The action education component makes the agroecology program unique

Peter Lewis
Education: MSc Agroecology
Job: Kristiania University College, PhD Fellow

Can you please tell us about your current job?

• Since the beginning of this year, I have worked as a PhD researcher at Kristiania University College in Oslo. My primary responsibility here is to publish three peer-reviewed scientific articles over the course of my 3-year contract. For my first study, I am writing a systematic scoping review of conscientious business, which involves searching databases for academic literature, reading what I find, and synthesizing the main concepts and the state of the field. This will give me a foundation for planning my second and third empirical research studies, so they are contributing to this field of scholarship. With this review article I aim to help others gain a better sense of the key themes and research directions in the field.
  
  The subject of my study, conscientious business, looks at the role of conscience in business, and how businesses can create value for society and the environment while earning profits. For me, this has led to some interesting questions that are relevant to many sectors of the economy, including both food and energy. For example, can businesses earn profits while creating positive change for society and the environment, or are these goals contradictory? Is the purpose of business purely to deliver profits to shareholders, or do businesses have an ethical responsibility to society?
  
  I am planning to design my second and third studies around the energy industry because it is fundamental to addressing climate change, and because of energy’s importance to the Norwegian economy.
  
  Alongside this, I will complete 30 ECTS of coursework and write a Kappa, which is a comprehensive summary that ties together the three articles into a coherent whole. Most of my time is devoted to my research, but I also have other activities as part of my role, like attending conferences and serving on a committee to help develop the Communication and Leadership PhD program at Kristiania. My research is my favorite part of this position because it enables me to learn about a topic that is meaningful to me and that I believe is important for society.
  
  I’m considering career paths in both academia and industry. After completing my PhD, I expect I’ll have some domain expertise in both energy and food which could offer opportunities in these fields, as well as general research experience and skills that could be transferable to an industry role in other sectors. I am also considering a role in academia and am staying open to all possibilities at this point.

How was your journey from high school to the job you have today?

• After high school I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take a bachelor’s in Environmental Studies in Singapore. This experience helped develop my interest in and awareness of environmental issues, especially in food systems and land use. During and after college, I worked in several startups and research roles there in food, where I looked at diversifying our food system with crops like jackfruit and millets and researched the effects of increasing consumption of animal products in developing economies. I saw regenerative agriculture and agroecology as promising approaches to transforming our food system, which motivated me to apply to NMBU’s agroecology program.
  
  I found the action education component of NMBU’s agroecology program to be unique and helpful because it required me and a team of classmates to engage with a farmer implementing regenerative agriculture, and to communicate with the system of stakeholders connected to the farm. I believe this kind of systemic, multi-stakeholder approach is crucial to addressing challenges in our food system and other sectors. Agroecology and Development was also a fantastic course that I would recommend to prospective students.

What is your opinion about the student community at NMBU?

My time at NMBU was during the pandemic, and I was living in Oslo and commuting to Ås, so my experience with the student community at NMBU is probably a bit unusual. Despite this distance from campus, I feel like the student community provided a supportive, engaging environment that greatly enriched my study experience. In my experience the student community at NMBU is passionate about addressing issues in the world, and the diverse, international perspectives students brought to the discussions in and out of the classroom taught me a lot. I also found that the lecturers at NMBU were knowledgeable, dedicated to their fields, and generous with their time and advice.

Do you have any advice for future students?

• Almost all of the steps that I have taken in my education and career thus far were not steps that I anticipated, so my advice to my past self or to future students would be to view the uncertainty of one’s early career as possibility and be open to changing direction as you learn more about the world and yourself. I see many of the challenges or blocks that I faced as redirections towards new opportunities.
  
  I also think that the thesis is a great opportunity to develop transferable project management skills and to explore a topic that one is interested in. My thesis was 60 ECTS, which I think helped me develop the independent research skills that I now utilize in my PhD research. My topic, ecosystem restoration as a social movement, helped me recognize the limitations of voluntary initiatives, and later focus on the role of business and economic incentives, which is the area of my current research.
  
  Researching ecosystem restoration in Spain in my master’s thesis led me to move to Portugal for a year after graduation, where I co-founded a startup for regenerative agriculture, tourism, and housing. Although this business did not ultimately succeed, the experience of applying agroecological principles of systems thinking and diverse stakeholder engagement in an entrepreneurial context was a valuable one which helped prepare me for my current research in conscientious business.
  
  On a more practical note, I think that seeking out internships and having conversations with industry contacts can really help one better understand the opportunities and context outside of academia.