JYU.Wisdom - School of Resource Wisdom

JYU.Wisdom is an open, scientific community actively promoting planetary well-being in society. Our activities include progressive research, education development, impactful societal interaction, and support for JYU’s sustainability work.

JYU.Wisdom facilitates collaboration for sustainability

JYU.Wisdom is a transdisciplinary community of scholars, students, and specialists, that provides opportunities for intellectual exchange and learning, for interdisciplinary research and education, and for collegial support, inspiration, and new ideas.

JYU.Wisdom has a mission that matters: planetary well-being. JYU.Wisdom advances science-based understanding about the boundary conditions for planetary well-being and recommends actions for reaching it in society. The community's planetary well-being research is a recognized thematic research profiling area of JYU.

JYU.Wisdom is an open community. Everyone is welcome to join the community's activities, which cover a wide range of sustainability themes. Wisdomers share a willingness to:

cross traditional disciplinary boundaries,
support our vision to promote the well-being of human and nonhuman life simultaneously, and
reduce existential risks to the diversity of life unique to Earth.

Planetary well-being is a central unifying concept between the various fields of research present in the broad JYU.Wisdom community. The ecosystems-driven transformative concept draws attention to the societal and ecological preconditions of maintaining life-supporting systems of the planet Earth. Planetary well-being includes human and non-human perspectives to well-being and departs from narrow human-centred conceptualizations of sustainability.

Grounding of the concept has been developed within the JYU.Wisdom community since 2018. Results of this work have been published in the anthology Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Planetary Well-Being by more than 80 scholars from various sustainability-related fields of sciences.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Planetary Well-Being. 2023. Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development.

Planetary well-being. 2021. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8, Article 258.

Research on planetary well-being is one of the thematic and interdisciplinary research areas funded by the Academy of Finland's Profi 7 call. JYU.Wisdom is a scientific community of sustainable development that focuses on the well-being of life on our planet in all its forms. The research has two focus areas, one of which concerns transitioning into planetary well-being and the other research methods.

School of Resource Wisdom - JYU.Wisdom is an open community. Welcome to join us!

A wide range of research groups, projects, and doctoral training

Any scholar conducting research related to environmental crises and sustainability transition is welcomed to JYU.Wisdom. We facilitate cooperation across disciplinary boundaries among scholars interested in promoting planetary well-being. Scholars active within the community work in different faculties of the University of Jyväskylä and beyond in numerous projects and positions.

The community brings together human and natural scientists, no matter whether approaching research work from structuralist-critical or from solution-oriented and pragmatist backgrounds. The sustainability assessment of the university is also conducted by JYU.Wisdom based on academic research conducted within the community.

Research groups associated with JYU.Wisdom

Research, education and development projects associated with JYU.Wisdom

Sustainability Transformations (SusTra) is a doctoral education pilot implemented jointly by ten Finnish universities and the Finnish Environment Institute. The doctoral education pilot will train 40 doctoral graduates in 2025–2027, 6 of whom are at the University of Jyväskylä.

JYU.Wisdom coordinates SusTra activities within JYU. The aim is to make SusTra a permanent activity after the pilot phase funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Join the first Wisdom Days conference on 6-8 May, 2026

Welcome to Wisdom Days: Science for Sustainability Transformations! This conference brings together multi-, trans-, and interdisciplinary scholarship that seeks to create knowledge, understanding, or solutions related to sustainability transformations and planetary well-being.
International keynote speakers will share inspiring insights, and participants will have plenty of opportunities to share their own. Facilitating new connections and co-creating knowledge in a respectful environment are at the heart of the event.

Wisdom Letters

Wisdom Letters is a publication platform for a new format of research articles that present peer-reviewed policy recommendations. The topics covered may be related to, for example, sustainability transition and planetary well-being. The articles are open access and they support public decision-making and the awareness of citizens in cross-disciplinary sustainability issues.

Wisdom Letters website

JYU.Wisdom has developed an assessment methodology to assess JYU’s carbon and biodiversity footprints. The methods and results are described in detail in the Wisdom Letters -publication. The university's environmental programme was developed based on the baseline set by the report. A follow-up assessment for 2020, including a revised methodology, was conducted in 2021.

Wisdom Letters 2/2021: Sustainability for JYU (in Finnish)

Sustainability for JYU 2020 -report (in Finnish)

JYU Environmental Programme - Roadmap to Planetary Well-being

JYU.Wisdom keeps providing support and assistance so that JYU can monitor its targets of carbon neutrality and no net loss of biodiversity by 2030.

Sustainable and responsible JYU

Cross-disciplinary sustainability education

Education plays a key role in the promotion of sustainability and planetary well-being. JYU.Wisdom coordinates cross-disciplinary sustainability education at the University of Jyväskylä and produces new courses for degree students as well as for life-long learning.

The learning options range from self-study online courses (open for all) to a unique, multidisciplinary 25-credit study module. JYU is also a part of the Climate University and Sustainability Studies Network, through which even more courses are available.

JYU.Wisdom has produced two sets of online courses that are available in both English and Finnish. They are open for everyone to study, free of charge.

