On Friday December 15, 2017 the annual student conference was held for first semester MESPOM and one-year ESP students. Each December in the final weeks of the winter semester, the students of the Environmental Sciences and Policy department at CEU host a conference they have organized themselves. The conference is organized into sessions, with each of the student presenting their own research paper they have worked on over the previous months. The event is always open to the university and members of the public, and is an opportunity for the students to share research topics they have self-selected and gain experience in organizing the event and presenting and articulating written research.
This year, the conference was organized into several themes under the general theme of building solutions to environment problems, entitled "There is No Planet B: Solutions for Planet A."
Sessions included: Energy Transitions and Climate Change; Environmental Justice, Politics and Humanities; Environmental and Resource Governance; Energy Transitions and Climate Change; and Sustainable Management of Socio-Ecological Systems. Faculty from the CEU Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy hosted each session together with a Ph.D. stduent moderator. Faculty members included Dr. Aleh Cherp, Dr. Tamara Steger, Dr. Alexios Antypas, Dr. Michael LaBelle, Dr. Guntra Aistara, Dr. Ruben Mnatsakanian, Dr. Viktor Lagutov, Dr. László Pinter, and Dr. Brandon Anthony.
The topics presented by students included case studies from all over the world. For example, one student's presentation was entitled "Is the Feed-in Tariff System in Malaysia sustainable?" and another was "Energy Policy of Japan after Fukushima". Each student is able to pursue their own interests in the framework of the independent research course, which results in the final conference.
In previous years, there have been students who have used their student conference paper as the foundation for a future research project for another course, their thesis or a publication.
The department congratulates all the students on their hard work and on another successful annual conference.
To see the full program in PDF click here.