Right Livelihood College
The Right Livelihood College at UC Santa Cruz is a partnership between UC Santa Cruz and the Right Livelihood. Housed at the Institute for Social Transformation, the Right Livelihood College Campus Santa Cruz links faculty and students with ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ winners for research and education about proven solutions to the world’s most pressing global problems.
What is the Right Livelihood Award?
‘The Alternative Nobel Prize’
The Right Livelihood Award (RLA), widely known as ‘the Alternative Nobel Prize’, is given annually to 4 people or organizations who provide practical solutions to the root causes of global problems in human rights and the environment. There are now over 170 Laureates in 70 countries, including Wangari Maathai, Wes Jackson, Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben / 350.org, Amy Goodman, and David Suzuki.
Right Livelihood is based in Stockholm, Sweden with an office in Geneva, Switzerland and has consultative status with the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council.
Right Livelihood College
A global network of scholar-activists dedicated to social transformation
The Right Livelihood College (RLC) was created to link the activism of the RLA Laureates with the research, teaching and service of universities. In 2013, UC Santa Cruz’s Kresge College Common Ground Center become the first RLC campus in North America, joining campuses in Mumbai/India, Bangkok/Thailand, Port Harcourt/Nigeria, Addis Ababa/Ethiopia, Córdoba/Argentina, Valdivia/Chile, Bonn/Germany, and Lund/Sweden. In 2018, UC Santa Cruz’s relationship with Right Livelihood grew, and now the partnership is based at the Institute for Social Transformation while also remaining affiliated with the Kresge College Common Ground Center.
Founding of the Right Livelihood College
Disseminating and strengthening knowledge, wisdom and skills for a positive future
The Right Livelihood College (RLC) is a global capacity building initiative of Right Livelihood and universities. Founded in 2009, the RLC aims to make the knowledge of the Laureates accessible to all and, by linking young academics and civil society organizations with the Laureates, hopes to make their “winning ideas” succeed and multiply. The College operates as a global network of campuses at universities, initiated at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (campus 2009-2014).
- University of California, Santa Cruz – Institute for Social Transformation
- University of Bonn, Germany – Center for Development Research
- University of Lund, Sweden – Sustainability Studies
- University of Austral, Valdivia, Chile – Institute of Economics
- National University of Cordoba, Argentina – Faculty of Psychology
- University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Faculty of Anthropology
- University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria – Faculty of Gender and Conflict Studies
- Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India
- School for Wellbeing Studies & Research, Thailand
Please visit the Right Livelihood College at UC Santa Cruz website to explore more.
