October, 2025, at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden offers this PhD (3rd Cycle) Course in collaboration with the Hanken School of Economics, Finland and the Technical University of Denmark DTU, Denmark.
Course Dates: 6th to 10th October 2025 (5 full days)
Venue: face-to-face on-site participation at a venue organized at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Course overview
The PhD course FME3550 “Sustainable Energy Transitions – Technology and Management Perspectives” is an interdisciplinary course package that offers doctoral students a training in energy innovation and technology management as well as sustainable business perspectives. The course deals with the challenges and opportunities that drive transformations of energy systems and energy-related industries. This includes discussing the relevance of global challenges like climate change and sustainable development and analysing how they contribute to transformations of energy systems and energy-related industries, including technical perspectives, sustainability transition perspectives and finance and management perspectives. This will provide an interdisciplinary and holistic perspective to analysing complex energy system transition dynamics to achieve decarbonisation, climate change mitigation and sustainability. In addition to these subjects, there will be practical training provided on research methods by experienced scholars in the energy transitions and sustainability field. The PhD course will start with technical and engineering knowledge for energy systems, then move towards sustainability transitions and end with sustainable business and management perspectives.
The course targets PhD candidates with interest and documented fundamental knowledge in one or several aspects of sustainable energy transitions.
The intended learning outcomes of the course are to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of energy systems today, integrated with energy storage and renewable energy.
- Demonstrate the ability to assess sustainability of energy systems and energy-related industries from both technology and management perspectives.
- Demonstrate understanding of holistic appraisals of sustainability transitions of energy systems and energy-related industries.
The course brings together well-respected lecturers from industrial economics and management, energy engineering and sustainability accounting at the Royal Institute of Technology KTH in Sweden, Hanken School of Economics in Finland and the Danish Technical University DTU.
There will be pre-reading of journal articles and other publications required before the course starts. These tasks also count for part of the efforts embedded in the course ECTS, which will also be evaluated at the face-to-face part of the course. Students are expected to come prepared to the course by referring to these literature. Lecture attendance and active participation in the seminars is required to pass the course. The 4 000 word paper also needs to be completed to pass the course.
Enrolment guideline & course timeline
• Call for the PhD course enrollment: Opening in mid-May 2025
• Last day to register: 30 June 2025
• Course dates: 6th to 10th October 2025
• PhD Course duration: 5 full days
• Final course assignment submission deadline: 07 November 2025 19:00 CET
• Grading completed: 05 December 2025 (four weeks after course assignment submission)
Course Location and Schedule
The course FME3550 is offered face-to-face on-site at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden. The specific venue and address at KTH, as well as the reading list, will be announced along with the admittance announcement after the course registration finishes.
The course FME3550 runs for five full days within 6th to 10th October 2025. The content composition is as follows during these five days:
• 6th & 7th October 2025 (Day 1 and Day 2):
o Part 1: Technology perspectives for renewable energy technology and energy storage.
o Part 2: Method: integrated energy and climate assessment modelling.
Responsible institute: Energy Technology (EGI), KTH, Sweden and DTU, Denmark
• 6th October 2025 (Day 1): Course kick-off dinner for all participants.
• 8th & 9th October 2025 (Day 3 & Day 4):
o Part 1: Socio-technical transitions and innovation management for sustainable energy transitions.
o Part 2: Method: Qualitative research methods, including interviews, surveys and business model analysis.
Responsible institute: Industrial Engineering and Management (INDEK), KTH, Sweden
• 10th October 2025 (Day 5):
o Financial markets and sustainability reporting to address climate change, energy transitions and sustainability. Methods: Sustainability reporting and environmental accounting
Responsible institute: Department of Accounting, Hanken School of Economics (HANKEN), Finland
• Course final assignment submission: 07 November 2025 19:00 CET
Course faculty
Course Co-Examiners and Co-Responsibles:
- Frauke Urban, Professor, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Industrial Economics and Management. (Email: frauke.urban@indek.kth.se)
- Saman Nimali Gunasekara, Assistant Professor, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Energy Technology. (Email: saman.gunasekara@energy.kth.se)
Teachers:
- Hanna Silvola, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, Hanken School of Economics, Finland
- Gerald Englmair, Associate Professor, DTU Danish Technical University, Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Denmark
- Adam Uhrdin, Researcher, KTH, Department of Industrial Economics and Management
- Francesco Gardumi, Researcher, Docent, KTH, Department of Energy Technology
- Saman Nimali Gunasekara, Assistant Professor, KTH, Department of Energy Technology
- Frauke Urban, Professor, KTH, Department of Industrial Economics and Management
Application
The course is free of charge, and is designed for 20 PhD candidates in total (NFF member universities are prioritized). Travel costs should be covered by the PhD students themselves.
The course participants will be selected based on a motivation statement outlining their interest in the subject, previous knowledge and their merits (e.g. educational certificates).
Apply for the course latest by 30th June 2025, to ensure your admittance chances to be enrolled for course this autumn. Course registration will be made available through KTH web.
Read more about the course in the course web at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
