ISP is currently made up of two working areas or groups: the working group on "Sustainability Education and Communication" and the working group on "Psychology and Sustainability".

The working group on "Sustainability Education and Communication" is interdisciplinary and orients its research and educational practice towards the concept of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It is responsible for teaching in the subject of subject-specific education.

The "Psychology and Sustainability" working group conducts research based on central psychological theories and methods and develops these further in a practice-oriented manner, especially in the area of climate and sustainability. This includes how sustainability thinking and action develops over the lifespan, also in institutional and informal learning processes, how risks are understood and communicated by different individuals, how sustainable health promotion can be implemented, and what characteristics distinguish multidimensional negotiations for scarce resources.

The integrative consideration of economic, social, ecological and cultural dimensions of a problem is part of the basic understanding of the concept of sustainable development. It is also the basis for research questions and teaching concepts that are oriented towards this guiding principle. This approach usually requires the integration of different disciplinary perspectives through cooperation between different disciplines.

At ISEP, this happens on the one hand within the institute itself, and on the other hand within the university through its affiliation with the Faculty of Sustainability. ISEP's research and projects are enriched by project-related and longer-term cooperation with national and international scientific partners. Social problems require the expansion of scientific perceptiveness and competences beyond interdisciplinary cooperation. Therefore, research work and teaching projects are usually transdisciplinary, designed as cooperation with practice partners through transdisciplinarily organised research projects, but also through the involvement of students in research projects; through further education; through advice on school programme development/profile development of educational institutions and through regional cooperation as a joint learning and research process.