Sustain.ALL Transformation Hub: New Transdisciplinary Initiative for Sustainable Innovation

A new initiative at Technische Universität Berlin is turning the university campus into a living laboratory for sustainable transformation. The Sustain.ALL Transformation Hub, a newly established transdisciplinary project, brings together research, teaching, and real-world implementation, with the Einstein Center Digital Future as one of its key partners.

Initiated by Bengisu Berispek, Prof. Dr. Andrea Cominola, ECDF Professor of Digital Water Systems at TU Berlin, and Michael Wilmes, the Hub was developed as an academic reform project and operates at the interface of academia, public institutions, startups, and civil society. Further partners include the Berlin University Alliance, Zukunftsorte Berlin, and TU Berlin's Center for Entrepreneurship. 

At the heart of the initiative is a newly launched interdisciplinary module (6 ECTS), open to all students across the Berlin University Alliance. Working in interdisciplinary teams, participants tackle real challenges drawn directly from campus operations and governance, spanning data-driven decision-making, circular systems, infrastructure, participation, and impact measurement. Current challenges for the Summer Semester include data-driven campus sustainability, circular procurement, co-creation spaces, and engagement for a climate-neutral campus, among others. The initiative is structured around eleven innovation clusters, spanning system-level themes such as Climate & Energy, Circular Economy, Water & Land Systems, and Mobility & Smart Cities, as well as human-centered clusters including Education, Culture & Transformation and People, Society & Wellbeing. Cross-cutting enablers — among them AI, Data & Digital Sustainability and Sustainable Finance & Impact Economy — round out the framework.

„Beyond the academic module, we want Sustain.ALL to develop as an open collaboration platform. Through innovation labs, workshops, hackathons, and co-creation formats, we want it to be a place, where students connect with each other as well as with researchers, industry partners, startups, and public institutions“, explain Bengisu Berispek and Andrea Cominola. An ongoing open call invites partners to contribute challenges, expertise, and collaborative projects to this evolving ecosystem.

By embedding real-world challenges directly into teaching and collaborative formats, Sustain.ALL aims to accelerate the translation of knowledge into practice and to position universities as active drivers of sustainable and digital transformation. Students interested in enrolling can access the module via the ISIS course page.