Inaugural lecture for the 2026 Zennström Visiting Professorship in Climate Change Leadership - Transforming Together: Fast Forward to a Fair Future
Inaugural lecture and panel discussion with Uppsala University’s Zennström Visiting Professor in Climate Change Leadership 2026, Karen O’Brien.
- Date
- 16 March 2026, 13:00–16:30
- Location
- Geo Centre, Hambergsalen, Geocentrum
- Type
- Lecture
- Lecturer
- Karen O'Brien, Visiting professor
- Web page
- https://climatechangeleadership.blog.uu.se/2026/02/27/inaugural-lecture/
- Organiser
- Klimatledarskap
- Contact person
- Judith Lundberg-Felten
- Phone
- 0722069625
Karen O'Brien, 2026 Zennström Visiting Professor. Photo: Malin Eivergård.
Karen O’Brien is Professor Emerita of Human geography at University of Oslo and co-founder of cCHANGE, an Oslo-based organization and platform co-founded by Professor Karen O'Brien that focuses on promoting, accelerating, and scaling transformative change for a just and sustainable world in the face of climate change..
Building on decades of research on the social and human dimensions of environmental change, her current work focuses on connecting theory with practice to scale equitable and sustainable transformations. Karen was appointed Zennström Visiting Professor in Climate Change Leadership 2026 at Uppsala University.
The event will be held in English and takes place on Monday 16 March 2026 starting at 13:00 in Hambergsalen, Geocentrum (Villavägen 16) Uppsala University.
Programme of the event
13:05 Welcome message by Anders Hagfeldt, Vice-chancellor Uppsala University
13:15 Lecture by the Zennström professor 2026 Karen O’Brien
Scaling transformative change for a just and sustainable world
The scale of the climate crisis challenges us to think, organize, and act differently. To do so, we may need to relate differently to ourselves, each other, nature, and the future. Drawing on my past research on climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation and the recent Transformative Change Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), this talk will focus on the importance of engaging with the practical, political, and personal spheres of transformation, as well as my current work on fractal approaches to scaling transformations to sustainability. Finally, I will consider some of the implications for climate change leadership, with an emphasis on why we matter more than we think.
13:45 Panel discussion
14:30 Reflection on the panel discussion by the Zennström professor
14:40 Discussion with all participants and the audience
15:00 – 16.30 Mingle with fika
Please note that registration is mandatory and the number of seats is limited. The deadline for registration is 8 March 2026.
Registration link:
