The conference was organised by:
- the Department of City and Regional Management at the Faculty of Management, University of Lodz;
- the Department of Development Economics within the Institute of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz;
- the Polish Association of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists.
The conference was organised in cooperation with other universities belonging to the UNIC Alliance (European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition / Europejski Uniwersytet Miast w Transformacji Postindustrialnej – UNIC 2.0) within Thematic Line 2 (TL2: Sustainability & Green Cities).
The conference programme included two keynote lectures. The first keynote address was delivered by Prof. Chad Boda from Malmö University, who presented a lecture entitled “From Capital to Capability in the Pursuit of a Sustainable Development” at the Faculty of Economics and Sociology on 10 September 2026. The second keynote lecture was delivered by Prof. Edmond Byrne from University College Cork, who spoke at the Faculty of Management on 11 September 2026. His lecture was entitled: “The Sustainable Development Paradigm Misalignment? From Environmental Crisis to Climate Crisis to Polycrisis to Metacrisis.”
The conference brought together more than 130 participants from Polish and international higher education institutions, including universities belonging to the UNIC Alliance, as well as other European universities.
On the second day of the conference, held at the Faculty of Management, in addition to the keynote lecture, participants attended a small poster session and six parallel thematic sessions. Presentations addressed a wide range of topics, including the use of natural resources in sustainable development, artificial intelligence, technical, institutional and political aspects of sustainability, urban development, education, as well as social and cultural dimensions.
The conference was organised as part of the project „We are UNIC!” [We are UNIC!], funded by the European Union under the programme "Wsparcie sojuszy uniwersytetów europejskich” [Support for European University Alliances], NAWA project FERS.01.05-IP.08-0219/23 (EU funding amount: PLN 62,705,297.60).
A photo gallery from the event is available on Flickr
