ECR Sustainability Training Academy 2026

About STA

The Early Career Researcher (ECR) Sustainability Training Academy (STA) - Warwick’s Sustainability Spotlight signature initiative - will be held on 24-27 March 2026 at the University of Warwick. It offers a unique (funded) opportunity to engage interdisciplinary with your peers and top scholars across Warwick, to radically rethink the future, and the challenges we all face.

Organised in partnership with the Society and Culture Spotlight, the STA calls on all interested and motivated ECRs – final-year PhDs and early-year PostDocs – to join us on an exploratory journey of problematising global/local sustainability challenges inter-disciplinarily. During the three intensive days, we, together with top-level researchers across the University, will uncover ‘sustainability’, drill into un-sustainability through the lens of key concepts, and engage in radical future imaginaries – all interdisciplinary! We will learn to think ‘outside-the-box' and explore interdisciplinary and creative methods galore, in an exciting and interactive programme. Most importantly, you will be able to design your own group project proposals, and three successful projects will receive funding and an opportunity to present at the Warwick Sustainability Forum on 2 July 2026.

The ECR STA builds on three years of successful experience of training schools led by the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) and Warwick’s Sustainability Spotlight, with the last one held in Venice 2025, attracting 22 ECRs from around the world and building a global ECR network for more sustainable futures.

Selection Criteria

Places are limited, with a maximum of 20 participants, and the selection will be based on the following (but not limited to) criteria for the successful candidates:

• Interdisciplinary background of the participant.

• Academic interests and relevance

• Strong motivation letter to explain how participation within the academy would support/ relate to the applicants’ study and research.

Please note that bursaries can be considered for travel, accommodation, and subsistence. Please specify this on the registration form.

How to Apply

We are inviting prospective Warwick researchers to fill in the registration form below, accompanied by:

• a brief motivation letter (no more than 2 pages)
• a supervisor/line manager support letter (download templateLink opens in a new window).

The deadline for submitting the above is 13 February 2026.

Selected candidates will be informed by the end of February. If successful, participants will be asked to prepare a 5-minute IGNITE presentation, about which they will be briefed online in advance.

STS 2023

Organised in partnership with EUTOPIA, the theme of the 1st ECR STS was on ‘Resilience and Sustainable Development’.

The theme responds to the current challenges and crises (e.g. earthquake in Turkey and Syria; war in Ukraine; flooding in Pakistan etc), in trying to find solutions, tools, models, and needed local and international support to nurture more resilient communities across different parts of the world. ECR STS hosted 20 interdisciplinary ECRs who joined us for a five-day intense exchange and co-production of knowledge, skills training, and network-building, to enable us to tackle these global challenges together. The ECR STS enjoyed in-depth discussions around the submitted creative projects, which will be supplemented by skills training sessions, study visits, keynotes, roundtables and social activities.

STS 2024

The theme of the ECR STS 2.0 was ‘Water Security and Resilience’, and it directly addressed a wide spectrum of challenges urban and regional communities are facing across the Global South and the Global North. Contributions engaged with conceptual approaches, tools, models, and case-studies focusing on the following topics: ·Inequalities related to water security; water for ecosystems and environmental management; sanitation, and health (WASH) challenges across the Global South; water-related hazards (i.e. pluvial and fluvial flooding, flash flooding etc); climate change and the impact on water security and environmental ecosystems; and urban and regional adaptation to climate change, with a focus on water security. The STS attracted 20 participants from 18 different countries.

STA 2025

The theme of the 2025 STA was 'Enabling Green and Just Transitions' held in Venice on 30 March- 5 April 2025, in partnership with the Sustainability Spotlight and ADA University (Azerbaijan). It was renamed into an Academy, due to the COP29 support and place-based experience offered to the participants. 22 outstanding ECRs from eighteen countries came together for a transformative learning experience at the forefront of climate justice, resilience, and sustainable transitions. Participants engaged in collaborative workshops, interdisciplinary group discussions, immersive study visits, and hands-on activities rooted in real-world contexts such as Lankaran (Azerbaijan), Bukhara (Uzbekistan), and Bengaluru (India). Through direct engagement with practitioners and communities, participants explored innovative solutions and built a network of peers dedicated to advancing global climate resilience.