Inaugural lecture 2026 Zennström professorship Karen O’Brien
Welcome to the inaugural lecture and panel discussion with our recently appointed Zennström Visiting Professor in Climate Change Leadership 2026, Karen O’Brien.
Karen O’Brien is co-founder of cCHANGE and Professor Emerita of human geography at University of Oslo. 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.
The event will be held in English. More information is available below. Please note that registration is mandatory and the number of seats is limited. The deadline for registration is March 8.
Inaugural lecture for the 2026 Zennström Professorship in Climate Change Leadership: “Transforming Together: Fast Forward to a Fair Future “
Date: Monday 16 March 13:00-15:00 followed by a fika mingle until 16:30
Venue: Hambergsalen, Geocentrum, Villavägen 16, Uppsala
Programme
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