Dear All,

After three very enjoyable years as president of the ISCN Board I am pleased to hand over this exciting task to Etienne Marclay from EPFL who I am sure will be an excellent president and who will help to further develop the network with great enthusiasm. Over the past three years ISCN has taken important steps towards reaching its ambitious goal, i.e., to become the global network for sustainable transformation within universities. Much of the achievements have been due to some outstanding people who have put a lot of passion and enormous efforts into building a community that has now taken ownership of the network, which is a prerequisite for being successful in the future. In particular, I would like to thank Victoria Smith as well as Heather Vickery and Bernd Kasemir who have done a marvelous job in running the network and who have made it very easy for me to “play” president of the board. ISCN would also not be where it is today without Melissa Goodall, Heather Henriksen and the whole AC who have made sure that the network has kept its momentum and continues to do so. Thank you all very much! And, last but not least, I thank my colleagues of the ISCN Board for a very pleasant and fruitful collaboration. I am leaving the board with one laughing and one crying eye since being involved in the leadership of this great network has been a real pleasure which I will miss, at least a little bit ……. I wish ISCN all the best for the future and KEEP GOING!

René Schwarzenbach
ISCN outgoing President

Dear ISCN Members,

It is my great pleasure to take over ISCN Presidency as of 1 October 2019 and I would like to thank the Board and the Advisory Committee for this vote of confidence.

First of all I would like to express my warmest and most sincere thanks to René and Bernd for having made ISCN what it is today: an outstanding global network of academic institutions dedicated to working together to shift the world to a more sustainable path.

The ISCN team at EPFL and myself are very much looking forward to working with all of you to further strengthen the network as a global leader and make it an example of transparency, inclusiveness and diversity providing strong value for the ISCN members. I’m very pleased to be able to continue to count on the very important support of Victoria Smith from UBC and the contributions of the AC under the  leadership and strong dedication of Melissa Goodall from Yale, and Heather Henriksen from Harvard.  One of the key instruments to implement these goals is the ISCN strategic plan that has been developed by Victoria through a wide consultation process of ISCN members. The strategic plan will be shared with all of you in the next ISCN newsletter.

We are also very excited to announce the next ISCN conference that will take place at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland from 24-26 June 2020. The conference will focus on Sustainability in Education: Institutional and Student Perspectives. We really encourage you to be an active part of the ISCN community and attend the conference to jointly identify efficient solutions for a more sustainable future.

Etienne Marclay,
ISCN incoming President