On 17, 18 and 19 September 2025, the Bogotá campus of the National University of Colombia (UNAL) hosted the closing event of the Doctoral Studies Support Programme (DSSP) and the Alliance of Graduate Schools on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-GS) of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The event brought together around 120 attendees, including researchers, students, professors, programme beneficiaries and international partners. The academic programme included the dissemination of the main results of the DSSP, as well as the progress made by the graduate schools that make up the international alliance of the DAAD, and featured discussions with researchers from Germany, Peru, Niger, Vietnam and Ethiopia. Representatives from the German Embassy in Colombia and the DAAD regional office in Bogotá also attended the event.
The thematic round tables at the closing event contributed to reflection on topics such as transdisciplinarity and the co-production of knowledge, South-South-North cooperation, social inequalities, environmental peace in Colombia, good practices in projects led by the DAAD, and the use of new technologies to raise the profile of knowledge (in this case, with a presentation on the Environmental Information System and the Environmental Conflict Observatory, two IDEA projects supported by the DSSP).
Considering that 2025 was the closing year for the DAAD SDG-GS Alliance, after eight years of work, key discussions were held on the future of the programmes developed and on the next steps for international cooperation, which are essential for continuing to strengthen the links between researchers from the different universities that participated in the event.
Seeds for the future – dialogue between SDG Graduate Schools
Participation and complementary activities
The event was attended by nearly 120 participants, including 42 DSSP beneficiaries, 29 international participants, 15 guests from the DAAD in Colombia, and 20 IDEA members. In addition to the in-person format, the meeting was broadcast online on IDEA’s YouTube channel. To complement the academic agenda, field activities were organised, including a tour of the National University of Colombia focusing on its history and its relationship with the internal conflict, a visit to the Casa de la Paz (House of Peace) — a productive project run by signatories to the Final Agreement — and an outing to the Cruz Verde / Laguna El Verjón moorland.
The participation of DSSP beneficiaries was central to the event, as attendees, panellists, organisers, and moderators of various spaces. In a roundtable discussion on 19 September, they also discussed the contributions of their research to the DSSP’s research agenda and the lines of work they plan to pursue in the future.
Among the main contributions, innovative approaches to the relationship between conflict and the environment, peacebuilding based on local and indigenous knowledge, rural development models, access to land, and transdisciplinarity were highlighted. Likewise, challenges remaining to be investigated were identified in the areas of governance, public policy advocacy, coordination with non-academic actors, and strengthening cooperation networks at the local, institutional, and international levels.
The concluding panel of the beneficiaries’ activity highlighted the importance of recognising the complementarity between academic and community knowledge, and the commitment that research supported by the DSSP will continue to contribute to the formulation of public policies and the search for new paths of transformation in the face of current environmental problems.
* Photo credits: Felipe Giraldo