What is COSI?
The COpenhagen Sustainability Initiative (COSI) is a network across Sustainability Platform at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) , Sustainability Science Centre at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH)  and Global Decision Support Initiative at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Our ambition is to create joint research, education and outreach activities on sustainability. The partnership recognizes the need for cross-disciplinary view on sustainability across universities.

This places a new and growing demand on universities to provide relevant, cross-disciplinary knowledge platforms that can contribute to sustainable societal innovation.

Why COSI? 
It is becoming increasingly clear that continued societal development requires an entirely new approach to resource use both in terms of natural and human capital. Thus, “sustainability” has become an important theme in both business and in public policy.

"Science is good at describing systems, but science is not good at providing answers to how to manage these systems. And that's what science needs to get better at."

Guido Schmidt-Traub, Executive Director of the UN SDSN, at the Sustainability Science Congress in Copenhagen, 2014
Through our complementary profiles, CBS, UCPH and DTU can, together, provide a complete suite of the sustainability competences required for informed decision-making. The purpose of the cooperation is to link the existing and upcoming sustainability initiatives at the three universities in order to provide external decision-makers with access to their combined competences through a single contact point. To support the linking of the individual university initiatives, we explore the possibilities for joint initiatives within research , education and outreach within sustainability and sustainability science between the three universities.

COSI is governed by a steering committee with the members listed below. The program was officially launched on the 28th of November, 2014.

PictureMaria Figueroa, Academic Director of COSI










“The strength of the solutions we create to solve sustainability challenges is proportional to the strength of our capacities for interacting across disciplines, learning from each other, understanding and using a variety of analytical tools in addressing sustainable development goals, evaluating policies, interventions and social processes, and generally assessing the impact of the solutions on sustainability outcomes. Our COSI courses offer cutting edge opportunities for students to acquire these capacities and to foster a more holistic understanding of the processes leading to achieving a sustainability transition”.


 PictureStefano Ponte, Principal Investigator, NEPSUS, CBS










"Business, government and civil society are facing complex sustainability challenges that they cannot solve alone. Business plans need to be based on solid understanding of technological complexities, scientific breakthroughs need to be powerfully communicated and politically negotiated and technological innovations need to be financially feasible. COSI seeks to address these links"


 PictureKatherine Richardson, Leader of Sustainability Science Center, UCPH










"There are infrastructures to encourage the transfer of new technological research results into societal activities but none that can support sustainable development. COSI can provide a much needed infrastructure in Denmark that can help bring a systems-based under-standing of sustainability to society’s decision makers."

 PictureMichael Hauschild, Head of Division, DTU Management Engineering










"Sustainable solutions are fostered in the interplay between science-based understanding, development of innovative technologies, and decision contexts, governance and business models. COSI will generate collaborations that combine the complementary skills of the three participating universities in development of transdisciplinary research projects and education activities in support of a future sustainable society."