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Towards an orientation of higher education in the post Rio+20 process: How is the game changing?
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the implications of sustainable development for the future orientation of higher education, especially after the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20). A qualitative trend analysis is being used for this purpose, in the context of which three macro trends are combined: 1) higher education that has been developed via five periods; 2) sustainable development that has evolved through three stages; and 3) the nexus between sustainable development and higher education which has strengthened through three phases. The simultaneous analysis of the macro trends regarding their possible interactive effects (through an expert panel discussion) demonstrates that higher education and universities under the influence of sustainable development elements are entering into a new era in which the function of “higher education for sustainable development” could be interpreted as the seeds of a newly emerging mission for universities. In this regard, it is expected that the concept of “sustainable university” is likely to become more common to meet the emerging mission. Consistent with the Rio + 20 outcomes, the authors analyzed the concept of “sustainable university” and identified the fact that it is practically divided into three interrelated and complementary categories, namely social-, environmental-, and economic-oriented university in pursuit of actualizing sustainable development.
... The SDGs are complex real-world problems, and chemistry has the potential to play an important role in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary solutions to these challenges, thereby improving the lives of millions of people across the world. 104,125,126 Table 3 displays the potential involvement of chemistry at the interface of other disciplines in solutions to address the SDGs. ...
... As highlighted above, individuals capable of working in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teams are needed to address real-world problems in all economic sectors (Table 3), helping to deliver the UN SDGs. 104,125,126 MITT offers individuals the opportunity to develop a range of skills necessary to work in such teams, including both hard skills (such as computer, instrumentation, operational skills; management skills; reporting and writing skills; monodisciplinary/intradisciplinary analytical and problem solving skills) and soft skills (cognitive flexibility and adaptability, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, curiosity, emotional intelligence, empathy, leadership, teamwork, time management), all of which are recognized and valued by industry. Those with MITT experience are wellpositioned for higher-skilled roles as one who has a more comprehensive perspective is more likely to efficiently identify and prioritize existing and future problems (however, extrapolation of this conclusion is not possible for all countries, due to the complexity of job markets). ...
... 166,167 From an administrative perspective, good teaching practice necessitates an effective mechanism for timetabling of synchronous and asynchronous elements of teaching in a face-to-face or online environment, often employing a course management system and online learning platform such as Moodle (popular because it is free and open source, thereby supporting UN SDG 4). 104,125,126 This requires staff training for academic and nonacademic/ support staff across the institution to ensure high-quality teaching and subsequently achieve positive student outcomes and feedback. 160 Moreover, assessment of an individual university's contribution to the UN SDGs based on metrics associated with research, outreach, and stewardship and compiled within the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings is available. ...
For some professionally, vocationally, or technically oriented careers, curricula delivered in higher education establishments may focus on teaching material related to a single discipline. By contrast, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teaching (MITT) results in improved affective and cognitive learning and critical thinking, offering learners/students the opportunity to obtain a broad general knowledge base. Chemistry is a discipline that sits at the interface of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) subjects (and those aligned with or informed by STEMM subjects). This article discusses the significant potential of inclusion of chemistry in MITT activities in higher education and the real-world importance in personal, organizational, national, and global contexts. It outlines the development and implementation challenges attributed to legacy higher education infrastructures (that call for creative visionary leadership with strong and supportive management and administrative functions), and curriculum design that ensures inclusivity and collaboration and is pitched and balanced appropriately. It concludes with future possibilities, notably highlighting that chemistry, as a discipline, underpins industries that have multibillion dollar turnovers and employ millions of people across the world.
... Due to the awakening calls for sustainability and the challenges posted by the global dynamics necessitated HEIs to shift and become more transformative. Furthermore, HEIs were offered to adapt the Higher Education Sustainability Act and the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) in 2005-2015 [2]. The UN DESD (2005 to 2015) provides a major opportunity for HEIs worldwide to address sustainability at local, national, regional and global levels [3]. ...
... In view of that, HEIs should demonstrate a transformative role in fostering the society and finding durable solutions for sustainability challenges [2]. In Somaliland context, all endeavors of SDGs are tailored to the National Education Plan into some extent but are not planned and coordinated in a contextual approach but are rather circumstantial interventions. ...
... These four provisions are becoming fundamental core functions of HEIs, yet in Somaliland context, education remained to be only transmissive, though the quality and relevance of education programs is questionable. Similarly, Graz declaration in 2005 concluded and emphasized that university should confront the challenges and opportunities of sustainability through; (1) teaching and learning,(2) Research and Development and (3) internal and external social responsibilities. ...
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a global initiative towards transforming education for sustainability. The integration of SD into the education portfolio is considered to be an important approach that ensures strategic alignment of higher education with SDGs. A document review was used to identify and discuss the difference between transmissive and transformative education in relation to SDGs and in the context of Somali education. In this trajectory, it is expected that the concept of ‘‘transformative education is likely to become more common to meet the emerging social, economic and environmental issues, yet practical challenges remain in Somaliland HE sector. The roadmap towards addressing transformative education for sustainability is not included in the Somaliland national portfolios; particularly ESD has not been presented. In this regard, this paper proposed a generic framework that spotlights the integration of HEIs and the national development goals (NDGs) in Somaliland. Meanwhile, developed and developing countries are prioritizing structural transformation in their HEIs that are tailored to national and regional development programs. Consistent with the Rio + 20 outcomes, the authors analyzed the concept of the ‘‘sustainable university’’ and identified the fact that it is practically divided into three interrelated and complementary categories, namely social-, environmental-, and economic-oriented university in pursuit of actualizing SD. The paper recommends major reforms in the education sector including availing investment portfolios for R&D, renovation of education goals and transforming universities for sustainability
... Trencher, Yarime, McCormick, Doll, & Kraines, 2014). This dichotomy gives rise to an emerging contemporary ambition for universities to now aspire, beyond the 'third mission' of ascendant economic wellbeing, to include the co-creation of environmental sustainability, throughout the academy's societal matrix (A Beynaghi et al., 2014;Karatzoglou, 2013;G. Trencher et al., 2014) Despite of considerable uptake and progress, education for sustainable development (ESD) is still asserted as remaining a key global imperative (Filho, Manolas, & Pace, 2015;Karatzoglou, 2013;G. ...
... The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD 2005(UNDESD -2014, outlined the critical role for higher education and encourages proliferation, innovation and optimisation of ESD initiatives (Filho et al., 2015;Littledyke, Manolas, & Littledyke, 2013). Affirmation for the continuing pursuit of global sustainable development can be recognised in the (re)setting of, the high level Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the United Nations and also in, the plethora of ongoing and evolving activity within Higher Education Institutions (HEI), which seeks to continue to progress the aspirations of the UNDESD in the subsequent 2015-24 time period (A Beynaghi et al., 2014;A Beynaghi et al., 2016). Various, related declarations (i.e. ...
... As was highlighted in the thematic spectrum of the 'Future we Want', Rio+20 outcome document and follow-on processes, sustainable development encompasses a range of interrelated work areas across social (and cultural), environmental and economic foci (A Beynaghi et al., 2014;A Beynaghi et al., 2016;Filho et al., 2015;United Nations, 2012). In respect of this paper, points of linkage can be recognised as: sustainable human settlements / cites, sanitation / chemicals / waste, as well as, the construct of built and natural spaces functioning as a 'living laboratory' for learning about sustainability and co-creating and trialling responsive technologies (A Beynaghi et al., 2016;Nevens, Frantzeskaki, Gorissen, & Loorbach, 2013). ...
Waste, is one of the most challenging and complex problems confronting human communities today. Studies indicate that significant improvement in global waste management systems is needed in order to avert a worsening public and environmental health emergency. The global zero waste movement exists within the spectrum of contemporary reaction and response to the growing sense of crisis and urgency around waste issues. The theory of zero waste reconceptualises, waste as a resource, which must be conserved, used efficiently and cycled back into the economic system. Zero waste seeks to assertively redirect the focus of society’s innovation, investment, education, R&D and government, business and community policies and programs away from value destroying ‘burn-bury’ disposal practices. In this sense, zero waste is strategically controversial in challenging society’s dysfunctional and wasteful status quo, as well as the vested interests, which promulgate and profit from this. The international zero waste movement demonstrates alternative approaches, which have a positive track-record of cost effectively addressing waste issues and supporting the innovation required to transition towards a circular economy and more sustainable forms of development. Emerging case studies from within industry, community and city contexts, demonstrate that zero waste approaches are framed in a continuum of learning and evolution and can be successful, scientific, measurable, a good economic investment, socially and culturally beneficial and democratically popular. However, it is also recognised that these positive indicators, are just the precursor of the level of transformational leadership and innovation, which is required in future across spheres such as: policy, programme, technology, education, research and product design, in order to realise the future zero waste city concept. Recognising the phenomenon and positive challenge of zero waste, a cluster of universities/organisations are seeking to catalyse a nexus for international zero waste academic collaboration (NIZAC). The core objective of NZIAC is to facilitate education and research to drive progress towards future zero waste cities, which are critical to realising the concept of a circular global economy and to addressing the interrelated challenges of climate change and sustainable development. A key strand in the discussion and experience informing the development of the NZIAC, is the opportunity of ‘living labs’ research theory and practice to support the co-generation of innovation in a ‘university and host city—community’ context. This paper seeks to provide an overview of relevant research theory, the background experience of project partners, the formative consultation and collaboration process and outcomes to date in exploring the proposed ‘nexus for international zero waste academic collaboration’ (NIZAC).
... Accordingly, universities are indicated to be entering a new phase after a time of adopting new views and approaches (Beynaghi et al., 2016). In a subsequent study, Beynaghi et al. (2014) put forth three scenarios for the future role of universities during a second decade (2015-2024) after the DESD (Beynaghi et al., 2014). One scenario depicted the emergence of "environmentally-oriented universities" in which universities are devoted to the pursuit of environmental sustainability by putting forth tools and strategies to address such issues as waste and pollution, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture, among related issues (Beynaghi et al., 2014). ...
... Accordingly, universities are indicated to be entering a new phase after a time of adopting new views and approaches (Beynaghi et al., 2016). In a subsequent study, Beynaghi et al. (2014) put forth three scenarios for the future role of universities during a second decade (2015-2024) after the DESD (Beynaghi et al., 2014). One scenario depicted the emergence of "environmentally-oriented universities" in which universities are devoted to the pursuit of environmental sustainability by putting forth tools and strategies to address such issues as waste and pollution, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture, among related issues (Beynaghi et al., 2014). ...
... In a subsequent study, Beynaghi et al. (2014) put forth three scenarios for the future role of universities during a second decade (2015-2024) after the DESD (Beynaghi et al., 2014). One scenario depicted the emergence of "environmentally-oriented universities" in which universities are devoted to the pursuit of environmental sustainability by putting forth tools and strategies to address such issues as waste and pollution, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture, among related issues (Beynaghi et al., 2014). ...
Universities have responsibilities for accelerating pedagogical innovation to enable a more sustainable future. This research work develops a three-phased approach for integrating principles of a circular economy system within a course in energy policy. The phases involve scanning available resources, identifying possible matches based on the quality of energy , namely exergy, and determining solution areas. The case study is a university-founded dairy facility in the province of Ankara, Turkey with a biogas production potential of 982 m 3 per day. Four scenarios are analyzed based on options for combined heat and power, organic Rankine cycle, waste heat recovery, absorption chillers, ground source heat pumps, photovoltaic thermal arrays, and/or low-speed wind turbines. In total, 184.1 kW e of high exergy power and 285.3 kW t of low exergy thermal power may be produced. Further evaluation of the scenarios indicates that the level of exergy match may reach 0.87 while primary energy and primary exergy savings over separate energy production from renewables may be 38% and 61%, respectively. The solution areas can address aspects of an energy, water, and food nexus based on energy from waste, energy for irrigation and agriculture, and other linkages. The results are used to engage students in advancing the Sustainable Energy Action Plans of local municipalities. The approach has applicability to other cases in a time when pedagogical innovation is urgently needed to stimulate environmental sustainability.
... As knowledge producers, universities continuously adjust their research focus to societal requirements, aiming to enhance human well-being [12]. In the framework of energy transition, challenges encompass several levels simultaneously and are often complex, multifaceted, and open-ended [13]. ...
... In this respect, its comprehensive nature goes beyond the adhocracy characterizing most environmental initiatives observed by the literature [12]: its living lab approach, incorporating research practice, educational activities, and societal outreach, is able to collect the university's sustainability initiatives into a methodological framework that proves scalable and replicable to other contexts. ...
As acceleration toward the transition to a carbon-neutral energy production becomes an urgent imperative, universities are called to play a multifaceted role: to produce knowledge and cutting-edge research for the pursuit of energy transition; to transform infrastructures to promote circular economy practices and a more sustainable use of their building stock; and to promote energy citizenship through formal and informal education. The authors aim to move from these considerations to critically present some actions and programs in education, research, and campus operations in which the University of Bologna is engaged. The first part presents an overview of the role of universities in this transition, with a focus on the UI GreenMetric international standard for assessing the different dimensions of sustainability. In the core section, an empirical focus is provided on Bologna and its Cesena campus through three directions: the University’s multicampus sustainable strategy (campus operations), the relevant research–action projects on energy justice and the energy transition (research), and the EN-ACTION project to foster energy citizenship and behavioral change in students and citizens (education). This study concludes that the comprehensive approach of the University of Bologna in integrating sustainability into its operations, education, and research while fostering student engagement in energy citizenship, provides a replicable model for other institutions. It highlights the need for consistent and ongoing support to ensure the long-term impact and effectiveness of sustainability initiatives. The integration of social components and engagement with civil society is crucial for fostering a collective behavioral shift toward low-carbon systems, which can be further supported by interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research approaches.
... Ao abordar o DS a literatura mostra que ele já faz história entre as universidades. Ele ganha força no Relatório Brundtland de 1987, e reforça a tese de que as gerações futuras também têm direito a uma vida plena (Beynaghi et al., 2014). Esse direito impactou nas universidades ao redor do mundo. ...
... Os termos sustentabilidade e ciência da sustentabilidade já estão consolidados na comunidade de Ciência, Tecnologia, Engenharia e Matemática -STEM. Para tanto, segundo postulam alguns autores, é primordial que as universidades tenham a sustentabilidade incorporada como uma parte importante de sua cultura, adaptando-se às exigências do ambiente e da sociedade (Beynaghi et al., 2014), em nosso caso, o olhar voltado para a UB. Logo, se faz necessário na academia, inclusive brasileira, uma abordagem holística do DSES (Sinakou et al., 2018), principalmente quando se defende um pensamento e um agir sistêmico. ...
O desenvolvimento sustentável é pauta prioritária para a sociedade do século XXI. A universidade brasileira, na missão de trabalhar temas relevantes e atuais, para a solução de problemas reais, é chamada a contribuir com a pauta da sustentabilidade. O estudo tem por foco a pesquisa acadêmica no Desenvolvimento Sustentável na Educação Superior (DSES). A partir da revisão de literatura nacional e internacional, tem por objetivo refletir possibilidades de contribuição da universidade brasileira para o desenvolvimento sustentável. Trabalha com a questão: como a universidade brasileira pode contribuir com o desenvolvimento sustentável? A metodologia, de cunho qualitativo, comporta a revisão de literatura, em revistas especializadas. Fizemos buscas nas bases de dados Scopus considerando os descritores: Higher Education for Sustainability Development; Education for Sustainability Development; Education for Sustainability. A maioria das pesquisas selecionadas, a partir de 2014, são das revistas: Journal of Cleaner Production e International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. Ambos os periódicos foram priorizados por apresentarem, além de farto material para pesquisa, fator de impacto superior a 1,00 (THOMPSON REUTERS). Os resultados apontam para a necessidade das universidades trabalharem na perspectiva de uma gestão sustentável, de um currículo acadêmico sustentável e na capacitação docente integral. Conclui-se que este estudo contribui com a educação superior brasileira na indução da construção de Políticas de Sustentabilidade Sistêmica alinhadas entre universidades, governos e setor produtivo.
... Sustainability in higher education has its own story with specific and distinct sequences. Beynaghi et al. (2014) present three phases through which higher education went through concerning sustainability. The first phase was around the 1970 ′ s when the theme of sustainability first appeared and gradually strengthened in HEIs through public lectures, conferences, and publications in various disciplines. ...
... The third, ongoing phase, is when sustainability is embedded in everyday operations and maintenance. According to Beynaghi et al. (2014), we can only call an institution a 'sustainable university' when it has entered the third phase. ...
Present and future business leaders might be amongst the most important actors in initiating and managing a transition towards a sustainable economy and society in general. Preparing them for such a role has to be a central task of higher education institutions, especially business schools. Our paper maps how business schools frame sustainability in relation to probable and possible futures by examining the external online communication of the TOP100 business schools. Close to half of these institutions do not address sustainability in their education-related online communication, while the other half emphasize its economic dimension almost exclusively. We found little proof in their education-related communication that business schools attempt to stray from the path of the status quo, accordingly they continue to strengthen a neo-liberal worldview, only incorporating those aspects of sustainability which are compatible with this perspective. We also have to acknowledge, however, that business schools are ‘open institutions’ attempting to meet the expectations of their stakeholders. This may result in numerous and even conflicting goals. Choosing only a few of them as a communicative focus, (e.g., promoting individual strategies for career enhancement), wrings out the larger organisational and social issues like sustainability in its holistic sense.
... The interaction among global, international (e.g., the United Nations), governmental, and educational institutions has resulted in a broad variety of recommendations for sustainability in higher education institutions (HEIs). At the same time, in the academic world, the key role that higher education should play in the overall process-aligning its main mission and operations for sustainable education-has been emphasized by different authors [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Accordingly, the proliferation of conferences, declarations, and agreements on integrating sustainability in higher education institutions has steadily increased. ...
... [71] (p. 1). Since this 2012 Rio+20 declaration, great improvements have been achieved by HEIs, but universities should reinforce their environmental policies (specifically those related to energy, water use, and waste treatment) [7]. ...
This article provides a procedure to universities for understanding the social perception of their activities in the sustainability field, through the analysis of news published in the printed media. It identifies the Spanish news sources that have covered this issue the most and the topics that appear in that news coverage. Using a probabilistic topic model called Latent Dirichlet Allocation, the study includes the nine dominant topics within a corpus with more than seventeen thousand published news items (totaling approximately five and a quarter million words) from a database of almost thirteen hundred national press sources between 2014 and 2017. The study identifies the news sources that published the most news on the issue. It is also found that the amount of news on sustainability and universities declined during the covered period. The nine identified topics point towards the relevance of higher education institutions’ activities as drivers of sustainability. The social perception encapsulated within the topics signals how the public is interested in these activities. Therefore, we find some interesting relationships between sustainable development, higher education institutions’ missions and behaviors, governmental policies, university funding and governance, social and economic innovation, and green campuses in terms of the overall goal of sustainability.
... This new, increasingly international context of universities functioning in a hyper-connected world does eventually lead to the realisation of a new explicit mission for universities, which is to foster sustainability at a global level (Beynaghi et al., 2014). ...
... This includes: higher education public policy; its traditional threefold mission of education, research, public service; internationalisation; democratisation; innovation; campus/physical operations; student life; organisational structures and cultures; reporting and assessment; and ethics Second, SD requires fundamental or deep system transformationsgoing beyond add-on implementation to existing practices and fragmentation as (still) frequently done. From this perspective it is better to speak of the (re)orientation of higher education towards SD (as in Beynaghi et al., 2014) instead of the other way around, i.e. the implementation of SD in higher education. As states: ...
As the need for reform towards sustainability is recognised by an ever increasing community of scholars, governments and actors of civil society, higher education institutions have steadily but slowly joined the mobility movement. The current forces of internationalisation of the higher education landscape and the ever-deepening sustainability crisis create a series of challenges as well as opportunities. The varied perspectives on sustainability held by diverse groups of international students and scholars who increasingly meet at sustainable campuses create fertile ground for cross-fertilisation across and within disciplines. In this article, an introduction of the rationale for sustainable higher education institutions is followed by an analysis of the opportunities for action and existing best practices in campus operations, curriculum development and research. The article concludes with a series of recommendations to strengthen the role of higher education institutions in achieving sustainability by following a whole systems approach.
... However, only some of the respondents see sustainability from the integrational perspective (Lozano, 2008), covering the three sustainability pillars (environmental, social, economic). Therefore, these findings do not confirm a holistic view of sustainability (Beynaghi et al., 2014;Ferrer-Balas et al., 2008;Godemann et al., 2014). Although the three most common dimensions of sustainability are mentioned by respondents, new dimensions such as the institution (Leal Filho et al., 2015a;Lozano, 2010Lozano, , 2011 are not. ...
... The findings of this study highlight the importance of change in HEIs, notably through the use of new ways of funding, more flexible organizational forms, a more comprehensive mission, narrowing the gap between polytechnic and university education, a more tailored educational offer and life-long commitment to internationalization, and more strategic human resource management. This is in keeping with suggestions made by different authors on the challenges facing HEIs (Beynaghi et al., 2014;Figueredo and Tsarenko, 2013). In this scope, the financial instrument Horizon 2020 (European Commission, 2015) could help address the specific challenges for the future facing higher education in the Portuguese context. ...
Higher Education Institutions play an important role in the promotion of sustainability and an increasing number of stakeholders expect them to be sustainable organizations. However, this can only be achieved when barriers are faced and challenges overcome.
... Considering higher education as an adaptive system (Beynaghi et al., 2014) and the university as the major representative of the higher education sector, the authors adopt an evolutionary perspective of this institution, and examine various key factors and triggers in its development. The bottom level of Fig. 2 ...
... becoming increasingly focused off-campus and on the surrounding society (Mero, 2011). Also, in some frontrunner institutions, ambitions to steer neighboring regions and communities towards greater sustainability through multi-stakeholder partnerships have been elevated to an explicitly stated institutional priority or mission (Beynaghi et al., 2014;Trencher et al., 2014a). Furthermore, increasing tendencies to pursue sustainable development in tandem with societal stakeholders are generating emerging opportunities to integrate students into experiential learning approaches and the co-creation of knowledge and tools for spurring advancing sustainable development in local communities and regions (Rosenberg Daneri et al., 2015;. ...
As achievements of the completed United Nations Decade (2005-2014) of Education for Sustainable Development are contemplated globally, along with potential steps forward for the future, Member States have urged that this decade continue after 2014 through “The Future We Want”; the outcome document of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. More recently, commitments to furthering the advancement of sustainable development through education have also been re-enforced in the recently adopted post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.
