CoMaDe Science on the Island winter school
Photo: Niklas Jonasson
This event, titled 'Science on the Island', is a winter school on the island of Gotland, where the participants will travel through the past, present, and possible futures of Baltic Sea coasts. The winter school will take place from 31 January to 6 February 2027 at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland, Sweden. Using Gotland as the classroom, the participants will explore how people and coastal environments have shaped one another over time.
The winter school is the final event connected to the Swedish Institute-financed project 'CoMaDe - Coastal and Marine Development through Collaboration and Interdisciplinary Learning'. The project aims to foster connections among students across the region and deepen their understanding of sustainability challenges along the Baltic Sea coastline. The winter school targets students at the bachelor’s or master’s level, as well as PhD students, from BUP participating universities.
The event will begin by looking into the past and how people have lived with and used the coast. From there, it will move into the present to explore some of the complex challenges facing the Baltic Sea and its coastal communities today, from environmental degradation and biodiversity loss to changing livelihoods, competing uses of the coast and the difficult choices involved in sustainable development. Finally, it will turn towards the future. What might the Baltic Sea coasts look like in the decades ahead? What futures do we want, and how can we contribute to shaping them?
This is not a traditional lecture-based event. During the week, Gotland itself becomes part of the classroom. Through excursions, field activities, interactive workshops, and encounters with different perspectives, participants will explore coastal sustainability through natural science, social science, and transdisciplinary approaches.
Participants will work together with students from different academic backgrounds and countries around the Baltic Sea Region. Throughout the week, they will also take part in a storytelling challenge, bringing together discoveries during the journey through the past, present, and future and finding creative ways to communicate the story of a changing Baltic coast.
The application deadline is 26 October, 23:59 (CEST).