Conference : Career guidance and social & ecological transformation – Bratislava, 25/03/2026
25 March 2026 • Pekná cesta 3020, Bratislava, Slovakia
Come rethink guidance for the climate and ecological crisis.
In many current policies and practices, ecological transition in career guidance is mainly approached through the identification of “green jobs”, emerging skills and labour-market adaptation. These perspectives are important, but they do not fully address the questions that people increasingly bring into guidance conversations: What kind of economy are we moving towards? What forms of work really contribute to collective well-being? How can professional choices make sense in a world marked by ecological uncertainty, social inequality and geopolitical turmoil? This final conference of Exploring Green Guidance will help us to explore these questions, and reflect on how career guidance could modestly contribute not only adaptation, but also to meaning, responsibility, imagination and societal transformation. It will draw on concrete experience from practitioners across Europe who have tested and implemented green guidance in their everyday work.
Organizer: The Slovak Association for Career Guidance and Career Development with partners of the Erasmus+ project “Exploring Green Guidance”
SPEAKERS AND FACILITATORS
Richard Sťahel (SK)
Associate professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences (Bratislava). Sťahel’s work digs deep into environmental political philosophy, Anthropocene critique, and ecological democracy — showing how evolutionary political theory must respond to planetary instability and ecological justice.
Miriam Dimsits (DK)
An experienced career guidance professional, researcher and Associate Professor VIA University College. Miriam has been advancing the idea of environmentally sustainable career guidance and supports practitioners to integrate sustainability competence into everyday career work.
Tristram Hooley (UK)
Professor of Career Education (University of Derby) and internationally known career guidance researcher. He leads work on how guidance systems shape life chances, intersect with policy, and must take social justice seriously, including in the face of climate-shaped labour markets.
Mariana Sofia Lucas Casanova (PT)
Psychologist with two decades of experience across clinical, educational and vocational psychology, now a postdoctoral researcher in career development at Porto Polytechnic (Portugal). She leads research combining psychological empowerment with sustainable career guidance.
Eva Kavková (CZ)
Practitioner-researcher active in the European Green Guidance project, working across Czech contexts to help define and test pedagogic tools for sustainable career guidance. She collaborates internationally with this network of guidance innovators.
Ingrid Bårdsdatter Bakke (NO)
Associate Professor and researcher in career guidance at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, where she works at the intersection of career development, organizational psychology and educational research. Her work spans career counselling theory, professionalization of guidance practice and the implementation of sustainable and integrated approaches to guidance.
Preliminary Program
Morning
9h30 – Welcome and opening by Martin Martinkovič (president of the Slovak Association for Career Guidance and Career Development, ZKPRK)
10h00 – Keynote 1: Ecological transition as social transition – Richard Sťahel
10h30 – Keynote 2: The 5 Dimensions of Environmentally Sustainable Career Guidance – Miriam Dimsits
11h00 – Project Presentation – Eva Kavková and the Exploring Green Guidance team
11h30 – Stories and testimonials of our ambassadors.
12h30 – Lunch (onsite catering)
Afternoon
13h30 – Interactive World Café and workshops for practitioners
A) Guidance, climate & ethics (facilitated with inputs by Mariana Casanova)
B) Opening the conversation in practice (facilitated with inputs by Ingrid Bårdsdatter Bakke)
C) Toolbox demo & ambassador stories
15h00 – Impact of green guidance and how to move forward – Tristram Hooley
16h00 – Closing & Takeaways
Travel
We invite you to consider using green travel options, such as trains, buses, or carpooling. These alternatives not only lower your personal carbon footprint but also demonstrate that sustainable mobility is both possible and practical. Choosing such options can inspire others and nurture a culture of more conscious travel within our community.
At the same time, we are mindful that individual choices alone cannot resolve the climate crisis. Systemic change (transforming infrastructures, policies, and industries) is essential for achieving the scale of transformation required. Encouraging sustainable travel in our training is not about shifting responsibility away from governments or institutions, but about connecting our daily practices with broader global goals. By making thoughtful choices where possible, we try to contribute to a movement that demands and legitimises deeper structural changes.
Registration
The conference is co-funded by the European union and is free of charge.
If you come by unsustainable travel means (plane, individual car) while a realistic alternative is available (= it is possible to access Bratislava in less than 12 hours by sustainable means of transportation), you will be invited by the organizers to make a donation for environmental cause of your choice.
Please register here (limited capacity): https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/LUTUgMAeNW