This study aimed to systematically analyze the implications of sustainable development trends and future directions universities might take under a potential second decade (2015-2024). For this purpose, a model for generating “trend-based scenarios” is proposed, based upon a combination of various futures studies methods. Results suggest that the advancement of sustainability through societal collaboration and various functions such as education, research and outreach will increasingly constitute a core mission for universities. Projecting this trend out into the following decade, the authors frame possible future orientations through three unique scenarios; namely, a socially-, environmentally- and economically-oriented university. Pursuit of sustainable development through each of these would see unique and fundamental changes. These would affect the principle university mission, focus areas, emphasized disciplines, view of Education for Sustainable Development, core external partners, key projects, research and educational activities and outputs with societal stakeholders, geographical focus, and main functions involved. The authors then examine how one or more of these scenarios might be actualized through various external and internal policy and incentive measures. The depiction of these three scenarios, along with potential measures to guide universities to either of these, provides scholars, university leaders and government policy makers with some conceptual and practical instruments to consider strategically how any of these futures might be realized.
... Higher education has historically adapted to major external societal and economic forces. Further, as the long-term goal of HEIs is advancing science in order to serve society, HEIs must therefore be in touch with current societal needs [20]. In this regard, HEIs can play an important leadership role in fostering change towards creating a more sustainable world [20]. ...
... Further, as the long-term goal of HEIs is advancing science in order to serve society, HEIs must therefore be in touch with current societal needs [20]. In this regard, HEIs can play an important leadership role in fostering change towards creating a more sustainable world [20]. ...
The use of integrated sustainability plans is an emerging trend in higher education institutions (HEIs) to set sustainability priorities and to create a work plan for action. This paper analyses the sustainability plans of 21 Canadian HEIs that have used the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). The plans were coded thematically with a focus on the sustainability goals, process of plan creation, and aspects of plan design outlined in the texts. This paper finds that sustainability goals focused on the environmental aspects of sustainability, while social and economic aspects were less emphasized. Further, most plans were described as being created through a broad stakeholder-consultation process, while fewer plans assigned timelines and parties responsible to sustainability goals. This paper contributes to our understanding of the priorities of Canadian HEI institutions at the end of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and is useful for practitioners interested in developing their own sustainability plans.
... The SDGs comprise, therefore, an agenda for people, planet and prosperity, committing to achieve sustainable development in its three dimensions of economic, social and environmental sustainability in a balanced manner (UN, 2015). Higher education institutions (HEIs) play an important role in contributing to reaching these goals (Beynaghi et al., 2014). Also, health professional education, more specifically, should equip graduates with the skills, knowledge and competences needed to sustainably promote health and wellbeing, while also taking planetary health into account (Shaw et al., 2021). ...
Purpose
This study aims to analyse student and teaching staff views on how higher education (HE) can contribute to sustainable development, and to provide examples of how a medical university has adopted the sustainable development goals (SDGs) as part of its institutional strategies and practises.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on participant views from a conference, which aimed to identify actions needed for HE to contribute to the SDGs. More than 500 students, teachers and academic leaders participated at workshops to discuss and reflect on the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in sustainable development. The discussion key points were recorded on flipcharts, and the analysis builds on all written statements from the nine workshops. Based on the findings from the workshop, steering documents and activities of a medical university were identified as examples of implementation.
Findings
Two overarching interdependent themes were identified and indicated a need to rethink the role not only of HE per se but also that of HEIs at large, to meet the challenges of sustainable development. The study also provides an example of how such organizational change can be practically implemented at a medical university, through the establishment of overarching institutional strategies, funding opportunities and external collaborations.
Practical implications
The findings reflect a “bottom-up” call from students and educational staff for HEIs to step up and contribute to systems change – both through a change in pedagogies, as well as through an institution-wide approach and a shift in the role of HEIs in society.
Originality/value
The study is unique in providing an exemplar of the implementation of sustainable development in HE at a specific medical university.
... e. natural resources are priceless, infinite growth is problematic, decision-making through science and ethics, metrics based on criteria such as state of the environment or quality of life rather than economic factors). To be considered a 'sustainable university', sustainability should not only be the focus of lectures, conferences and publications or institutionalized through education and research programs, offices, and departments, but also embedded in everyday operations and maintenance (Beynaghi et al., 2014). In the face of growing pressures from society, the UN (through PRME) or accreditation bodies (e.g. the AACSB), some HEIMs respond more symbolically rather than with substantive compliance, leading some scholars to speak about organizational hypocrisy (Snelson-Powell et al., 2020). ...
This special issue questions business schools, and aims to tease out their identities, strategies, and imagined futures in a post-pandemic world. The pandemic increased awareness of the negative consequences of hyper-capitalism, of subsequent social injustices, the imminent and soon irreversible climate catastrophe. The six articles share a critical position toward the neoliberal business school and its impact on students, teachers, economies, and societies. Through the history, identity, communication of business schools the authors map the origins and coming of
age of the dominant paradigm of business school practice and scholarship. They address possible futures through purposeful action, futures literate entrepreneurship, or inclusive practices.
Imagined futures comprise four scenarios derived from four dimensions: (learning) space, curriculum, pedagogy and funding and access to education. This guest editorial contextualizes,
presents and discusses the featured articles and finds that if collectively they critique the dominant paradigm, the articles depart very little from it, demonstrating the importance of amplifying and accelerating Futures research, teaching and practice.
... Therefore, while the first universities concentrated on gaining knowledge for its own sake, focusing on acquiring the Christian values, the universities that emerged later focused on gaining knowledge to put it to the service of society, a society that, once the technological progress occurred, gradually turned to scientific truths rather than theological ones [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. As such, particularly the Industrial Revolutions [14,15] determined "a shift from dialectic to didactic pedagogy" [3] (p. 12), from the acquisition of theoretical knowledge to that of practical skills, needed in an industrial society. ...
As the effects of climate change on today’s society make the headlines across the globe, urging all stakeholders to join forces to act and to create a sustainable world, universities have started engaging in the process of building a sustainable future for the generations to come. The sustainable university has thus emerged, a pro-active and collaborative university that performs in several domains. Since the university’s strategic plan is an instance of official and public communication on the future institutional development, its investigation reveals the university’s position towards sustainability. This study highlights the explicit use of the concept of sustainability in the strategic plans for 2020–2024 of the twelve Romanian top universities and points to the sustainable domains associated with it. Moreover, to determine the direction towards which the Romanian top universities are heading, in terms of sustainability, the article draws a comparison with previous research conducted on the strategic plans for 2016–2020. The main conclusion reached is that although there is an increasing tendency to use the concept in the latest strategic plans, building sustainable universities in Romania is still a goal to be achieved in the future.
... The new agenda has also generated considerable expectation around universities' responsibilities and involvement in compliance with its provisions. These new challenges create a need to align universities' primary missions and operations with the delivery of education that drives sustainability and removes existing barriers [8,[22][23][24][25][26][27]. Such involvement would call on universities the world over to continue to drive sustainable development as they have in recent decades by implementing the respective policies and programmes, along with methodologies for assessing their impact [5,13,24,[28][29][30]. ...
This study analyses how Spanish universities are communicating their commitment to sustainability to society. That entailed analysing the content of their websites and their scientific papers in sustainability science and technologies and measuring the impact of such research in social media. Results obtained from bibliometric approaches and institutional document analysis attest to intensified interest in sustainability among Spanish universities in recent years. The findings revealed an increase in the number of universities using terms associated with sustainability to designate the governing bodies. The present study also uses an activity index to identify universities that devote high effort to research on sustainability and seven Spanish universities were identified with output greater than 3% of the total. Mentions in social media were observed to have grown significantly in the last 10 years, with 38% of the sustainability papers receiving such attention, compared to 21% in 2010. Publications in open access journals have had a greater impact on social media, especially on Twitter and Facebook. The analysis of university websites showed that only 30% had social media accounts and only 6% blogs specifically designed to disseminate their sustainability activities.
... Taking deep sustainability approaches in university communities and their unique environment will have enormous short and long-term global impacts on sustainability in the decades to come. In reflection of this, universities are entering a new era in which the functions of 'co-creation for sustainability' could be interpreted as the seeds of a newly emerging mission for them (Beynaghi et al., 2014;Trencher et al., 2014). ...
Universities are enhancing their contribution to a sustainable world by developing sustainable campuses and by stimulating implementation of scientific findings, among other things. However, for university managerial, strategic or support staff responsible for this transformation, there is no appropriate, available material on how to do this. Instead, an abundance of material is available on why it is important and there are several reports in scientific journals on the expertise behind that. This puts great pressure on those staff members, who have scarce time and money and need to reliably generate
results but have to learn on the job or gather information through peers in oral or case study form.
The goal of this handbook is to help practitioners increase the speed of putting sustainability science and education into practice by maximizing the possibilities of campuses and to speed up sustainability in campuses by maximizing researcher
and student input. The book builds on hands-on experience and analyzing operational practice in Living Labs on campuses and in the literature.
The booklet takes a pragmatic approach; therefore, we have limited references to those necessary and given a mix of theoretical and scientific papers, workshop reports, websites and more experience-based books to guide interested readers and practitioners. While writing the booklet, we have assumed that your university already has some sustainability program in place.
This booklet is the first version. The authors are fully aware of the wealth of experiences generated in universities around the world. Therefore, all remarks, comments and suggestions will be gathered through our website www.campusaslivinglab.org and will be discussed and used by practitioners and co-writers.
As experience grows, we envision this handbook becoming part of the standard material for university sustainability coordinators around the world, staying up-to-date through
their input and acknowledging the value of that co-creation process.
We hope that it helps university sustainability offices as well as all stakeholders involved in sustainability education, innovation and implementation.
... Universities have continuously been change agents in society [1], and the sustainability pursue has found a fruitful space in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) curricula and campuses worldwide. Universities and academics play a key role in shaping a sustainable forthcoming, as they instruct professionals who manage in our civilization [2]. ...
The concept of sustainable universities has gained increasing relevance and momentum in the recent decades. This has led Higher Education Institutions to incorporate the conceptualisation of sustainability in their teaching, research, campus operations and outreach realms. In such a way, that innovative projects regarding sustainable initiatives and clean technologies have arisen in many universities worldwide. In operational terms at Chilean Higher Education Institutions, it is possible to find endeavours related to renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, water management, energy efficiency, recycling systems, among others. In the present work, the case study of on grid solar photovoltaic projects at the University of Magallanes in Patagonia, and at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile in Santiago are described, in their conception and operation stages respectively. Additionally, these developments are analysed in light of context-based variables, considering latitude, funding and business models, technologies, and the corresponding electric systems characteristics.
... Recent studies related to the future of universities (see, for instance, [32]) have adopted various future studies and tools that can be descriptive or prescriptive. Descriptive tools objectively describe what the future will be or could be. ...
The contribution of universities to the sustainability challenge is nowadays crucial due to their role as centers of learning, innovation and research. However, universities can deal with sustainability matters in many different ways which should be accurately identified in their strategies. In this context, the present paper has tested the suitability of backcasting as a participatory approach to involve stakeholders in discussing the most effective actions to improve sustainability within universities’ strategic plan. The experiment—carried out at University of Foggia (UniFg-Italy)—has demonstrated the flexibility of the backcasting approach in identifying the actions required to reach the UniFg sustainability goals according to the 2030 Agenda, allowing the university governance bodies to reach a number of objectives in the design stage. Furthermore, backcasting enhanced the confidence of stakeholders involved with an overall improvement of their empowerment, enabling them to follow and keep track of the whole process of the university’s strategy definition.
