Course coordinator: Stefano Ponte & Jeremy Moon, Department of Management, Society and Communication (MSC)

Faculty

Practitioners panel

• Practitioners panel (to be confirmed)

Aim and content

The relationships of governance and sustainable development appear more critical to business and society relations than ever.  This PhD course provides research students with an in-depth engagement with relevant frameworks, concepts and approaches to the topic of governing sustainable development, with specific focus on the role of business.  It draws on the strengths of the CBS Sustainability Centre and the CBS Centre for Business and Development Studies (CBDS), but it will also bring in other guest faculty and practitioners.

The first part of the course opens with a survey of key perspectives on governing sustainable development. It then proceeds by unpacking these perspectives through the such related lenses as: governance, national & global; corporations as governing actors; sustainable development; sustainable investment; global value chains; humanitarian interventions & activism; and corporations & green transitions.  Overall, the course aims at enabling critical consideration of different theoretical and policy approaches to governing sustainable development through a mix of theoretical and hands-on empirical engagements.  

Prerequisites

• Only currently registered PhD students can participate in the course. 
  
  
• The course is intended for students undertaking PhDs in the social sciences, including business and management studies. 
  
  
• At the time of application, you are asked to submit an abstract for the paper you would like to present at the course, on a topic related to governing sustainable development (500 words max).
  
  
• If you are accepted to the course, you will be expected to submit a paper (min 8 pages, max 20 pages – references excluded) that engages theoretically, methodologically and/or empirically with topics related to governing sustainable development (deadline for submission of the paper is 31 March 2026). 
  
  
• To receive the course diploma, you will need to meet the above deadlines and attend the whole course.
  
  

Expectations

• You are expected to have read all the assigned readings before the start of the course; for each of the sessions, one or more students will be asked to introduce the key points of one or more of the assigned papers to the group (details will follow);
  
  
• You are expected to have read all student papers submitted to the course and be ready to provide engaged, sympathetic and constructive criticism during the student presentation sessions;
  
  
• You are expected to actively engage in all discussion sessions related to lectures, panels and paper presentations.
   

Presentation and discussion plan

• For each student paper: 10-minute presentation by the student; 15-minute feedback by the two assigned discussants (one faculty member and one student); 20 minutes for general discussion.
• Lectures and panels are followed by an open discussion session facilitated by the assigned chair.

Learning objectives

After participating in the course, the students will be able to:

• Critically reflect on different theoretical and empirical perspectives on governance and sustainable development.
  
• Critically reflect on different specific policy and strategic approaches to sustainable development.
  
• Locate their own PhD. research in the context of wider theories, conceptualizations and debates about governance and sustainable development.
   

Schedule