Increase your impact as a researcher without burning out

Why This Course?

Researchers and research-related professionals around the world are working from a deep commitment to contribute not only to knowledge production, but to results that address the global polycrisis.

Despite this commitment and the enormous time spent on research-related activities, many of us feel that we are not realizing our full potential for impact. Embedded in an academic system and culture that promotes competition, elitism, hierarchy, and overwork, it’s easy to experience a sense of overwhelm, insignificance, and potential burnout.

At the same time, addressing complex challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality, and sustainability transformations requires more than technical expertise. These challenges call for new ways of working that connect research, collaboration, leadership, and action across disciplines, sectors, and scales.

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Course Overview

This 10-week online course supports researchers, research-related professionals, and practitioners who are interested in linking knowledge and action in a transformative way.

Participants will be introduced to an innovative “framework for action” and tools based on Dr. Monica Sharma’s Radical Transformational Leadership: Strategic Action for Change Agents and approaches to connect research and action based on Karen O’Brien’s work, including You Matter More Than You Think: Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World.

Through presentations, practical exercises, dialogues, reflection, and coaching, participants will strengthen their capacity to design for impact, navigate complexity, and contribute to meaningful transformations in research, organizations, and society and promote individual and collective well-being.

Participants are encouraged to bring a current research project, initiative, or challenge to work on throughout the course, allowing them to apply their learning directly in their research context from day one.

Course Facilitators

The course will be facilitated by Professor Emerita Karen O’Brien, together with a team of cCHANGE practitioner coaches with experience in transformative design and leadership.

Karen O’Brien is an internationally recognized expert on the human and social dimensions of climate change and transformations to sustainability. She has contributed to four IPCC reports and was a co-chair of the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment. She has received wide recognition for her work, and was a co-recipient of the BBVA Foundations Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Climate Change in 2021.

What You Will Gain

By participating in this course, you will:

• Learn an innovative “framework for action” and more than a dozen tools

• Strengthen your capacity to design for impact, navigate complexity, and contribute to meaningful transformations in research, organizations, and society

• Apply your learning directly to your own research project, initiative, or challenge throughout the course

• Cultivate authentic and courageous leadership rooted in your values

• Practices that will help you manage stress

• Build powerful communication skills that support transformative processes

• Reflect on your role as a researcher, research-related professional, or practitioner in times of rapid global change

• Join a caring and inspiring community of like-minded people committed to research with impact

Open for applications

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Practical Information

Duration

• 10 weeks
• 2.5 hours per week
• Total: 25 hours

Schedule

• Wednesdays, 16:00–18:30 Central European Time
• Starts: Wednesday, September 9, 2026
• Ends: Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Format

• Online (Zoom)
• Open to participants worldwide
• Interactive sessions combining presentations, dialogue, and reflection with practical exercises and application

Your financial investment

The course fee is NOK 18,900. An early-bird rate of NOK 15,900 is available until 10 July. To support diversity across age groups, backgrounds, disciplines, and sectors, we offer a limited number of student places at NOK 3,000, as well as a small number of stipends for participants who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial constraints.

Who Should Attend?

Researchers, research-related professionals, and practitioners interested in linking knowledge and action in a transformative way and contributing to transformative impacts for people and the planet.

The course is particularly relevant for those who want to strengthen the societal impact of their work, develop transformative leadership capacities, and strengthening collaborative power.

Ready to sign up?

Apply now