... • the role of universities in promoting sustainable development [14,[16][17][18], • the declarations, charters and partnerships for sustainable development signed by university representatives [15], • the managerial models needed in order to build sustainable universities [10,12,14,17,[19][20][21][22], • the actions taken at the university level to promote sustainable development, such as policy [14,20,21,23], curricular design [20,[23][24][25][26][27][28], sustainability programs for educators [29,30] and sustainable practice [20,21,31,32], • the sustainability reports published by universities [21,33], and • the university's engagement in the community [34][35][36][37][38]. ...
The concept of sustainability has been given more and more attention lately as the effects of climate change drastically impact society and threaten the wellbeing of future generations. In this context, universities are expected to build bridges between the academic and research communities on the one hand and society on the other, and to further the values associated with this concept in order to care for the generations to come. Thus, the present study describes the causes that have led to the emergence of this concept, defines it, and highlights some of the actions taken by universities and researchers. The question raised regards the position of the top Romanian universities towards the concept of sustainability. The way it is used explicitly in their strategic plans is viewed as proof as to whether the universities give it prominence or not, and as such, act accordingly. In order to achieve the primary objective of the research, a quantitative and a qualitative analysis were carried out. The main conclusion drawn is that the top Romanian universities are still at the beginning in terms of raising awareness about the concept and in terms of implementing sustainable measures in the domains that help them build sustainable universities.
... According to Hugé, Block, Waas, Wright, and Dahdouh-Guebas (2016), HEIs have always been actors of change and innovation in society (Beynaghi et al., 2014;Peer & Stoeglehner, 2013;Ramos et al., 2015), and the search for sustainability has found fertile ground in campuses, journals, and curricula around the world. HEIs and researchers have a critical role to play in creating a sustainable future, as they educate many of the professionals who lead, manage, and teach in our society (Khalili, Duecker, Ashton, & Chavez, 2015). ...
Many universities around the world have served as active centers for research on climate change. However, there are several barriers to their activities, stemming from the nature of research, resources, and the structure of institutions. This document provides an overview of barriers, potential factors, and activities to develop and implement sustainable energy processes in public higher education institutions (HEIs) in Brazil. The research was conducted from March to April of 2018 with representatives of HEIs (rectors or prorectors of research). A total of 63 invitations to respond to the Survey‐monkey survey were emailed, and responses were received from 32 universities. The research concludes by proposing measures that can be taken to make the issue of climate change more present and effective in university research and teaching activities. This includes changes in research, information dissemination, and teaching approaches to better support actions to address climate change. In Brazil, there are many potentialities in terms of natural resources, but actions for implementation are still incipient. Further efforts and investment in research and development will be required.
... The development of a research-oriented culture is an imperative for the universities [42]. Based on basic and applied research, intellectual capital is as essential as financial and human capital to the sustainable development of universities and society [43,44]. Emerged and emerging research areas span critical social, economic, and environmental issues [45,46]. ...
This study envisions the architecture of a modern era university with sustainable standards of excellence. Sustainable University Excellence is herein defined as the ability of a university to excel in the core areas of knowledge creation and dissemination via the mobilization of human, social, intellectual, and financial capital to serve on socioeconomic and environmental fronts ethically, efficiently, and effectively to secure a sustainable future. Seven core performance domains of a university are explored: Teaching quality, research culture, technological capability building, accessibility, community engagement, internationalization, and environment, which should be prioritize in order to continuously advance along a sustainable excellence continuum. This study provides a self-assessment methodology that universities can employ to compare their performance relative to the aforementioned domains, thus enabling the identification of performance gaps, the knowledge of which is crucial to the formulation of more targeted strategy. This approach allows decision makers to form a more coherent vision for sustainability within institutional and broader contexts. The approach proposed herein incorporates the three aspects of sustainability that form the so-called Triple Bottom Line (TBL).
... In this context, upcycling is a synonym of an act based on a cradle-to-cradle approach or principles which eliminates the concept of waste by reutilising used or discarded materials for multiple cycles. Beynaghi et al. (2014) regarded Braungart and McDonough's latest book "The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability-designing for abundance" (2013) as a weak signal to indicate that the sustainable development concept is currently in transition to post sustainability in explaining the evolution of the nexus between sustainable development and higher education. Kılkış and Kılkış (2017) suggested upcycling (cradle-to-cradle act) as part of environmental education contents to show solutions or frameworks to enable sustainability within a module/course in energy policy. ...
University campuses are the main places where the activities of higher education are developed. To include students, teachers and the community in this educational space it is necessary to have accessibility in open areas and buildings. The access routes, the pedagogic environments of the campus and the coexistence of administrative, educational and recreational activities should allow the free circulation of pedestrians and people with disabilities or reduced mobility. The inclusion and permanence of young people and adults in university environments is a fundamental strategy to raise the level of education of the population, contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper presents a post-occupancy evaluation focused on the physical accessibility in an institution of higher education. The methodology procedures include photography record, surveys, walkthroughs, and interviews with the university community. The preliminary results show that the implementation of accessibility in university campuses still needs to raise awareness on universal accessibility and urban democracy. The participation of the university community is essential for the implementation of accessibility as a strategy for social and environmental sustainability, preparing professionals to face challenges of cities and committed to the environment.
... In this context, upcycling is a synonym of an act based on a cradle-to-cradle approach or principles which eliminates the concept of waste by reutilising used or discarded materials for multiple cycles. Beynaghi et al. (2014) regarded Braungart and McDonough's latest book "The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainabilitydesigning for abundance" (2013) as a weak signal to indicate that the sustainable development concept is currently in transition to post sustainability in explaining the evolution of the nexus between sustainable development and higher education. Kılkış and Kılkış (2017) suggested upcycling (cradleto-cradle act) as part of environmental education contents to show solutions or frameworks to enable sustainability within a module/course in energy policy. ...
Upcycling is creation or modification of any product from used materials, components and products which is of equal or higher quality or value than the compositional elements. Upcycling, in principle, increases material efficiency, reduces waste, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and creates employment opportunities. When scaled up to a meaningful level, it could, in theory, contribute significantly to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For such potential benefits, upcycling has been practiced in households and businesses, and existing studies have reported on these cases. Relatively little attention has been paid to how universities have utilised upcycling for teaching and learning activities. This paper therefore aims to provide a literature review on the use of upcycling for and in higher education. Systematic literature review was conducted. The results present how upcycling concept and practice have been used as contents, media or tools for teaching sustainability and sustainable practices at universities across countries. This paper extends our understanding of upcycling in the context of higher education for sustainability. The practical implication is that any future university initiatives relating to SDGs could be informed about the applicability and usefulness of upcycling in their initiatives.
... La sociedad, en su conjunto, busca el desarrollo y una mejor ca- lidad de vida. Posicionarse frente a los nuevos escenarios de la universidad puede ser considerado como un sistema adaptativo y la evolución de sus prácticas ( Baynaghi et al., 2014) para mejorar su capacidad de formar profesionales y llevar a cabo la investigación científica ( Janeiro, Proenca y Goncalves, 2013). ...
Esta obra es la síntesis de numerosas aportaciones de investigadores y generadores de programas de desarrollo profesional de los docentes universitarios. Este trabajo aporta una original contribución a la cultura universitaria y propone un conjunto de propuestas creativas a las demandas de los estudiantes, de los docentes y las empresas ante los retos del Horizonte 2020, que implica una rigurosa percepción de los problemas de la docencia universitaria y una fundada visión para diseñar proyectos y nuevos estilos para la actualización profesional de los docentes, principal garantía de la formación integral de los estudiantes y la mejora de las organizaciones y empresas en una época de contrastes y crisis internas.
... It is important to recognize that the notion of sustainability does not only involve the integration of sustainability literature into academic documents. The pedagogical approach and strategies will also determine the degree to which sustainability is present in educational programs; these may be thematic conferences, statements, letters, or initiatives [9,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. ...
Teachers and university students require knowledge to generate positive changes and to overcome environmental challenges through innovative and relevant research. The Autonomous University of Guerrero lacks reliable methodologies and instruments required to evaluate progress towards sustainable development. This research proposes sustainability indicators as substantive functions at the educational levels of high school, bachelor’s degree, and postgraduate study. Indicators were developed via two surveys of 63 teachers and 511 students from four educational programs. Data processing was undertaken using SPSS 21 and Excel 2011. The results show that the environment was ranked more highly than the social and economic indicators. In terms of the participants, the functions of extension (61%), research (58%), teaching (45%), and management (43%) were ranked higher for students; in relation to teachers, research (15%), extension (18%), and teaching (43%) were ranked lower. It was concluded that students show greater socio-environmental concern, while teachers focus more on teaching rather than on the other substantive functions. These results represent relevant and well-founded information that can be used to make decisions that lead the university toward sustainability.
... Rather, "advancing science, serving society" 1 is the ultimate goal, as HEIs seek to improve all aspects of life, which necessarily entails paying attention to the principal needs of society [4]. Reflecting this tradition, universities that have in recent years been involved in sustainable development are entering into a new era in which the functions of "higher education for sustainable development" 2 could be interpreted as the seeds of a newly emerging mission for universities [5]. As universities have proved to be leaders in, amongst other things, the space race and the war on cancer, they can potentially play a critical leadership role in this new era. ...
... In a paper on the identification and assessment of the implications of SD for the future orientation of higher education, and after the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Beynaghi et al. (2014) pointed out that although sustainability assessments of universities have been conducted by numerous scholars with different points of view, an ideal assessment methodology has not yet been developed. In addition, comparisons of sustainability between universities seem to be particularly problematic as existing methodologies are not very suitable for effective benchmarking (Madeira et al., 2011). ...
Purpose
There is a widely held belief that Sustainable Development (SD) policies are essential for universities to successfully engage in matters related to sustainability, and are an indicator of the extent to which they are active in this field. This paper examines the evidence which currently exists to support this assumption. It surveys a sample of universities in Brazil, Germany, Greece, Portugal, South Africa, United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA) to ascertain the extent to which universities that are active in the field of sustainable development have formal policies on sustainable development, and whether such policies are a pre-condition for successful sustainability efforts.
Design/methodology/approach
The study involved 35 universities in these seven countries (five universities respectively). A mixed-methods approach has been used, ranging from document analysis, website analysis, questionnaires and interviewing.
Findings
Although only 60% of the sampled universities had a policy that specifically addressed SD, this cannot be regarded as an indicator that the remaining 40% are not engaged with substantial actions that address SD. Indeed, all of the universities in the sample, regardless of the existence of a SD formal policy, demonstrated engagement with environmental sustainability policies or procedures in some form or another. This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities. Despite this, it is one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.
Research limitations/implications
This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities.
Practical implications
Our findings provide some valuable insights into the connections between SD policies on the one hand, and the practice of sustainable development in higher education institutions on the other.
Originality/value
The study is the one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.
