Research Centers on Sustainable Finance

With the founding of the Center of Competence for Sustainable Finance in January 2020, the Department of Finance, its research centers, and partners from other departments and faculties joined forces. The aim of the competence centre is to bring together and effectively implement interdisciplinary research and teaching on sustainability and responsibility in banking and finance. The Department of Finance and the Competence Center thus contribute to the implementation of the UZH mission statement on sustainability and the UZH Sustainability Policy in research and teaching. More information on sustainability at the University of Zurich can be found here.

The Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth is an academic teaching institution at the Department of Finance at the University of Zurich. Established in 2017, CSP is unique in its position at the intersection of research and training, bridging scientists, wealth owners, and investment professionals in order to generate knowledge and to mobilize capital toward impact. CSP’s story begins in 2015 in Boston at the first Impact Investing for the Next Generation training program held at the Harvard Kennedy School. Bold ideas, strong partnerships, and the drive for impact rapidly grew into a university center, CSP, dedicated to finding the answers to the complex question of how to make sustainable finance the default.

The Department of Finance has hosted several centers since the 2008 financial crisis that anchored the topic of sustainability and responsibility in the financial sector in research and teaching:

Center for Financial Networks and Sustainability (active 2016 – 2023)

Center for Responsibility in Finance (active 2011 – 2023)

Center for Microfinance (founded 2009 - today part of CCSF)