#18 10/2026
Dana Kapitulčinová
Sustainability Manager at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem
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"I see a big role for the university – bringing not only knowledge, but also the competences and skills for what actually needs to happen. That's a big task, because it requires people to think differently and to accept that what worked before is no longer possible if we want to live sustainably." |
Antje Disterheft (AD) Dana, thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this conversation. You are the sustainability manager at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (UJEP), which recently became a member of the COPERNICUS Alliance. Please tell us a bit about the university and about your focus as the sustainability manager!
Dana Kapitulčinová (DK) Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem is a relatively young university – we have just celebrated 35 years since its establishment. It started as a pedagogical institute and became a university in 1991, two years after the fall of the communist regime, which was quite a big thing for our city. So it's young and, I would say, quite dynamic.
Today we have eight faculties, about 9,000 students and around 1,000 employees. We are the only university based in the northwest of Bohemia, so we play an important role in the region for young people who want to study. The range of topics is very wide. The biggest faculty is the Faculty of Education, which trains new teachers. We also have the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Environment, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Art and Design, the Faculty of Health Studies – for nurses and other health professions – and, last but not least, the Faculty of Social and Economic Studies.
It's also important to know that the university is based in a region with surface brown coal mining. The region is going through a transformation, and there are many ecological and social issues to tackle: land reclamation, changing jobs, and so on.
My position is part of a big project the university received from the EU-funded Just Transition operational programme. The project is called RUR – Region for the University, University for the Region – and it really invests in people: in education and in collaboration with schools and various stakeholders in the region. One of its key activities is developing the university as a showcase of what can be done in sustainability, as an example for other institutions in the region.
As part of that, the position of the sustainability manager was created two years ago; it didn't exist before. It is based in the Rectorate and my direct boss is the Rector, so it's quite highly positioned. We meet regularly to discuss progress and where we are heading.
AD You mentioned the Sustainability Strategy that you are developing. Can you tell us more about the process and the ‘hot topics’ you want the strategy to address?
DK The project also committed the university to creating a sustainability strategy with action plans, and internal rules for how the university should put sustainability into practice. We work with the ESG model used in business – environmental, social, governance – and the strategy is built around it.
I spent my first year trying to understand what was already happening. There are many good examples across the faculties, but they had never been captured centrally. So part of my role is to map what is there, connect people, communicate, and make sure we progress towards the goals we have set ourselves.
For the strategy itself, we held five internal workshops on the areas where universities are active: education, research, operations, university development, and outreach and engagement. Over 90 people from the university took part (more in CA article). In April we also ran a sustainability questionnaire among students, staff and some external people, which received over 500 responses. We based the strategy on the workshops, the questionnaire, the mapping I did with coordinators from each faculty, ESG requirements, and good practice at other universities in Czechia and abroad. That showed us our strengths, and also the weaknesses where we need to move forward.
The key topics follow the ESG structure, but we start with governance, because we think it is the basis for everything else:
- Governance: Embedding sustainability in the university's processes and operations, with the right people involved, and securing the finances to continue after the project ends in 2027. Green public procurement also belongs here.
- Environment: First, measuring our environmental impact, which the university has never done – including our carbon footprint according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and other international standards. Second, our green and public spaces. Our campus stands on the site of a former hospital, with a mix of old, renovated and new buildings, green spaces and many old trees. We want to make it resilient to the climate extremes we may face in the future.
- Social: Education for sustainability – building understanding, knowledge and competences at the university and in the wider region – and equal opportunities for women and men, people with disabilities and others, so that everyone has equal rights at the university.
We are now finalising the first version. It's a long process, but we believe it's important to make it as participatory as possible. In the coming weeks we will consult the text with all eight faculties, and the strategy should be finished by the end of this year. Then we will move to implementation – which in some areas has already started.
Another part of my role is educational activities on campus that get people involved and informed. In October, for example, we joined the European Sustainable Development Week, timing our activities with the start of the new semester. We want people to understand what sustainability is about: people at the centre, and the environmental, social and economic dimensions working together.
AD You have been working on sustainability in higher education for over a decade. What changes have you noticed in recent years – in the Czech Republic, in your region, and beyond? And how does your strategy respond to the region's challenges?
DK It's difficult for me to compare the last five or ten years directly, because I recently moved from Prague back to my hometown, Ústí nad Labem, where the university is based.
Prague is a very international capital of about one million people, and there I saw a lot of interest in sustainability among young people – not all of them, but a large share. During the climate strikes, students got involved and showed that they wanted their university, Charles University, to take action. Over the past five years I saw big changes there: the university leadership prepared a sustainability strategy and started to tackle the issue systematically.
Ústí nad Labem is a regional centre of about 90,000 people – not that big and not that international. As I mentioned, the population is getting old, and many people have to change their lives because of changes in employment and the closing of surface mines in the region. People also tend to leave: Prague is only about an hour away, and jobs there are better paid.
So I'm getting used to seeing less enthusiasm for sustainability among students here. Our events are not as well attended as similar ones I organised in Prague. That would probably be the same anywhere when you compare a capital with a smaller regional city. But what makes me happy is that the university leadership and many academics do take part and are interested. And I see that young people don't just want to talk – watching a film and discussing it is no longer enough for them. They want a concrete topic to work on, and then things can change.
A very recent example: the city has just had municipal elections, and among the new city leadership there are people who are very interested in sustainability. They were very concrete about what could change in the city, focusing on public spaces, participation and other common principles of sustainability. I have big hopes that this will also deepen the collaboration between the city and the university, which so far has not been as strong as it could be.
I see a big role for the university in educating people in this region – bringing not only knowledge, which is not enough on its own, but also the competences and skills for what actually needs to happen. That's a big task, because it requires people to think differently and to accept that what worked before is no longer possible if we want to live sustainably. I think this is the most difficult thing to overcome. People tend to like what they have lived through; it worked for them and they lived quite comfortably. It's hard to imagine that we could live even better – that doing a little less of something might bring us more elsewhere, like more time with friends and better well-being.
AD If you had a magic wand, what would be the first thing in your field you'd change?
DK I would make people trust scientific facts, because that would make our lives so much easier. I'm not saying we can't have different opinions on the solutions. But if we all started from the same basis – if we all trusted the data we already have on climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice as relevant and trustworthy information – then we could have a meaningful discussion about what we could do together, and about the options we have. Then we can argue about what would be good to do and what wouldn't, because that's the future, and nobody can know what will happen. But when we are still discussing whether humanity causes climate change, the conversation gets much more difficult.
Since I don't have a magic wand, I try to focus on working with people who trust scientific facts and take them seriously – people who don't close their eyes to the big challenges we face, but look them in the eye and say: "OK, what can we do to make things a little better in the future for the people around us?"
‘Think global, act local’ may sound like a cliché after so many years. But now that I've moved back to the region, I really think it's the key: to be kind and respectful to the people around us, to look at what needs they have and to try to address them, so that everyone – elderly people, working parents, children – has a good life ahead. That is my wish: After more than 20 years away, I have moved back to my hometown, and I hope I can use the knowledge, experience and skills I gained abroad and in Prague in a regional context. Because I love it here.
AD Thank you so much, Dana, for taking the time to share all of this with us. It was a real pleasure to exchange with you and to get a better glimpse of what you are tackling at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University. We wish you and your colleagues every success with the new sustainability strategy, and we look forward to continuing the conversation within the COPERNICUS Alliance community!
Contact Dana Kapitulčinová:
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