... Using the computer games, literature [3][4][5][6][7] separately carried out teaching research on the object-oriented programming course, the industrial engineering introduction course, the university entrepreneurship education course, the business and market education course and the software engineering course. By educational computer games, the literature [8] studied computer education game evaluation, literature [9] studied the social and cultural force of higher education, the literature [10] studied the sustainable development of higher education. ...
... Mainly in developed countries, higher education is promoted by adjustments in macro-policies (Beynaghi et al. 2014). However, due to several reasons, higher education has a big challenge in developing countries. ...
Since the concept establishment of education for sustainable development, many higher education institutions are challenged to change their curriculum from a profit maximization to a triple bottom line paradigm. This paper aims to discuss the different strategies that universities adopt to encompass sustainable development into business curriculum. This analysis will provide key elements for a theoretical framework building. Considering the Six Principles for a Responsible Management Education proposed by the United Nations Global Compact, a comparative case study is designed with two Brazilian universities: PUCPR and IMED. In-depth interviews, direct observation and formal documents were used, and data analysis were performed through content analysis. Results show that in business schools, “sustainability” still has some weaknesses in relation to the understanding about the synergy of management and sustainability. In sum, this work analyzes the dimensions of management education focused on sustainability; provides a broad understanding of the main drivers for a sustainable perspective adoption; and offers significant insights for universities to perform sustainability in a holistic way. Our theoretical framework may guide future studies by understanding connections between dimensions and components of management education, from a sustainable perspective.
... In a paper on the identification and assessment of the implications of SD for the future orientation of higher education, and after the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Beynaghi et al. (2014) pointed out that although sustainability assessments of universities have been conducted by numerous scholars with different points of view, an ideal assessment methodology has not yet been developed. In addition, comparisons of sustainability between universities seem to be particularly problematic, since existing methodologies are not very suitable for effective benchmarking (Madeira et al., 2011). ...
... HEIs have a role to play in achieving "The future we want" (United Nations 2012) during the next decade (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022)(2023)(2024)(2025). As stated by Beynaghi et al. (2014), the UN-DESD should continue after completion of the initial decade (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). Therefore, this study intends to assess if the stakeholders consider the main areas of intervention of HEIs in the domain of SD pertinent, and reflects on how SD can be implemented in Portuguese HEIs. ...
The purpose of this study is to investigate how the main stakeholders of Portuguese Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) perceive the commitment of HEIs related to: (a) teaching sustainable development Sustainable Development (SD) across all courses, (b) encouraging research and dissemination of SD knowledge, (c) implementing green campuses and supporting local sustainability efforts, and (d) engaging and sharing information with international networks (as defined in Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, United Nations). Through a qualitative approach (semi-structured interviews and content analysis), we explore the perspectives of twenty stakeholders from four Portuguese public HEIs (leaders, faculty, staff, students, and external stakeholders). The results show that all stakeholders see teaching SD across all courses as a necessity, but they have different visions about how to implement it. Concerning the research and dissemination of SD knowledge, they defend that both should be encouraged and transversal to all HEIs. About implementing green campuses and supporting local sustainability efforts, stakeholders agree that is important, but the practical results, in the Portuguese HEIs analysed, fail to achieve an acceptable degree. As a long term objective, the motivation for engaging and sharing information with international networks is latent.
... Higher education institutions have always been actors of change and innovation in society (Beynaghi et al., 2014;Peer and Stoeglehner, 2013;Ramos et al., 2015), and the call and quest for sustainability has found fertile ground in campuses, journals and curricula all over the world. Higher education institutions and researchers have a critical role to play in creating a sustainable future, as they educate many of the professionals who lead, manage, and teach in our society (Khalili et al., 2015;Wittmayer and Sch€ apke, 2014). ...
Sustainability in higher education is a growing field of reflection and practice, yet integrating sustainability and academic research (as a distinct pillar of academia - next to education, societal service and campus operations) is still considered a challenge. This study: i. Proposes a conceptualization of sustainability in academic research based on an explorative literature review; ii. Suggests a range of actions fostering sustainability in academic research based on an expert-based workshop; and iii. Critically reflects on a case study entailing a university-wide sustainability transition initiative. The proposed conceptualization of sustainability in academic research is shaped by the diversity of perspectives in the scientific literature and focuses on the degree of disciplinary integration within and outside academia. Actions to foster sustainability in academic research include actions with regard to: i. Research funding; ii. Research & career evaluation; iii. Research organization; iv. Capacity building and v. policy. The emerging range of possible actions as designed by research managers as well as the early experience of individual higher education institutions in experimenting with sustainability in academic research contribute to the translation of sustainability into a range of tangible and realistic research actions for higher education institutions.
... From an urban planning and development perspective it could also be termed as "urban lab" (Schneidewind 2014;Fraunhofer 2014). No matter which term or label is actually used and which perspective is emphasized, the common underlying motivation for transdisciplinarity and applying "urban real labs" for ESD is rooted in the growing international recognition that universities are explicitly taking responsibility for their exceptional role within society, in particular by contributing to sustainable development (Beynaghi et al. 2014;UNESCO 2014;Leal Filho 2011). ...
The Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) is developing education for sustainable development (ESD) as a strategic issue, in a straightforward manner, and based on a sound methodology. Contrary to a one-off effort as most fashionable short term projects are conducted in a pick and mix approach, MUAS follows a long term development path to incorporate sustainability, across all areas and fields of action - at least as an ideal: For example, education & learning, training &teaching, research, transfer & outreach as well as campus and further institutional management like vision & leitbild, strategies & plans, resources and budgets, ethos & culture, governance & organization, and communication & reporting of the whole institution need to be included.
This overall incorporation of sustainability as an integral part in MUAS is exactly what the UN Global Action Program calls “whole institution approach”, highlighted and emphasized in priority action area 2 (UNESCO 2014). Among a number of measures already taken or launched resp. at different levels and settings in MUAS, this approach requires not only the (re-)alignment of teaching content and methodology, but also campus and facilities as well as the co-operation of MUAS with its stakeholders in community, be it at local, regional, national and international scale. At the bottom of the whole institution approach however is ESD as MUAS’ core business. Hence, all conceptual considerations finally lead to few crucial questions: Which approaches may offer proper teaching & learning settings to make sustainability actually work? How to implement ESD into academic curricula, students’ day life, and local urban environments?
The sound methodology used to investigate the totality of realizations of ESD implementations and to identify the proper ones for MUAS is the morphological box. It provides a powerful heuristic tool for creative problem solving, particularly applied to explore all realizations of multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable phenomena – like ESD. As a result, the morphological box delivers a systematic overview, covering all possible ways with hundreds of different options and various opportunities on how ESD could be realized in the light of relevant attributes in the field of ESD (Isenmann & Zinn 2015).
To describe ease of use of the morphological box, the full range of opportunities to make ESD actually work is illustrated along different approaches of institutional spheres of activity like:
cross-university, university-wide, cross-faculty, faculty-wide, etc. Each approach is described through corresponding ESD course formats at MUAS. Further, the overall inter- and intra-organizational embeddedness of sustainability in MUAS is pointed out.
Powered by the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) in the period 2005–2014 and the Global Action Program as its follow-up, ESD has become one of the most noticeable developments for universities’ development. While more and more universities have taken up ESD as an integral part of a whole institutional approach, many are seeking for guidance on how to develop ESD in practice, still. The window of opportunities for implementing ESD is now open. Other universities may use the overall ESD morphological box to develop their unique ESD profiles, while benefitting from experiences gained at MUAS.
As the overall aim, the contribution attempts to make clear the various opportunities for ESD and its different levels of action on the one hand and on the other, examples of current practice and future developments towards a whole institution approach at MUAS are presented.
... Also, the pressure of expanding farming operations to market agricultural products outside the national borders poses continue threats to land degradation, biodiversity loss, environmental and public health (Mozejko 2009), suggesting an urgent need for promoting a more sustainable development, with an emphasis on food production. Although an education for sustainable development has already been predicated for a few decades as the successful approach in preparing future generations to cope with the management of declining resources , only since the summit Rio + 20 in 2012, the concept of sustainable development has become an integral framework geared towards enhancing a culture for sustainability in higher education (Beynaghi et al. 2014). Numerous academic programs exist already, yet, it appears that curricula often diverge in their breadth and depth of content in sustainability (especially at the graduate level), suggesting the need for a better integration across disciplines (O'Byrne et al. 2014). ...
Experiential learning complements an education for sustainability that aims at becoming transformative in fostering students’ competencies in sustainable development. In this work we assessed the experience of a private institution of higher education in Panamá where a sample of its students was engaged in an extension program for farmers, during the academic year 2014–2015. As part of course work in agroecology, students assisted the investigators with the development of topics and materials to be employed for five one-day workshops that were taught at the university farm, located in Las Minas (Herrera province). In this region, also known as ‘Arco Seco’ or ‘Dry Arc’ region of Panamá the dry season causes severe water stresses. The chronic poverty in the farming communities nearby is strongly related to deforestation and amplified by its effects on the hydrologic water cycle and climate change. These factors put at risk food production and quality of life for the inhabitants in most parts of the region. USMA’s philosophy of education predicates that every student can be a vector (teacher) of positive change in sustainable development. Through this program we were able to put into practice the tenets of USMA’s vision and experience its educational power and benefits.
... Currently, international and national efforts by governments and companies around the world are reflected by concerns over the use of natural resources. Regarding the nexus between higher education and sustainable development, Beynaghi et al. (2014) claim that it has been gradually growing since 1972, creating a new trend. 'Sustainable development issues should be linked with stakeholders and society interests, integrated with the basic functions of universities: education, research and university management activities' (Katiliute and Daunoriene, 2015, p. 866). ...
... From an urban planning and development perspective it could also be termed as "urban lab" (Schneidewind 2014;Fraunhofer 2014). No matter which term or label is actually used and which perspective is emphasized, the common underlying motivation for transdisciplinarity and applying "urban real labs" for ESD is rooted in the growing international recognition that universities are explicitly taking responsibility for their exceptional role within society, in particular by contributing to sustainable development (Beynaghi et al. 2014;UNESCO 2014;Leal Filho 2011). ...
Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) is developing education for sustainable development (ESD) as a strategic issue and based on a sound methodology, in contrast to a one-off effort as most fashionable short term projects and pick and mix approaches. Thereby MUAS follows a long term development path to incorporate sustainability across all areas and fields of action. This overall incorporation of sustainability as an integral part in MUAS is exactly what the UN Global Action Program calls “whole institution approach”,
highlighted and emphasized in priority action area 2 of the UNESCO Roadmap for implementing the global action programme on education for sustainable development (UNESCO, 2014).
Further to a number of measures already taken and launched in MUAS, the central questions around ESD are: Which approaches may offer proper teaching and learning settings to make sustainability actually work? How to implement ESD into academic curricula, informal learning opportunities in students’ day life, and local urban environments? The sound methodology used to investigate the totality of realizations of ESD implementations and to identify the proper ones for MUAS is the morphological box. It provides a powerful heuristic tool for creative problem solving, particularly applied to explore all realizations of multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable phenomena—like ESD. As a result, the morphological box delivers a systematic overview, covering all possible ways with hundreds of different options and various opportunities on how ESD could be realized in the light of relevant attributes in the field of ESD (Isenmann and Zinn 2015). With the help of the morphological box the full range of options and
opportunities to make ESD actually work could be illustrated in detail, so that any university—or any other educational institution—may find its customized profile of ESD courses. To describe ease of use of the morphological box, the full range of opportunities to make ESD actually work is illustrated along the
four different approaches of x-disciplinarity (Isenmann 1999; Isenmann and Zollner 2014)—i.e. monodisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. Each approach is described through corresponding ESD course formats at MUAS. Further, the overall inter- and intra-organizational embeddedness of sustainability in MUAS is pointed out.
