Miki Konishi joined UNU-IAS in April 2020 as Programme Coordinator for the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programme. Prior to joining UNU-IAS, she worked in the private sector, academic institutes and the local government to facilitate partnership and collaboration among multi-stakeholders towards a sustainable society. As a coordinator, she took a leading role to organize numerous conferences, forums, workshops, events and projects in cooperation with local, national and international organizations, including the Stakeholder Meetings of the UNESCO World Conference on ESD in 2014 held in Okayama City, Japan.
She served as a secretariat member of RCE Okayama for 8 years. She greatly contributed to promoting ESD at the local level and improving its visibility and international reputation. The ‘Okayama ESD Project’ won the 2016 UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD. She also served as a focal point of Okayama City for the Global Action Programme (GAP) Key Partner Network and the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities.
During her study at the graduate level in Germany, she conducted a research project on the national framework for the promotion of the UN-DESD and on ESD practices at schools in Germany. After graduation, she did 3-month internship at the German National Commission for UNESCO. During her work at Rikkyo University and Okayama University in Japan she assisted some research projects and wrote publicized articles. As an ESD coordinator of Okayama City, she also conducted field work on ESD practices in Japan, specifically in Okayama, Indonesia and Lao PDR, etc. and presented the findings in various forums including lectures at universities and high schools