Right Livelihood Campuses and Centers
Disseminating and strengthening knowledge, wisdom and skills for a positive future
The Right Livelihood College is organized as a network of Campuses and Centres to educate the next generations of change-makers around the world.
Right Livelihood map of a network of 8 university campuses and centers around the globe.
Founded in 2013, the Right Livelihood Center at UC Santa Cruz is a partnership between UC Santa Cruz and Right Livelihood. Housed at the Institute for Social Transformation, the Right Livelihood Center links faculty and students with Right Livelihood Laureates for research and education about proven solutions to the world’s most pressing global problems. The Center has a part-time coordinator who receives guidance from the faculty and managing directors of the Institute. Since our founding, the Center has initiated a student-led club which has a strong emphasis on connecting activism to academia.
Timeline Overview
- 2013 – The RLC was founded at UC Santa Cruz.
- 2022 – Undergraduate students at UC Santa Cruz founded the Right Livelihood Student Club, a student-initiated and student-led organization, to support student empowerment, agency, and action.
- 2024 – UC Santa Cruz became the next Global Secretariat of the Right Livelihood College, taking over the responsibility from the Center for Development Research in Bonn, Germany who held the office from 2014-2024.
Initiatives
- 4 Annual Right Livelihood Laureate led lectures
- 22 Global Online events
- 3 Major conferences in Santa Cruz and Bangkok
- 365 students have been connected through two RLC courses
- 20 student leaders have been involved in international activism
- 9 University partnerships across five continents
Activities for students at UCSC
- Build leadership skills by joining the Right Livelihood Club at UCSC.
- Connect with laureates and UCSC faculty to conduct community-based research.
- Attend a conference or webinar.
- Take a course on Right Livelihood.
- Study abroad – use our website to stay updated on potential opportunities.
- Intern for the RLC at UC Santa Cruz – use our website to stay updated on potential opportunities.
Links
Home Page: https://rightlivelihood.ucsc.edu/
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@rightlivelihooducsc
Event Archive: Past Events Archive
Timeline: Timeline Link
Contact
Dave Shaw, RLC Center Coordinator at UCSC
Email: daveshaw@ucsc.edu
The Center for Development Research (ZEF), an independent research institute at the University of Bonn, became a RLC Campus in 2010. ZEF conducts transdisciplinary and applied research on crosscutting socio-political, economic and environmental problems in Africa, Asia and Latin America with the overall goal to contribute to truly sustainable and just development. Since 1997, ZEF runs the PhD Program ‘Bonn Interdisciplinary Graduate School for Development Research’ which is unique in terms of its interdisciplinary set up, applied and international character and size – with around 140 PhD students from more than 70 countries.
Activities
- Transdisciplinary In-Person Workshops
- Since 2011, the RLC Campus Bonn at ZEF organises two transdisciplinary in-person workshops for several days per year in Bonn with Right Livelihood Laureates, other experts and PhD students from all over the world. PhD students learn about the work and approaches of Laureates and exchange with them and other change makers for environmental sustainability and social justice. The workshops revolve around the two thematic foci of Rural development and Sustainable agriculture and Sustainable use and conservation of natural resources.
- Applied Research Projects
- The RLC Campus Bonn conducts 3.5 year-long applied research projects worldwide together with Laureates, their organizations and many other stakeholders in the fields of environmental sustainability and social justice. The projects involve joint conferences, publishing of joint papers, exchanges and visits to each other’s institutions as well as joint PhD projects.
Till Stellmacher is the coordinator of RLC Campus Bonn and has been working with issues of human rights and environmental protection since the 90s and being part of the RLC has showed him the value of working with Laureates on their topics, on the ground. He explains how inspiring it is to be part of initiatives that bring together Laureates, PhDs and people from different generations.
The highlight of working with the RLC according to Till are the workshops with people coming from different parts of the world, to see the Laureates and the younger academics interact, share contacts, presentations and information. He often hears from people of the Laureate’s organisations that they have learned so much during the events, and that they have made new contacts with universities. He highlights that the RLC initiative truly is a two-way learning process.
“We heard from so many Laureates who are here in person, sometimes over coffee or in the evening they say, well, I learned so much the whole day”
The underlying goals of RLC Campus Bonn is to give younger people ways for critical and applied thinking, to provide something to carry with them through their studies, careers, NGOs or policy institutions. To showcase where people can be successful in changing something for the better.
“We have a huge alumni network where we see that the younger people who did their PhD several years ago, are in my view now in the position to make important decisions worldwide. So that’s really inspiring to me.”
The future activities of RLC Campus Bonn will hopefully see more in-person events building awareness about and further expanding the pioneering work of change-makers in a two-way process.