... From an urban planning and development perspective it could also be termed as "urban lab" (Schneidewind 2014;Fraunhofer 2014). No matter which term or label is actually used and which perspective is emphasized, the common underlying motivation for transdisciplinarity and applying "urban real labs" for ESD is rooted in the growing international recognition that universities are explicitly taking responsibility for their exceptional role within society, in particular by contributing to sustainable development (Beynaghi et al. 2014;UNESCO 2014;Leal Filho 2011). ...
The Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) is developing education for sustainable development (ESD) as a strategic issue, in a straightforward manner, and based on a sound methodology. Contrary to a one-off effort as most fashionable short term projects are conducted in a pick and mix approach, MUAS follows a long term development path to incorporate sustainability, across all areas and fields of action - at least as an ideal: For example, education & learning, training &teaching, research, transfer & outreach as well as campus and further institutional management like vision & leitbild, strategies & plans, resources and budgets, ethos & culture, governance & organization, and communication & reporting of the whole institution need to be included.
This overall incorporation of sustainability as an integral part in MUAS is exactly what the UN Global Action Program calls “whole institution approach”, highlighted and emphasized in priority action area 2 (UNESCO 2014). Among a number of measures already taken or launched resp. at different levels and settings in MUAS, this approach requires not only the (re-)alignment of teaching content and methodology, but also campus and facilities as well as the co-operation of MUAS with its stakeholders in community, be it at local, regional, national and international scale. At the bottom of the whole institution approach however is ESD as MUAS’ core business. Hence, all conceptual considerations finally lead to few crucial questions: Which approaches may offer proper teaching & learning settings to make sustainability actually work? How to implement ESD into academic curricula, students’ day life, and local urban environments?
The sound methodology used to investigate the totality of realizations of ESD implementations and to identify the proper ones for MUAS is the morphological box. It provides a powerful heuristic tool for creative problem solving, particularly applied to explore all realizations of multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable phenomena – like ESD. As a result, the morphological box delivers a systematic overview, covering all possible ways with hundreds of different options and various opportunities on how ESD could be realized in the light of relevant attributes in the field of ESD (Isenmann & Zinn 2015).
To describe ease of use of the morphological box, the full range of opportunities to make ESD actually work is illustrated along different approaches of institutional spheres of activity like:
cross-university, university-wide, cross-faculty, faculty-wide, etc. Each approach is described through corresponding ESD course formats at MUAS. Further, the overall inter- and intra-organizational embeddedness of sustainability in MUAS is pointed out.
Powered by the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) in the period 2005–2014 and the Global Action Program as its follow-up, ESD has become one of the most noticeable developments for universities’ development. While more and more universities have taken up ESD as an integral part of a whole institutional approach, many are seeking for guidance on how to develop ESD in practice, still. The window of opportunities for implementing ESD is now open. Other universities may use the overall ESD morphological box to develop their unique ESD profiles, while benefitting from experiences gained at MUAS.
As the overall aim, the contribution attempts to make clear the various opportunities for ESD and its different levels of action on the one hand and on the other, examples of current practice and future developments towards a whole institution approach at MUAS are presented.
... From an urban planning and development perspective it could also be termed as "urban lab" (Schneidewind 2014;Fraunhofer 2014). No matter which term or label is actually used and which perspective is emphasized, the common underlying motivation for transdisciplinarity and applying "urban real labs" for ESD is rooted in the growing international recognition that universities are explicitly taking responsibility for their exceptional role within society, in particular by contributing to sustainable development (Beynaghi et al. 2014;UNESCO 2014;Leal Filho 2011). ...
The Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) is developing education for sustainable development (ESD) as a strategic issue, in a straightforward manner, and based on a sound methodology. Contrary to a one-off effort as most fashionable short term projects are conducted in a pick and mix approach, MUAS follows a long term development path to incorporate sustainability, across all areas and fields of action - at least as an ideal: For example, education & learning, training &teaching, research, transfer & outreach as well as campus and further institutional management like vision & leitbild, strategies & plans, resources & budgets, ethos & culture, governance & organization, and communication & reporting of the whole institution need to be included.
This overall incorporation of sustainability as an integral part in MUAS is exactly what the UN Global Action Program calls “whole institution approach”, highlighted and emphasized in priority action area 2 (UNESCO 2014). Among a number of measures already taken or launched resp. at different levels and settings in MUAS, this approach requires not only the (re-)alignment of teaching content and methodology, but also campus and facilities as well as the co-operation of MUAS with its stakeholders in community, be it at local, regional, national and international scale. In the center of the whole institution approach however is ESD, seen as MUAS’ core business. Hence, all conceptual considerations finally lead to few crucial questions: Which approaches may offer proper teaching & learning settings to make sustainability actually work? How to implement ESD into academic curricula, informal learning opportunities in students’ day life, and local urban environments?
The sound methodology used to investigate the totality of realizations of ESD implementations and to identify the proper ones for MUAS is the morphological box. It provides a powerful heuristic tool for creative problem solving, particularly applied to explore all realizations of multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable phenomena – like ESD. As a result, the morphological box delivers a systematic overview, covering all possible ways with hundreds of different options and various opportunities on how ESD could be realized in the light of relevant attributes in the field of ESD (Isenmann & Zinn 2015).
To describe ease of use of the morphological box, the full range of opportunities to make ESD actually work is illustrated along the four different approaches of x-disciplinarity (Isenmann & Zollner 2014; Isenmann 1999) - i.e. monodisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. Each approach is described through corresponding ESD course formats at MUAS. Further, the overall inter- and intra-organizational embeddedness of sustainability in MUAS is pointed out.
Powered by the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) in the period 2005–2014 and the Global Action Program as its follow-up, ESD has become one of the most noticeable developments for universities’ development. While more and more universities have taken up ESD as an integral part of a whole institutional approach, many are still seeking for guidance on how to develop ESD in practice. The window of opportunities for implementing ESD is now open. Universities may use the overall ESD morphological box to develop their unique ESD profiles, while benefitting from experiences of x-disciplinary course formats gained at MUAS.
As the overall aim, the contribution attempts to make clear the various opportunities for ESD and its different x-disciplinary facets on the one hand and on the other, examples of current practice and future developments towards a whole institution approach at MUAS are presented.
... From an urban planning and development perspective it could also be termed as "urban lab" (Schneidewind 2014;Fraunhofer 2014). No matter which term or label is actually used and which perspective is emphasized, the common underlying motivation for transdisciplinarity and applying "urban real labs" for ESD is rooted in the growing international recognition that universities are explicitly taking responsibility for their outstanding role within society, particular in contributing to sustainable development (Beynaghi et al. 2014;UNESCO 2014;Leal Filho 2011). Consequently universities have also begun reporting on their sustainability actions and future plans (Isenmann and Zinn 2015b;Sassen et al. 2014;Müller-Christ et al. 2009). ...
This contribution describes the innovative course format “ZukunftGestalten@HM - Future City” at the Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS), including its unique features from a higher educational perspective for sustainable development (ESD). The features that make this innovative course format challenging and unique compared to other formats are that it provides an excellent example of a trans-disciplinary approach in ESD, combining ESD on the one hand and designing the future of the city of Munich in an urban real lab case on the other. Based on these certain char-acteristics we call “ZukunftGestalten@HM – Future City” as the flagship course within the various ESD formats offered at MUAS. It is an outcome of the BMBF-project „Fu-ture proof (German: Für die Zukunft gerüstet, www.hm.edu/lehre/zukunft/, grant no. 01PL11025), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (www.bmbf.de/en/). We view transdisciplinarity as a principle of how to approach problems from an academic perspective. It is not a feature of an issue itself, rather a way of how to deal with current challenges or relevant problems resp. according to academic standards. The often applied scientific “closed shop procedure” of problem solving mainly within universities, classrooms, courses, and project groups is overcome. Inter-ested parties outside universities and academia are actively involved. The scope in the summer term 2015 has been to investigate how future cities may look like in general, and how the city of Munich should be developed in terms of sustainability more specifi-cally. This topic reflects the issue of the science year 2015, dedicated to the future of the city (www.wissenschaftsjahr-zukunftsstadt.de) and promoted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The development of cities is a critical driver for sustainable development, and hence their efforts to provide sustainability solutions merit greater effort. As a tangible, local, and real life example we further focused to an ongoing urban planning project of the city of Munich, co-operating with the Department of Urban Planning and Building Regulation, Unit „Population, Housing and PERSPECTIVE MUNICH“ of the City of Munich. The specific goal and certain motivation for the City of Munich was to get innovative, fresh, and unorthodox ap-proaches and to receive new insights on how to develop the certain field of action (German: Handlungsraum) in the North of Munich: “Zwischen Milbertshofen und Freimann. Wohnen, Arbeiten, Bildung und Sport im Münchner Norden“ (Landes-hauptstadt München 2013). The experiences made and the insights gained from “ZukunftGestalten@HM - Future City” may fuel public discourse, initiate discussion and promote dialogue. In particular “ZukunftGestalten@HM - Future City” inspires traditional planning procedures of the Department of Urban Planning/Urban Development, City of Munich, and it may have further impact for strategic urban planning and development projects.
... The importance of the higher education sector for the achievement of sustainable development has most recently been reaffirmed by the final outcome document of the United Nations' (UN) Rio + 20 conference, and the ongoing implementation of the UN Global Action Programme on education for sustainable development that identifies the promotion of whole institution approaches as one of five key priority areas for the further advancement of education for sustainable development (United Nations 2012; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation 2014). In the scholarly debate, these expressions of political support are considered to foster both mainstreaming and the further differentiation of the notion of a sustainable university (Beynaghi et al. 2014). ...
Although it is increasingly recognised that higher education institutions have to play a critical role in the progression towards a sustainable development, the question of what fields and issues universities should attend to in their attempt to become more sustainable remains subject to debate. In recent years, sustainability assessment tools have begun to play a prominent role in strategies to reorient higher education institutions systematically and holistically towards sustainability. In the course of their further advancement, sustainability assessment tools have not only become instrumental facilitators of change processes towards sustainability, but also established implicit normative standards by framing the overall understanding of what fields and issues a sustainable university should engage with. So far, researchers in the field have paid little attention to the understandings of a sustainable university that are underpinning and informing sustainability assessment tools. This paper addresses this gap. Based on a comparative analysis of indicators and criteria, as well as introductory passages in supporting documents of twelve sustainability assessment tools, the authors sketch the dominance and marginalisation of different fields and issues. In doing so, the paper contributes to building the capacity for a more sophisticated and reflexive engagement with different approaches to assess and evaluate sustainability in higher education institutions.
