The Faculty's new knowledge cluster, The Sustainable Health Unit (SUSTAINIT), has hit the ground running, having already laid out careful plans and initiated several activities. The Unit was established in January and has already received NOK 11 million in external support. They are now seeking input from stakeholders on the strategic document currently being drafted.
The 2023 SDG conference in Bergen was a great start for our new knowledge cluster, SUSTAINIT. The conference was chaired by Eivind Engebretsen (left) and Beate Sjåfjell (centre) on behalf of the UiO. Photo: Silje Katrine Robinson
MED-nytt spoke to the Faculty's enthusiastic, enterprising new Sustainability Director Eivind Engebretsen. He is the head of the Faculty's new "Sustainable Health Unit (SUSTAINIT)", a knowledge cluster consisting of three centres: Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE), the Centre for Global Health, and the newly established Pandemic Centre, the latter to be launched at the end of March/beginning of April. SUSTAINIT aims to highlight challenges, initiate debate and propose sustainable solutions in relation to a range of global and local health issues.
"The UN's approval in 2015 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) marked a shift towards a more comprehensive, fair and integrated approach to health. Health is an issue around which all the SDGs come into play. Health is linked to poverty, environment/pollution, war/peace. Health is something that concerns much more than just the health sector. Human and planetary health are interrelated. We can use health as a prism for discussing the SDGs," says Professor Engebretsen.
2023 SDG Conference
The UiO was responsible for organising this year's national SDG Conference, which is held in Bergen each year. The conference provided an excellent platform for launching SUSTAINIT. Under the leadership of Eivind Engebretsen and Beate Sjåfjell (head of the Sustainability Law research group), the theme of the conference went right to the core of SUSTAINIT's mandate. Attended by many important key figures in politics, research, environmental activism and trade and industry, the conference provided a rare opportunity for initiating important debates and raising new questions about the subject of a "Just Transformation".
"Part of the agenda of the conference was to raise important questions such as whether the SDGs are what we need in order to achieve sustainable development". The discussion about sustainability does not just concern the climate, but also health and the economy, among other important themes. For example, what happens when we roll out renewable energy programmes in low-income countries? Large swathes of the population, especially people on low incomes, could be forced to move, which in turn results in changing settlement patterns and ultimately creates health problems."