Planetary well-being courses: these four MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offer a comprehensive understanding of the state of the world and introduce the concept of planetary well-being (PW): what it means, why it is needed, and how to move towards it. You will learn about natural and social systems and their relations to sustainability, cultural perceptions and conceptions of a good life and how they affect the realisation of planetary well-being, and means of promoting the sustainability transition.

Find the PW MOOC courses on the JYU Online Courses platform.

Nature Under Threat courses: these two courses give insight into how and why species and ecosystems are increasingly becoming threatened, how threat status is assessed, and what are the causes behind the ongoing biodiversity loss.

Find the Nature Under Threat courses at JYU Open University.

To see more courses in Finnish, switch to the Finnish webpage via the main menu.

This new module introduces students to the needs, barriers and opportunities of sustainability transitions from a multidisciplinary perspective. The multidisciplinary approach makes the module one-of-a-kind. Combining expertise from different disciplines is the key to understanding and managing sustainability transitions.

The 25-credit basic studies module is open for all JYU students.

Cooperation is at heart of sustainability thinking, and Finnish universities are doing great work on sharing their sustainability education. Climate University and the Sustainability Studies Network offer many opportunities for students to improve their sustainability skills. JYU.Wisdom coordinates the participation of JYU in these networks.

Get involved in JYU.Wisdom

JYU.Wisdom is an open community. Everyone is welcome to join the community's activities, which cover a wide range of sustainability themes. Welcome to the community!

JYU.Wisdom organizes diverse events that bring people together for interesting discussions, new collaboration ideas, support, and well-being.

You can participate in promoting planetary well-being by attending our events and courses, sharing relevant news and opportunities within the community, and thinking of different ways to collaborate with your fellow Wisdomers. This could be, for example, a joint research or writing project, thesis work, or an event or gathering you could host.

You may become a Wisdomer simply by joining our mailing list. Through the list you will hear about upcoming events and current affairs.

If you are organizing an event that is relevant for JYU.Wisdom, or have an idea for an event you would like to host, we want to hear about it!

For upcoming events, please use the content listing tag 'JYU.Wisdom' when publishing the event on the JYU website and it will be shown on the list below.

For event ideas, we can offer a cozy location at the Home of Wisdom and support with marketing. Please contact the Operative Coordinator to discuss further.

The JYU.Wisdom office and meeting rooms are located at the Main building (C), above the Aalto Library and JYU Registry office.

The premises, nicknamed the Home of Wisdom, house the Coordinators' offices, a meeting room (C261), and a couple work stations available to Wisdomers for short-term use. For instructions on how to book the meeting room and/or the work stations, please contact the coordinator.

Some of JYU.Wisdom's events take place at the Home of Wisdom. These include, for example, joint webinar viewings, discussion groups, and after-work events. Welcome!

In 2021-2024 the home base of JYU.Wisdom was located in the old Gardener's House (J), nicknamed the House of Wisdom.

Please use JYU.Wisdom as a secondary affiliation in your works when the topic is relevant to JYU.Wisdom. This enables the coordination to follow the multidisciplinary activities of the community and develop the activities further.

The affiliation you should use is:

School of Resource Wisdom, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Or, in Finnish: Resurssiviisausyhteisö, Jyväskylän yliopisto, PL 35, 40014 Jyväskylän yliopisto

In dissertations and theses, you may include 'School of Resource Wisdom' in addition to your home department.

Share your publications

When you publish on topics relevant to JYU.Wisdom, please inform the coordinators! They will then be able to share the information on the JYU.Wisdom newsletter and social media.

Converis follow-up groups

Those members working at the University of Jyväskylä should also add JYU.Wisdom as an internal follow-up group in the Converis-database. If you give your permission when you join the mailing list, this will be done automatically. This does not affect your affiliation information.

For more information about the follow-up groups, see the Intranet Uno.

See upcoming JYU.Wisdom events

Below you will find upcoming events organized by JYU.Wisdom or members of the community across JYU. Everyone interested is welcome to join JYU.Wisdom’s events, welcome!

Some events are only in Finnish. Please switch the site language via the menu to see them.

Student events

Science events

Public lectures, seminars and round tables

28.10.2025 12:15 - 28.10.2025 13:00

C261 (Home of Wisdom)

Wisdom Coffee Conversations: Circulating Used Materials in the Revolving Doors of Activation

The Home of Wisdom Coffee Conversations are open events where you can learn and discuss about different topics related to planetary well-being. In October, the presenter is University teacher Ossi Laaksamo.

SusTra x JYU.Wisdom PhD retreat 2026

A writing retreat for PhD researchers working on sustainability, offering a calm yet structured environment to focus, connect and explore creative approaches to research.

Wisdom Days: Science for Sustainability Transformations | 6-8 May, 2026

The Wisdom Days conference invites together multi-, trans-, and interdisciplinary scholarship that seeks to create knowledge, understanding, or solutions related to sustainability transformations.

Browse all upcoming and past JYU.Wisdom events

JYU.Wisdom news

Below you will find news about the activities of JYU.Wisdom and members of the community across JYU. For news in Finnish, please switch the site language via the menu.