Rethinking Higher Education Models: Towards a New Education Paradigm for the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Jon-Hans Coetzer, United Nations Institute for Training and Research
Lucia Morales, Technological University DublinFollow
Cormac MacMahon, Technological University DublinFollow
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
5.3 EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
Publication Details
In Re-imagining higher education through equity, inclusion and sustainability (RISE). Proceedings of the 2nd. EUt+ International Conference on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Technical University of Sofia, Sozopol, Bulgaria, 1-3 September.
doi: 10.21427/pqq1-1q52
Abstract
The United Nations 2030 Agenda unfolded a comprehensive package of Sustainable Development Goals that seek global cooperation, participation, and coordinated efforts to 2030 for the betterment of humanity within the ecological constraints of the planet. However, it has become evident that the agenda is very ambitious and afflicted by a lack of solid governance principles vital to ensuring the successful achievement of the goals and targets. This paper offers critical insights into the pivotal role of higher education in promoting and implementing the goals. We argue that there is a need to raise awareness of the goals and educate relevant stakeholders on how to coordinate their efforts to respond to the complexities associated with achieving sustainability. We find that higher education institutions are poised to play a more relevant and influential role, but to do so, they need to engage in a bold educational transformation process. Given that the achievement of the goals is predicated on collaboration between multiple actors, ranging from governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations, civil society, researchers, academics, and students, specific actions within higher education must focus on the circularity of the education model. Moreover, stakeholders need to work together to address the numerous failures associated with governance if they seek to achieve meaningful change and progress around sustainability issues. Therefore, we argue that HEIs need to rethink and reconsider their educational models to update their leadership role in achieving the 2030 Agenda and beyond.
A jelenlegi és jövőbeli gazdasági vezetők lehetnek az egyik legfontosabb szereplői a fenntartható gazdaság és társadalom felé való átmenet elindításának és irányításának. A felsőoktatási intézmények, különösen az üzleti képzéssel foglalkozó intézmények feladata, hogy felkészítsék őket erre a szerepre. A szerzők írásukban a nemzetközi TOP100 üzleti képzőhely (business school) külső online kommunikációjának vizsgálatán keresztül térképezik fel, hogy az üzleti iskolák hogyan keretezik a fenntarthatóság kérdését a valószínű és lehetséges jövővel kapcsolatban. Eredményeik tükrében az látszik, hogy ezen intézmények közel fele nem foglalkozik a fenntarthatósággal az oktatással kapcsolatos online kommunikációjában, míg a másik fele szinte kizárólag annak gazdasági dimenzióját hangsúlyozza. Kevés bizonyítékot találtak arra, hogy az üzleti képzőhelyek megpróbálnának eltérni a status quo-tól, inkább az látszik az eredményekből, hogy továbbra is a neoliberális világképet erősítik, és a fenntarthatóság csak azon aspektusait építik be, amelyek összeegyeztethetők ezzel a szemlélettel.
The water-energy-food nexus is directly connected with the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that make up the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Therefore, the water-energy-food nexus is directly related to the objective of building sustainable cities, to achieve the 17 SDGs. In this research, the nexus composed by the triad—water-energy-food—is evidenced, based on the following: SDG 2: zero hunger and sustainable agriculture; SDG 6: clean water and sanitation; SDG 7: clean and affordable energy; connected to SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities. As a result, water quality, access to clean and renewable energy, and food security play and exercise a central role in the cities’ sustainability. Thus, to make more sustainable cities, they must adopt energy efficiency strategies and promote renewable and clean energy technologies. In this connection, this research aims to analyze the importance of the water, energy, and food nexus for the promotion of sustainable cities in the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. To that effect, we used a methodology suggestion that considered the need for an integrative literature review, as well as an analysis of field practical data. Furthermore, a theoretical analysis was structured, thus proposing three levels of hypotheses described and discussed in the text. As a result, this article has a double aspect: it contributes to broadening the literature, and at the same time it points out mechanisms for managers and municipal policymakers to develop better policies and strategies that enable the achievement of the SDGs, especially those listed above, having as a consequence strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a global initiative toward transforming education for sustainability. The integration of SDGs into the education is an essential approach that ensures strategic alignment of higher education (HE) with SDGs. Document reviews were employed to explore and discuss the difference between transmissive and transformative education. In this trajectory, it is expected that the concept of transformative education is likely to become more common to meet the emerging social, economic, and environmental issues. Nonetheless, practical challenges remain in Somaliland HE sector, ranging from quality of education and relevance. The roadmap toward addressing transformative education for sustainability is not included in Somaliland’s education philosophy; mainly, ESD has not been presented in all policy documents. However, this paper proposed a generic framework that spotlights the integration of education and SDGs. Meanwhile, many countries are now prioritizing structural transformation in their HEIs that are tailored to the national, regional development programs, and beyond. Consistent with the Rio+ 20 outcomes, this paper analyzed the concept of the “sustainable university” and identified that it is divided into three interrelated and complementary categories: social, environmental, and economic-oriented universities in pursuit of actualizing sustainable development (SD). This paper recommends the need for significant reforms in the education system in terms of strategies, structures, and functions. The HEIs in Somaliland need to upgrade their capacities by changing the ways they are operating and shifting into a position that helps them contribute to localization and implementation of the SDGs at the grassroots levels. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
As preocupações com o meio ambiente não tiveram um início delimitado no tempo e no espaço, contudo alguns fatores foram importantes para o surgimento de um movimento ambientalista, dentre eles o progresso na pesquisa científica. A Organização da Nações Unidas desde a década de 1970 promove eventos sobre a temática e desde o princípio reconheceu-se o papel do ensino superior na promoção da sustentabilidade. Desde então, diversas iniciativas têm sido assinadas por universidades ao redor do mundo, se comprometendo a promover a sustentabilidade em todas as suas dimensões, seja no ensino, pesquisa, planejamento e operações, que são as atividades que envolvem consumo de energia e água, emissão de gases de efeito estufa, geração de resíduos sólidos, compra de alimentos, transporte entre outros. Diversas ferramentas de medição da sustentabilidade em universidades têm sido desenvolvidas de modo a prover um meio para as instituições analisarem sua situação, acompanhar seus progressos e compartilhar experiências. Dentre essas ferramentas destaca-se o STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) que tem sido amplamente usado por universidades e em pesquisas científicas. Nesse contexto, o objetivo do presente estudo foi aplicar a ferramenta STARS para analisar a sustentabilidade das operações dos campi da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Os resultados demonstraram que a instituição está longe de ter práticas de sustentabilidade estáveis, contudo já mostra estar se estruturando para tal. Ademais, também foi evidenciada a importância do governo federal nesse contexto.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to identify the factors that define the management practices of a center of electrical and electronic waste and of reuse of equipment aiming to contribute to the sustainable development. It is known that the effort to achieve the green IT, including recycling and sustainable disposability of equipment does not follow the same pace as industry production
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on the existing sustainable development, on the computer equipment and its composition, and in the disposal of electronic waste as literature of orientation. The Center for disposal and reuse of the information technology waste from a Brazilian university was approached by the methodology of qualitative case study
Findings
The research revealed some findings related to the concepts of integrated waste management, product life cycle assessment, stakeholder involvement and inventory and information system of electrical and electronic equipment
Research limitations/implications
The research involved the analysis of documents and the web site of the center and the technician responsible for the center was interviewed. The results can contribute as a benchmark for other universities and organizations who intend to create or implement a center for collection and recycling of computer equipment.
Practical implications
The paper shows the importance of communication and relationship between the center and the units of the university, and with the stakeholders related to the WEEE management.
Originality/value
The study has its focus on a more comprehensive WEEE approach that shows insights that can be used or adapted to any university or even companies
L’université, par ses fonctions d’éducation, de recherche et de gouvernance, établit un nexus avec le développement durable et son éducation. Ce nexus « université développement durable » se développe dans des environnements académiques disciplinaires sévèrement compétitifs. Ces environnements sont à l’origine d’obstacles pour la représentation multidimensionnelle du développement durable et de son éducation dans les curriculums produits par les enseignants. L’inférence, à partir de l’analyse sémantique de traces écrites, des choix des enseignants dans la représentation du développement durable montre que les disciplines berceaux des travaux scientifiques de ces enseignants sont trop influentes par le poids de la dyade dominante du pilier environnemental et du pilier économique.
‘Sustainability science’ (Kemp and Martens 2007; Hugé 2012) is an increasingly popular concept, drawing scholars and students towards inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches that are commonly believed to embody the best solutions to solve the challenges of rapidly a changing world. While the enthusiasm generated by the concept is to be welcomed, its implementation and operationalization are challenging. If it fails to deliver, it risks to trigger disillusion and discouragement and it may come to embody nothing more than semantics and ‘loose words’. Engineers are—at least perceived as—the quintessential problem solvers in academia, but global change as well as the realization that any scientific endeavour cannot be performed in a societal vacuum forces engineers to reconceptualize their role in society as well as their research philosophy. Tangible processes are needed to turn this analysis of the current situation into actions for a more sustainable future. Sustainability assessment (SA) is such a process that may turn the initial enthusiasm for the broad concept of sustainability science into actions that lead to more sustainable engineering research and teaching. The objective of this paper is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of SA in a university-wide transition exercise, focusing on the views of the academic community in engineering faculties at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Drawing on the application of sustainability assessment processes on various systems (energy systems, development cooperation projects), and on the real-life experience of the bottom-up ‘Transition at the University of Ghent, Belgium’-initiative, we use a discourse-analytical approach to sustainability assessment (Hugé et al. 2013). Acknowledging the variety of discourses, frames and worldviews embodied in sustainability science is a key step in creating actor coalitions that may trigger positive change in academic institutions. We will propose a qualitative evaluation of existing and planned concrete transition activities, building on recent insights in the field of ‘sustainable higher education’ (Beynaghi et al. 2014) in order to provide recommendations on how to implement sustainability science in engineering faculties.
Access, participation and exclusion from higher education for marginalized and disadvantaged sections of the population is an intricate socio-political as well as economic practice that has manifold explanations and outcomes. During the last three decades, the higher education has experienced expansion in both enrollments and institutions. The approaches and means of delivery has changed besides the diversification in provision. The role of the state and market has also reformed. This characteristic has also altered the nature of equity in higher education across the globe. The chapters of this book on different countries of Asia, Europe and Latin America examine access and describe the several spaces where cohorts of relevant age group are included, excluded, or are at threat of exclusion in higher education. The chapters also narrate the state of affairs in which despite numerous alike structure in the experience and outcomes of social exclusion across disenfranchised groups and regions, how some critical differences have led to different paths of struggles and policy formation to attain the objective of equity in higher education.
The debate on sustainable development is not new and the search for new approaches, methods and means to further the case of sustainability in a higher education context is needed today more than ever. This paper reviews the status of sustainable development at universities and presents issues which need to be considered in ensuring sustainable development is integrated in higher education institutions in a systematic way.
This paper addresses the limited evidence of how futures work bears fruit in the present by exploring a specific, yet significant, empirical case study. The results of our longitudinal study into the WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative shed light on how organisations are harnessing the perspective of the long term future to identify what can and should be done in the near term to keep progress towards sustainability on track. We provide evidence of the expected and realised benefits of this collaborative futures initiative. These benefits extend beyond direct decision support, manifest at multiple levels and vary over time. We note that shift from single client to collaborative futures work is inherent to addressing sustainability challenges and call for more research into how collaborative futures practices are evolving to deal with new puzzles and wicked problems.
