching on the two principal processes of socio-technical transitions (exnovation & innovation) TRAJECTS partners coincide in their shared interest on the different dimensions of two key transitions that must occur to mitigate the most important sources of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as of other environmental impacts, to enable a pathway towards a more sustainable future.

Founded by: