“With just under ten years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, world leaders at the SDG Summit in September 2019 called for a Decade of Action and delivery for sustainable development, and pledged to mobilize financing, enhance national implementation and strengthen institutions to achieve the Goals by the target date of 2030, leaving no one behind. The UN Secretary-General called on all sectors of society to mobilize a decade of action on three levels: global action to secure greater leadership, more resources and smarter solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals; local action embedding the needed transitions in the policies, budgets, institutions and regulatory frameworks of governments, cities and local authorities; and people action, including by youth, civil society, the media, the private sector, unions, academia and other stakeholders, to generate an unstoppable movement pushing for the required transformations.” https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development- agenda/ This PhD programme contributes to academia’s response to this call for action. For this reason, the PhD in Sustainable Development is an interdisciplinary programme presenting "alternative" narratives and paradigms in contrast to the dominant meta narratives across the key areas. The students will be free to collaborate with scholars across the various disciplines on original interdisciplinary research. In so doing, students will help create new fields of inquiry that will have a wide impact in many aspects of daily life. In addition to the skills and competences outlined above, the programme of study is organised to attain the following objectives:

• Enable students to engage in advanced study and high-quality research with scholars in a variety of fields relevant to sustainability;
• Foster original and scholarly research that contributes to these field/s;
• Explore practice, policies, theories and new ideas relating to the field of study;
• Facilitate the integration of students’ professional and educational experience with the larger problems of the professions involved in sustainability; and,
• Acquire theoretical and applied knowledge of contemporary issues and develop a theoretical lens through which to perceive specific issues related to sustainability;
• Systematic analysis of complex systems, as the multi/trans/interdisciplinary nature of action for sustainable development requires a system thinking approach in order to understand drivers in the existing system;
• Identify leverage points for sustainable development. Through this lens, such points may be transcribed into a call for action.

In order to attain these objectives, students following the PhD programme are monitored closely by one or more faculty members and/or experts from related fields of study. To this end, Dilemma Workshops shall be organised wherein papers will be evaluated and students will be required to demonstrate empirical, theoretical, structural and critical capabilities.

Candidates shall possess a Master’s degree (EQF/MQF level 7) in any area deemed relevant by Pegaso International’s Post-Graduate Admissions Board. Candidates should have proficiency in English or Italian language. Candidates applying for this Ph.D. programme are expected to hold basic IT skills and appropriate research skills and competences. Such skills are considered to be a pre-requisite for this Ph.D. programme. Candidates unable to meet the aforementioned requirements are invited to follow separate dedicated courses to gain such skills.

On completion of the PhD programme, students will be aware of the normative aspects of Sustainable Development as a discipline, its methodological cornerstones, and its relation to other social sciences, humanities and the arts. On completion of the PhD programme, students will be able to:

• establish discourse with stakeholders on the leverage points identified to generate sustainability;
• transcribe and disseminate findings through a call for action;
• give clear and accurate presentations, orally as well as scripted, in a style appropriate for purpose;
• construct and make coherent arguments to different audiences, formally and/or informally through a variety of techniques;
• present and defend original research outcomes which extend the forefront of a discipline or relevant area of professional practice;
• justify and defend research results in a constructive way at conferences, workshops, seminars, etc.;
• articulate ideas clearly so as to justify specific research projects to funding authorities;
• promote public awareness and understanding of a specific area or field of research;
• effectively support and direct the learning of others when involved in teaching;
• demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the underlying theories governing the epistemology underpinning sustainability;
• master and synthesize the core methods necessary to systematically analyse complex systems in applying knowledge and understanding and learning skills in the field of sustainable development;
• contribute to the knowledge base governing the epistemology underpinning sustainability through research;
• demonstrate systematic and extensive knowledge of the subject area and expertise in generic and subject/professional skills;
• discover, interpret and communicate new knowledge through original research and/or scholarship of publishable quality which satisfies peer review;
• exhibit judgement skills in the identification of leverage points for sustainable development within and across the relevant fields;
• perform critical analysis and empirical research;
• manifest autonomy and responsibility by taking a proactive and self-reflective role in working and to develop professional relationships with others, where appropriate, in the field of sustainable development;
• independently and proactively formulate ideas and hypotheses and design, develop, implement and execute plans by which to evaluate these; and
• critically and creatively evaluate current issues, research and advanced scholarship in the discipline.