LMU Sustainability Week
The Munich Center for Sustainability (MZN) is organising a Sustainability Week under the auspices of the Sustainability Committee at LMU from 3 to 7 November 2025.
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- Preamble
- Goals
- Access for students of all subjects and other LMU members to courses with a focus on sustainability topics
- Register your course for the Sustainability Week
- Events of the week in the "Große Aula"
- Overview of public events
- Sustainability in teaching – opportunities for lecturers
- Networking meeting for sustainability stakeholders at LMU
- Initiative and Organisation
- Cooperation Partners
The Sustainability Week program is updated regularly.
At a glance
From November 3 to 7, 2025, the MZN will be hosting a Sustainability Week at LMU. You can look forward to...
- Exciting events with lectures and discussions on sustainability in the LMU's Great Hall
- the opening of many regular courses to students from all disciplines, with LMU lecturers addressing the topic of sustainability from their respective perspectives and linking it to the subject matter
- Presentation of LMU's sustainability strategy and projects funded by the Sustainability Fund by university management and administration
- interfaculty networking opportunities
- University teaching resources for implementing sustainability topics in teaching from el mundo and PROFiL
- Joint events with LMU partners from industry and the city community
© Ralf Ludwig
Preamble
In view of the accelerating ecological and social crisis dynamics, the global community is facing challenges on an unprecedented scale: anthropogenic climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the increasing scarcity of resources, the destabilisation of political orders, the rapid advance of AI in all areas of life and growing social inequalities dramatically illustrate the need for far-reaching change. These developments not only affect individual sectors, but also undermine the ecological, economic and social foundations of our coexistence. In this context, universities have a prominent role to play - as places of knowledge production, critical reflection and social responsibility.
By organising LMU Sustainability Week for the first time, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München is sending out a visible signal that sustainability is firmly anchored as a guiding principle of university development. The event week is organised by the Munich Centre for Sustainability (MZN) under the auspices of the LMU Sustainability Committee. It aims to institutionally strengthen the importance of sustainable development for research, teaching and university practice and to initiate a cross-faculty debate on key future issues. Sustainability is not understood as a sectoral challenge, but as an integrative, normative and transformative concept that transcends disciplinary boundaries and requires new forms of academic co-operation.
LMU Sustainability Week focuses on sensitising all members of the university to the urgency of a far-reaching social transformation. It aims to contribute to raising awareness of the structural interdependence of ecological, social and economic processes and to further develop the prerequisites for scientifically sound, interdisciplinary and practical sustainability action at LMU. This also involves the question of how universities can fulfil their institutional responsibility in the context of global sustainability goals and at the same time become laboratories of social transformation.
A central concern of the week is to make sustainability more visible as an integral part of university teaching. Innovative didactic concepts, transdisciplinary learning spaces, participatory formats and research-based learning can act as catalysts for transformation if they are consistently focussed on future issues and thought of in an intergenerational way. The training of future decision-makers in particular harbours considerable creative potential - both with regard to the acquisition of scientific knowledge and the development of transformative action skills.
In this context, the LMU Sustainability Week also focuses on the work of the Munich Centre for Sustainability (MZN). The MZN acts as an interfaculty platform for research, teaching and third mission activities in the field of sustainability. It promotes scientific exchange across disciplinary boundaries and contributes to the structural anchoring of sustainability-related topics at LMU. Systemic, transformative and critical-reflective perspectives are combined in order to make scientifically sound contributions to solving complex sustainability problems.
Current developments in higher education policy are opening up new opportunities for an ambitious commitment to sustainability. The strategic anchoring of sustainability as a cross-cutting issue within the LMU Excellence Strategy and the legal framework of the Bavarian Higher Education Innovation Act provide substantial starting points for institutional development. Against this background, previously unutilised potential can be tapped in order to structurally anchor sustainability in research, teaching, campus management, administration and university culture and to strengthen LMU's visibility and responsibility in a national and international context.
Goals
© MZN
Never before has the need—and opportunity—to actively contribute to shaping a sustainable future been as pronounced as it is today. LMU Sustainability Week sees itself as a catalyst and forum for exploring this potential. It invites all members of the university—University management and administration, researchers, teachers, students, and staff—to work together at a university that meets the challenges of the 21st century not only with academic excellence, but also with social responsibility.
The highlighted goals of LMU Sustainability Week (LMU-SW) can be summarized as follows:
- Institutionalizing sustainability: LMU-SW is sending a clear signal that sustainability is a guiding principle of university development in research, teaching, and practice.
- Promoting interdisciplinary dialogue: LMU-SW facilitates and supports cross-faculty discussion of future issues through new forms of academic and scientific cooperation in research and teaching.
- Raising awareness of transformation: LMU-SW sensitizes all university members to the urgency of profound social change.
- Strengthening sustainability in teaching: LMU-SW integrates, illustrates, and teaches innovative, participatory, and transdisciplinary teaching formats for transformative action competence.
