NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group, Aalto University

Sustainability challenges require a restructuring of institutions and organizations in the local, regional and global scale. The NODUS group studies design solutions, business models, bottom up initiatives and governance innovations which hold potential to contribute to sustainability. NODUS utilises and promotes transdisciplinary research and co-creative approaches in knowledge generation. Socio-ecological-technological system transformations, sustainability science, practice theory, participatory and collaborative design, and futures studies are the central concepts for the group. 

NODUS researchers focus on a diversity of empirical contexts including self-organised communities, urban, business, provisional systems such as energy, water, food and transport, and collaborate with a variety of stakeholders such as businesses, non-governmental organisations, policy makers, activists, and local and international academics from other research groups and organisations.

NODUS research group supports sustainability education through the interdisciplinary Creative Sustainability Masters’ programme at Aalto University.