Brown Bag Lunch: Kick-off for a UNESCO Chair Community at Leuphana
What can a UNESCO Chair offer the people at its own university who research or care about education for sustainable development? On 8 October 2026, Daniel Fischer and Harald Hantke invited ESD researchers and everyone interested in ESD at Leuphana University Lüneburg to a brown bag lunch to talk about exactly this. We see the meeting as a kick-off for a Chair community at Leuphana.
The two chairholders opened with a short introduction to the Chair: its history since 2005, its responsibility for the Transformation Module in the first semester, the coordination of the UNITWIN Network on ESD and Social Transformation, current research projects and the fellows the Chair is hosting at the moment.
Most of the two hours were reserved for open exchange. The conversation turned mainly to new ideas for working together at Leuphana:
- an ESD Journal Club, meeting every two weeks for 60 minutes in a hybrid format to discuss one current ESD paper, open also to researchers from the international Chair network
- the new role of Chair affiliates, a formal but deliberately light way to take part in, contribute to or initiate Chair activities
- the UNESCO Chair Lecture Series, which invites perspectives on (higher) education for sustainable development and UNESCO-related topics
Above all, we encouraged everyone to bring in their own ideas and formats. The brown bag lunch was a first step, and we would like the activities of the Chair at Leuphana to grow from this group. If you want to get involved, become an affiliate or suggest a format, please get in touch with us.