- Making the Munich Center for Sustainability (MZN) visible: LMU-SW promotes the role of the MZN in fostering interdisciplinary research and structurally anchoring and raising awareness of sustainability-related topics at LMU.
- Establishing the university as a laboratory for social transformation: LMU-SW strengthens LMU's role as an actor and catalyst in the context of global sustainability goals.
Access for students of all subjects and other LMU members to courses with a focus on sustainability topics
© Valerio Agolino Fotograf
Sustainability, when understood comprehensively, can be linked to almost any scientific discipline:
- The natural sciences deal with topics such as environmental change, climate dynamics, and sustainable technologies.
- The humanities and social sciences focus on questions of justice, values, communication, and political organization.
- Economics and law deal with sustainable management, governance, and regulation.
- Medical and psychological subjects also contribute, for example with regard to the health consequences of climate change or sustainable lifestyles.
- And in cultural studies and linguistics, reflection is given to how sustainability is expressed in narratives, symbols, or cultural practices.
This is precisely why Sustainability Week offers a valuable opportunity for all faculties and lecturers to address the topic of sustainability from their own professional perspective and to explicitly integrate it into their courses. On the other hand, opening up the courses to students from other disciplines and interested guests promotes interdisciplinary exchange.
Examples:
- Lecture in the Statistics program: Statistical modeling
Topic of the lecture during Sustainability Week: Statistical models in climate research - Seminar in the el mundo certificate program: Fundamentals of Education for Sustainable Development
Topic of the seminar session during Sustainability Week: Education for the Future
Register your course for the Sustainability Week
*** Extension: Registrations are still possible until October 24 ***
Are you a lecturer at LMU and would like to participate in Sustainability Week during the winter semester by focusing your course on sustainability topics during calendar week 45?
We look forward to your contribution! Please let us know the topic , time, and location of your course by October 24, 2025 , using the form below so that we can include it in the program.
Are you a student at LMU and would like to see sustainability topics covered in your degree program courses during Sustainability Week?
Feel free to talk to your professors to let them know about Sustainability Week and encourage them to participate! Offer to help organize the relevant session!
Events of the week in the "Große Aula"
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03 NovSustainability Week – “Purpose” – Film screening and discussionExclusive screening in German followed by a Q&A session with the film producer
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03 NovSustainability Week – Climate, Economy & Sustainability – Panel DiscussionAgainst the backdrop of climate change and sustainable development goals, experts discuss sustainable approaches to economic activity.
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04 NovSustainability Week – "Ludwig, Max + U" – Interactive guided tour of the exhibitionGuided tour & discussion in the exhibition "Diversity of Biodiversity," a pioneering exhibition by "Ludwig, Max + U"
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04 NovSustainability Week – "LMUnachhaltig" – Fair & poster sessionWho at LMU is helping to implement sustainability in research, teaching, and administration? Learn about initiatives at a small fair in the atrium and talk to the people involved!
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04 NovSustainability Week – Education & Sustainability – Keynote and Panel DiscussionUnder the motto "BNE – Shaping Futures," education scientists and educators discuss educational goals, didactic concepts, and AI in teaching.
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05 NovSustainability Week – Climate Science, Digital Technologies & Sustainability – Panel DiscussionAn interdisciplinary panel will address the topic of "Climate Science in the Digital Age."
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05 NovSustainability Week – Science, Communication & Sustainability – Lecture and DiscussionThe event is dedicated to various forms and challenges of climate journalism and sustainability communication.
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06 NovSustainability Week – "Earth4All – Parliament of the Future" – Simulation Game PlaytestTry out an interactive strategy game with accompanying material as an interdisciplinary supplement for universities/schools within the framework of ESD.
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06 NovSustainability Week – Art, Law & Sustainability – Lecture and Panel Discussionin cooperation with the Residenztheater Munich
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06 NovSustainability Week – Climate Crisis & Health – Keynotes and panel discussion“Health and well-being” is a declared sustainability goal of Agenda 2030 – the interdisciplinary panel discusses the implications and challenges.
Sustainability in teaching – opportunities for lecturers
How can sustainability issues be systematically integrated into university teaching? What resources are already available for this purpose? And how can courses be designed to align with education for sustainable development (ESD)?
As part of Sustainability Week, lecturers can participate in events on continuing education in university teaching to gain inspiration for their own teaching.
Networking meeting for sustainability stakeholders at LMU
On Friday, November 7, 2025 , the MZN and the Sustainability Office will bring together a large number of LMU stakeholders involved in sustainability. In addition to promoting exchange and networking, the meeting aims to develop a strategy for raising the profile of these initiatives and creating synergies.
Initiative and Organisation
Prof. Dr. Ralf Ludwig
Professor of Applied Physical Geography
Dean of Studies
Dr. Katrin Geneuss
Coordination el mundo – Sustainability in Teaching and Learning
Prof. Dr. Helmut Küchenhoff
Professor of Statistics, former head of the Statistical Consulting Laboratory at LMU
Lea Antony
Coordination of minor subject Sustainability
Managing Director of MZN, extraordinary member
Cooperation Partners
