Delivering Programmes of Significance to the University
Study Visit for China Policy Makers
CPSL leads the Study Visit for China Policy Makers, an element of the China–Cambridge Public Leadership Programme, a major initiative by the University to engage with China’s senior policy-making community and to share learning. The Study visits (to be held yearly from 2009–2011) enable senior Chinese policy-makers and decision-makers to explore with expert practitioners, academics and government counterparts how the UK and EU are developing new models of industrialisation and ecological harmonisation.
The Chevening Programme on the Economics of Climate Change
The Programme involved many parts of the University in its delivery, and supported University relationships with the FCO and the British Council.
The Climate Project
In 2007, CPSL managed former US Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Project in Cambridge for 200 UK private sector, public sector and civil society leaders, and involving the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and other senior academics.
Global Leadership in Abu Dhabi
CPSL is working with the Judge Business School to deliver the Global Leadership module within the Leadership Excellence Applied Diploma for graduate students in Abu Dhabi. This executive education programme focuses on developing strategic leadership qualities and will be accredited by the University of the Arab Emirates (UAE).
Linking Academics to Leaders from the Private, Public, and Not-for-Profit Sectors
"It is easy to talk about corporate sustainability, but how far it is possible to change the heart, sinews and waste systems of capitalism? As an academic, it was fascinating to have the chance to explore this with some very bright people from the corporate world as a member of the Core Faculty of CPSL’s BP Cambridge Programme."
Bill Adams, Moran Professor of Conservation and Development, Department of Geography
One of the University’s key aims is to provide opportunities for innovative partnerships with business and charitable foundations. CPSL’s programmes allow close liaisons between academics and leading companies, to share learning and explore areas of common interest.
Developing the University’s Relations with Strategically Significant Individuals and Organisations
Lord Rees of Ludlow PRS OM, Dr Steven Chu and Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber CBE at The St. James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, May 2009.
CPSL has hosted a number of initiatives which bring together Cambridge academics with leading thinkers and sustainability practitioners from across the globe. For example, in 2009, the St. James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium was designed and delivered by CPSL, in association with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Cambridge academics and Nobel Laureates from across the disciplines were joined by other world experts in climate change to discuss the connections between global warming and other urgent environmental, economic and development challenges. University participants included Sir Richard Friend FRS, Cavendish Professor of Physics, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, PRS Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and David MacKay, Professor of Natural Philosophy.
Drawing on and Promoting Research across Diverse Academic Disciplines and Countries
"The Symposium highlighted how fundamental research collaborations can be fostered to allow the translation and development of ideas into commercial opportunities. Ultimately, the conclusions from such sessions could be used to shape policy and practice for governments at national and international scales."
Howard Griffiths, Professor of Plant Ecology and Fellow of Clare College
CPSL has an active network of academic collaborators from the majority of the University’s Schools. The March 2010 Cambridge Kyoto Symposium: Pathways to a Low Carbon Society shared knowledge on effective approaches to a low carbon future – both scientific and policy-focused. Twelve Japanese business leaders and members of the Kyoto Sustainability Initiative were joined by fifteen Cambridge academics and UK-based business leaders.
Contributing to the University’s own Sustainability
CPSL contributes to University committees including the School of Technology Sustainability Group and the Business Administration Purchasing Group. It also sits on the Environmental Strategy Committee and the steering group of Cambridge Environmental Initiatives.
CPSL helps make connections between the business and government community and the environmental research within the University, and places the environmental issues that the University is tackling into the context of the wider sustainability leadership agenda.
In addition, CPSL is a founder member of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and nine internationally renowned conservation organisations in the Cambridge area committed to the study and protection of global biodiversity. CCI seeks to transform the global understanding and conservation of biodiversity and the natural capital it represents and, through this, secure a sustainable future for all life on Earth. The CCI partners together combine and integrate research, education, policy and practice to create innovative solutions for society and to foster conservation learning and leadership.
Read Dr Mike Rands, Executive Director of CCI, explaining how a partnership of researchers, world-leading conservation practitioners and policy experts has a crucial role to play in this 21st-century challenge.