World’s biggest climate innovation summer school comes to Trinity

Posted on: 14 August 2017

Journey, the world’s biggest climate innovation summer school, comes to Trinity College Dublin this week. The EU-funded climate innovation summer school is run by Climate-KIC, Europe’s largest climate innovation agency.

The 2017 Journey programme enables over 320 students and professionals from all over the world to travel to some of the best universities in Europe. For the first time, Trinity will host 40 Journey students for 11 days.

More than 240 climate-positive business ideas have been generated by over 1,200 Journey participants since 2010, with an increasing number of students successfully continuing on to Climate-KIC’s pre-incubation, accelerator and other start-up programmes.

The 40 students hosted by Trinity started their Journey in Paris at L’Ecole Polytechnique and Universite Pierre and Marie Curie. They will spend their final week at Riga Technical University in Latvia, where they will take part in a pitch competition to present a climate-positive business idea, which they will have developed during their time here.

The Journey 2017 participants interact with researchers, start-ups, government officials and large corporations, get up-to-date briefings on the latest climate change science and policy, and learn about cutting-edge adaptation and mitigation technologies and solutions.

The Dublin Journey

Trinity College Dublin has set up a series of expert lectures, workshops and innovation field-visits. Students will have the opportunity to learn from one of the most influential proponents of climate justice and former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, when she kicks off the programme with an opening lecture.

While in Dublin students will learn about: innovative solutions in sustainable finance (Dublin is emerging as a global hotspot in this sector); sustainable land use; smart cities; circular economy; the cluster approach to innovation; waste management; advanced design thinking.

To prepare for the pitch competition in their final week, participants will also take part in venture creation workshops and pitch training while they are in Dublin, and learn to work in multidisciplinary and international teams to ideate and deliver a climate-related business plan.

Students will participate in workshops with Iain Stewart, Professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth. Professor Stewart is a presenter of science programmes for the BBC — notably the BAFTA nominated Earth: The Power of the Planet. He will also give an opening speech at an ice-breaker event in the Science Gallery on Monday August 14th, 6-8 pm.

Students will also participate in a Dublin Bay Biodiversity cruise and walking tours of Dublin to learn about local solutions in smart cities, sustainable transport, and sustainable food. 

Sustainable Nation is the local Climate-KIC partner for The Journey at Trinity College Dublin. Created through a 2015 merger of Ireland’s Green International Financial Services Centre (Green IFSC) and The Green Way, Sustainable Nation is leading the cleantech cluster in Ireland’s capital city. Through their collaboration with Climate-KIC UK & Ireland they are stimulating greater investment into smart innovations, new enterprises and sustainable business practices.

You can follow all Climate-KIC Journey news across Europe, including that relating to the pitch competitions for all 320 participants by keeping an eye on #climatejourney17 on Twitter.