Links
Home Page: https://www.zef.de/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zefbonn
Contact
Dr. Till Stellmacher
Stellmacher@rlc-bonn.de
The RLC Campus Bonn is kindly supported by the University of Bonn and the
Founded in 1613, the National University of Cordoba (UNC) is the oldest institution of higher education in Argentina. The campus has a long history of advocating democracy and human rights with its students launching a movement for a democratisation of academic faculties in Argentina in 1918.
The campus joined the Right Livelihood College in 2016 at the Faculty of Psychology, which is home to over 10,000 students annually.
The collaboration between RLC Argentina and UNC will amplify the academic exchange on questions regarding human rights, social justice and environmental protection between the RLC and the University. Its activities have been heavily led by Professor Raul Montenegro, an environmental advocate and 2004 Right Livelihood Award Laureate. Professor Montenegro remains the director for the Cordoba Campus of the Right Livelihood College.
Past Activities at RLC Cordoba
- Hosting open conferences on “Indigenous Reality.”
- Hosting recipients of the Right Livelihood Award
Ongoing Activities at RLC Cordoba
- Supporting the production of research by postgraduate students on issues related to the environment and human health.
- Workshops and courses:
- “Non-governmental community museums on ethnology and archaeology, especially those dedicated to Comechingones and Sanavirones Indigenous peoples.”
- “How to improve sustainable happiness.”
- Role playing educational activities on a variety of topics such as Cordoba’s native forests and gender issues.
In 2009, the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) became the RLC’s first European partner campus. LUCSUS is a platform for education, research and cooperation inside and outside academia on questions related to sustainable development. The education consists of the international master’s program in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science (LUMES) and the Master of Science Programme in Climate Change and Society (LUCAS). The focus on research and education in Sustainability Science spans global, regional and local issues, events and relationships.
Together with Right Livelihood, LUCSUS organises forums for parliamentarians, journalists, diplomats, academics and representatives from civil society groups to discuss different sustainability challenges with RLA Laureates who work with these issues on a daily basis. In connection with the yearly Right Livelihood Award ceremony, LUCSUS invites the Laureates to give an open lecture in Lund. Furthermore, LUMES and LUCAS students are encouraged to write their master’s thesis in connection to the work of different RLA Laureates.
Activities
- Lectures and seminars with Right Livelihood Laureates
- Annual fieldwork grants for the LUCSUS MSc theses in connection with the Laureates’ work to foster student engagement directly with the change-makers
- Continues research collaboration with The Land Institute, Right Livelihood Laureate in 2000, and a member of its Board of Directors
Highlights of Past Activities
- 2024: Collaborative seminar with representatives from Central de Cooperativas de Lara (Cecosesola), Right Livelihood Laureate in 2022
- 2023: Dialogue on human rights education, the environment, and the prevention of violence against children with Marthe Wandou, Right Livelihood Laureate in 2021
- Introduced by Archbishop of Sweden Emerita Antje Jackelen, Marthe Wandou held a keynote about her work on the prevention of violence against children in Cameroon, which was followed by a panel discussion with other human rights experts.
- 2019: Public talk and panel discussion with Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org and Right Livelihood Laureate in 2014, and climate change activist and Swedish labor and transport union representative Ulf Jarnefjord
- The discussions revolved around how we can address environmental problems without undermining the needs of working, marginalized or otherwise disadvantaged groups in society
- 2016: RLC Lund PhD course: Critical Urban Theory: Citizenship, Marginalities, Livelihood Struggles and Innovations in Practice
The University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria has been a member of the Right Livelihood College since 2013 and was the second member on the African continent. RLC Port Harcourt is based at the Faculty of Social Sciences and is co-hosted by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a think-tank and advocacy organisation founded by Right Livelihood Award recipient Nnimmo Bassey. Together, the two hosts connect scholars with changemakers locally and around the world.
Activities of the campus
- Annual public lectures – gathering local and international changemakers to learn from, and engage with, Right Livelihood Laureates
- Meetings with students RLC about ways to engage in the work of local environmental and social movements, connecting the struggles to a globally connected justice movement
The coordinator of the campus, researcher Fidelis Allen, has been active in academia for 30 years focusing on participatory analysis of social, political, environmental and economic issues, particularly in the Niger Delta. He highlights the benefits of working with the RLC in collaboration with HOMEF and other actors from the Right Livelihood community:
“As a scholar, I’ve had opportunities to relate with those who are actively working for social change, and I’ve also been able to relate theory with practice, organizing my teachings and contents of my teachings with empirical knowledge. Derived from my interactions with social movement organizations and activists who are out there, working for social change.”
Fidelis also particularly highlights the value of working with students and the need to acknowledge their role and quests for change in society.
“Many of my students have had to choose the seminar papers and even the PhD research topics from the areas that the college is interested in, the environmental social movement at the local, national and international level. So for me, it has helped to expand the boundaries of knowledge, in terms of what students are willing to pursue, and willing to analyse.”
