Sustainable Futures and Technologies (SFT)
Academic Team Leader: Dr. Dikkir, P.M
Enormous challenges — ranging from habitat fragmentation to dwindling fresh water supplies, declining biodiversity, collapsing fisheries, eroding farmlands, shrinking forests, the frighteningly accelerating greenhouse gases, and a host of related environmental, economic, social, institutional and political challenges — confront humanity today, and will continue to do so in the years to come. If we do not change our current course, if we do not make a radical shift away from our today’s “business as usual mind set,” if we do not begin the hard work of designing and building more sustainable worlds, then, we must be prepared, not in the distant future but in a couple of years from now, to deal with unavoidably intense and extensive societal convulsions.
It is not however too late to make amends. The department of sustainable futures and technologies precisely seeks to prepare and empower students in creating technologically benign, economically sound, environmentally friendly and socially just futures. The department is to that extent then conceptualized as a multidisciplinary research unit focused on promoting integrated research in sustainable technologies, environment, energy and development.
The department shall run post-graduate programs, in collaboration with other academic units of the University. The academic and professional interest of the department shall in particular cover environment and industrial production, agriculture and food security, and public policy and development.