The work of RLC also goes even further, as its close collaborations with social movements and NGOs also allows for opportunities to influence policymakers. Fidelis asserts that real and meaningful societal change requires research and analysis that connects with the line of the policy community.
“When you are expecting change in the behavior of institutions, policy makers, we have to be able to understand how extensive the policy community is, and also to understand how possible it is for students to be actively involved in the policy community. Having students speaking so powerfully about social issues and the change that society deserves has been something of interest, a lesson, for me. You cannot undermine the role that the students can play in terms of analysis and quest for change in society.”
In the future, the campus hopes to create targeted trainings for student members of the campus to be continuously engaged in the community both during and after they graduate.
Contact
RLC Coordinator Dr. Fidelis Allen
At the first regional conference of Latin American Laureates, held in Colombia in July 2013, RLA laureate (1983) Manfred Max-Neef proposed that the Universidad Austral de Chile become the first Right Livelihood College Campus in Latin America. Manfred Max-Neef has had a long association with the university serving as the Rector and later as the Director of its Economics Institute. In November 2013, the Universidad Austral became the sixth RLC campus and the first in Latin America.
Activities
- Interested students are welcome to apply to the Human Scale on the Economic Development Master’s program which was co-founded by Dr. Fuders.
The current campus coordinator is Prof. Dr. Felix Fuders, who, following Manfred’s footprints, also serves as director of the Economics Institute. He had worked closely together with Manfred Max-Neef until he passed away in 2019.
Based on Manfred Max-Neef’s human scale development approach, Felix designed an endogenous development index that measures development as the subjective perception of the satisfaction of fundamental human needs. Felix was involved in the creation of the master’s program in “Human Scale Development and Ecological Economics” at Universidad Austral de Chile —a program committed to transmitting the teachings of Manfred Max-Neef, especially his human scale development approach— and is a cofounder of the Max-Neef foundation Valdivia.
Dr. Monika Griefahn, Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation and Member of the Right Livelihood College Steering Committee said,
“We are delighted that Universidad Austral De Chile is partnering with us to host the sixth campus of the Right Livelihood College and the very first campus in Latin America. The College will build links between the twenty Latin American Right Livelihood Laureates, and students, academics and wider civil society in Valdivia and Chile. We congratulate the University administration and our Laureate Manfred Max-Neef for engaging in this partnership and wish Universidad Austral every success as the latest RLC campus.”
Contact
Prof. Dr. Felix Fuders
Phone: +56 63 221202
Website: http://rlcollege.uach.cl
The Right Livelihood Centre of the University of Zurich (RLC) acts as a hub between Right Livelihood, the University of Zurich (UZH) and the public. The RLC contributes to teaching, continuing education and public relations to make the Laureates’ knowledge and their practical work accessible. At the same time, the centre helps to transfer academic research in the area of human rights and sustainability into the work of Right Livelihood.
The foundation for the cooperation of Right Livelihood with the University of Zurich is the annual lecture, which took place in 2008 for the first time at the University’s aula. Ever since, a current Laureate holds a public lecture about their work and knowledge in November or December every year. The centre also offers opportunities for students interested in learning through innovative, transdisciplinary teaching formats.
Activities
- Transdisciplinary teaching formats related to the work of Right Livelihood Laureates, open to students from all faculties at the University of Zurich.
- Annual public lectures by Laureates held in Zurich. Registration and information is open to everyone.
Campus coordinator Aline Steinbrecher is a historian who has always been passionate about transdisciplinary issues, and acknowleges the added value of the RLC initiative. Students at RLC Zurich can moderate public lectures, produce podcasts, or create short reels—formats that Aline says are increasingly popular. These projects let students contribute to their own learning while engaging a wider public.
“All our Laureates are just amazing personalities and to meet them in person, to be with them for one evening and even moderate their speeches is really a deep experience. A lot of students tell us this.” Aline says.
She highlights that the exchange goes both ways. When Laureates, researchers, and students reflect together, each side sharpens its work. This collaboration has also expanded transdisciplinary teaching formats, something Aline sees as especially valuable in a university system often operating in divided faculties and disciplines.
Participants consistently leave RLC Zurich events with perspectives they wouldn’t have gained elsewhere. Because all events are public, the center actively bridges academia and activism, bringing together university members, civil society, and the Right Livelihood community.
“All our events are public events. This means this is also the moment where academia, as well as Right Livelihood, is open to a wider interested public. This is one of the university activities with a lot of output in the sense that we reach out to society, and to the whole population of Zurich.” Aline explains.
The dialogue between activism and research continues to shape both sides. A single question from an activist can shift a research direction, while academic insights can strengthen the long term work of Laureates. Collaboration with the School for Transdisciplinary Studies has further broadened these opportunities. Each year, RLC Zurich keep demonstrating the possibilities for transformative change when bringing change-makers together.
Contact
zurichcentre@rightlivelihood.org
Links
Website: https://www.sustainability.uzh.ch/en/community/rlc.html
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