Following work done in the UK, Canada and now starting across Europe,1 there appears to be renewed interest in charting the boundaries of what to expect between 2010 and 2025 as the character of the 21st century begins to become firmly established. What are the shaping forces, or sources of change and what might be their impacts, particularly where these may create entirely new challenges and opportunities?Futures experts (attendees of the FTA 2008 Conference) were invited to state their opinions on these questions by considering the trends, drivers, wilds cards, discontinuities and weak signals likely to shape the future through the Big Picture Survey. The survey was launched 6 months prior to the Conference. More than 250 responses were submitted by the Conference date. The results collected were synthesised and presented back to the attendees in a plenary presentation by the authors.The current paper aims to clarify the concepts first by suggesting definitions and discussing the distinctions between them. The paper then presents the rationales of conducting the Big Picture Survey (BPS), presents its methodology and discusses the results of the survey in a greater extent.
What are world wide the main trends that will or should have an impact on the future of academia? What is expected from academia by different stakeholders in the years to come? These and related questions are addressed in CHEPS¿s report ¿Academia in the 21st century. An analysis of trends and perspectives in higher education and research¿. The report is the outcome of a challenging project commissioned by the Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (Dutch abbreviation AWT). In the report the following seven trends in higher education have been analysed: 1) the development of information and communication technologies, 2) the marketisation in higher education and science, including the changing roles of governments, 3) globalisation, internationalisation and regionalisation, 4) and advancing network society (e.g. rise of consortia, strategic alliances, etc.), 5) an advancing knowledge society, 6) socio-cultural trends, and 7) demographical trends. In the concluding chapter general observations and reflections have been put forward. They concern the issues of differentiation at the system and organisational level, excellence and diversity, and the role of universities in a knowledge society.
Purpose
– The dynamics of organizational change related to environmental sustainability on university campuses are examined in this article. Whereas case studies of campus sustainability efforts tend to classify leadership as either “top‐down” or “bottom‐up”, this classification neglects consideration of the leadership roles of the institutional “middle” – namely the faculty and staff.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors draw from research conducted on sustainability initiatives at the University of Guelph combined with a review of faculty and staff‐led initiatives at universities across Canada and the USA, as well as literature on best practices involving campus sustainability. Using concepts developed in business and leadership literature, faculty and staff are shown to be universities' equivalent to social “intrapreneurs”, i.e. those who work for social and environmental good from within large organizations.
Findings
– Faculty and staff members are found to be critical leaders in efforts to achieve lasting progress towards campus sustainability, and conventional portrayals of campus sustainability initiatives often obscure this. Greater attention to the potential of faculty and staff leadership and how to effectively support their efforts is needed.
Originality/value
– In the paper, a case is made for emphasizing faculty and staff leadership in campus sustainability efforts and several successful strategies for overcoming barriers are presented.
This paper explores a global trend where universities are collaborating with government, industry and civil society to advance the sustainable transformation of a specific geographical area or societal sub-system. With empirical evidence, we argue that this function of 'co-creation for sustainability' could be interpreted as the seeds of an emerging, new mission for the university. We demonstrate that this still evolving mission differs significantly from the economic focus of the third mission and conventional technology transfer practices, which we argue, should be critically examined. After defining five channels through which a university can fulfil the emerging mission, we analyse two frontrunner 'transformative institutions' engaged in co-creating social, technical and environmental transformations in pursuit of materialising sustainable development in a specific city. This study seeks to add to the debate on the third mission and triple-helix partnerships. It does so by incorporating sustainable development and place-based co-creation with government, industry and civil society.
The launch of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) (2005–2014) was accompanied by a series of high-profile events and celebratory activities across the globe, which raised awareness about the Decade's objectives. Now, as the DESD approaches its mid-term, many stakeholders are asking these questions: What will change as a result of the DESD? What will be its legacy? This article reviews the explicit intentions of the Decade and explores its current and potential contributions. It raises issues about how to assess the progress in education for sustainable development (ESD) during the Decade and questions whether it is possible to effectively evaluate the Decade's impact. It concludes by acknowledging that the success of the DESD will be judged not only by the UN Monitoring and Evaluation mechanisms set in place by UNESCO but also by how the diverse expectations from stakeholders are met.
Foresight processes and activities are confronted with the task of making sense of the present, in particular by interpreting weak signals of change in the organizational environment. Although trends are considered to be important drivers of environmental discontinuities which may lead to strategic surprises, there is no operationalization from a strategic point of view. In this paper we are going to conceptualize trends as (socio-cultural) innovations. This leads to important implications. If the nature of innovation is taken seriously, then strategic trend diagnosis has to deal with two different aspects, invention and diffusion. First, we are going to present a framework for identifying the invention aspect of a trend (i.e., “the new”) which is based on the fact that “the new” results from a transgression of contextual boundaries. Second, we are going to operationalize the diffusion of “the new” as a threefold process of normalization – i.e., an unusual practice becomes social convention. Taken together, these two aspects provide a theoretical link between trends and market creation. In addition, by relating the above operationalizations to an entrepreneurial strategy-making framework, strategic issue diagnosis can be improved and more seamlessly linked to strategy formulation.
This chapter explor es the evolution of the concern for sustainability in higher education. It describes the origin of the Talloires Declaration as a guiding set of commitments for colleges and universities pursuing sustainability. Critical dimensions of sustainability in higher education are presented as a result of the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future's (ULSF)2 Sustainability Indicators Project. Critical conditions determining the success of sustainability initiatives are then discussed. Two case studies of university efforts to "green" their institutions are described in light of these dimensions and conditions for success. Sustainability and Ecojustice A concern for sustainability arose in the early seventies as growing numbers of people realized that the degradation of the environment would seriously undermine our ability to ensure expanding prosperity and economic justice. The most frequently cited definition of sustainability came from the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, in its description of new directions for "our common future." Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). A series of United Nations' conferences and NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) meetings in the 1990s have provided a major framework in which the meaning and implications of sustainability have been clarified. In these major international events, representatives of governments, business and civil society have met to wrestle with the direction of development. They produced a series of international agreements, including: Agenda 21 from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio; the Vienna Conference Tribunal on Violations of Women's Human Rights; the Cairo Consensus and Action Plan of the International Conference on Population and Development; the Copenhagen Social Summit discussions of equitable, "people-centered" development; the Beijing Commitments regarding Rights and Roles of Women in Development; the Habitat II 1 Taken from Sustainability and University Life (W. L. Filho, ed., Peter Lang, 1999). 2 The Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF), located in Washington, D.C., is an international membership organization of academic leaders and institutions committed to the advancement of global environmental literacy and sustainability. ULSF helps colleges and universities build and strengthen institutional capacity to make sustainability a major focus of academic disciplines, research initiatives, operations and outreach. The ULSF Secretariat promotes the 1990 Talloires Declaration and maintains an international network of signatories, facilitating information exchange, providing technical support, and sponsoring conferences that foster organizational and individual capacity to develop sustainable policies and practices. ULSF is the higher education program of the Center for Respect of Life and Environment (CRLE). The Center, founded in 1986, promotes the greening of higher education and fosters earth ethics to guide sustainable development.
This article examines the function of documents as a data source in qualitative research and discusses document analysis procedure in the context of actual research experiences. Targeted to research novices, the article takes a nuts-and-bolts approach to document analysis. It describes the nature and forms of documents, outlines the advantages and limitations of document analysis, and offers specific examples of the use of documents in the research process. The application of document analysis to a grounded theory study is illustrated.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the contributions of the Asia‐Pacific region to leading practice in sustainability in higher education (HE), as prelude and orientation to this special issue collection from different countries and regions.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a critical review that includes international and regional policy contexts in sustainability and “education for sustainable development” (ESD), whilst exploring the trajectories of key initiatives across the region and considering the broader context of sustainability innovation within the HE sector.
Findings
The Asia‐Pacific region offers many creative initiatives and shows considerable progress in ESD and in understanding the learning dimensions of sustainability. At the same time, it mirrors global trends in that further work is needed to promote systemic change in educational arenas, particularly in terms of strategic integration within HE institutions. The Asia‐Pacific contributions to this collection demonstrate the need to harness national policy, to develop local and regional initiatives and to work effectively towards more profound change in HE curricula and through collaboration with external communities and stakeholders.
Originality/value
This is a distinctive collection of new initiatives from the Asia‐Pacific, which compensates for the comparative lack of dissemination in this area. There is considerable sustainability innovation emerging in this region which shows leading‐edge responses from within the HE sector on a number of key challenges and issues.
Universities are key actors in sustainable development by generating new knowledge as well as contributing to the development of appropriate competencies and raising sustainability awareness. Within a project called “Sustainable University” at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany), a scenario analysis was carried out in order to think structurally about both the challenges that universities could face in the long run and to establish what chances and problems might arise in future from implementing an orientation towards sustainable development. This analysis results in the characterisation of a “Higher Education Landscape 2035” consisting of eight clusters of possible future developments. This paper describes the process of inter- and transdisciplinary scenario development, gives an overview of the scenarios identified, and finally discusses the adaptability of the Lüneburg idea of a sustainable university to the future system of higher education.
Malaysian higher education institutions, particularly universities, are critical to the economic and social future of the nation. This is so as demands for pursuit of knowledge and innovations as well as for highly specialized and educated people have made university education highly important and a priority for the Malaysian government. This article presents the alternative models for Malaysian universities by establishing a set of scenarios based on the current model and future trends of Malaysian higher education institutions. The first section gives a brief overview of the Malaysian university system and the main forces that drive changes in the system. The second section discusses the project undertaken in scenario building which aims to develop alternative models of universities in Malaysia. The alternative scenarios conceptualized provide three main paradigms on the future model of higher education in Malaysia. The concluding section highlights the importance of understanding the scenarios applied to the future of the university as well as of understanding the changing role and contribution of Malaysian universities in the future.
Sustainable development is a matter of great concern to both countries and individuals alike. Whereas in the late 1980s sustainable development was perceived as a matter of concern only to nations, there has been an increased awareness about the fact that it permeates all parts of our lives. Some of the trends related to the evolution of sustainable development can be seen among various sectors, also at universities. Due to their relevance, universities are uniquely placed to pass on the messages of sustainable development to a wide audience. Yes, this potential has not yet been fully realised. This paper describes the evolution of the concept of sustainable development and process behind the its establishment at university level, including an analysis of the problems related to it and their roots. It also states what universities need to do in order to claim excellence in the held of sustainable development, listing a set of criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to achieve this goal.
Every student of English-speaking analytical metaphysics is taught that the early twentieth century philosophical debate about truth confronted the correspondence theory, supported by Russell, Moore, the early Wittgenstein and, later, J.L. Austin, with the coherence theory advocated by the British Idealists. Sometimes the pragmatist conception of truth deriving from Dewey, William James, and C.S. Peirce is regarded as a third player. And as befits a debate at the dawn of analytical philosophy, the matter in dispute is normally taken to have been the proper analysis of the concept.
No doubt this conception nicely explains some of the characteristic turns taken in the debate. Analysis, as traditionally conceived, has to consist in the provision of illuminating conceptual equivalences; and illumination will depend, according to the standard rules of play, on the analysans’ utilizing only concepts which, in the best case, are in some way prior to and independent of the notion being analyzed — or, if that's too much to ask, then concepts which at least permit of some form of explication which does not in turn take one straight back to that notion.
The article presents a set of scenarios for universities and higher education in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) area. The first section gives a brief overview of the main forces currently at play in higher education in OECD countries, setting the context in which speculation about the future takes place. The second section discusses the purposes of a scenario-building exercise, the methodology used and (some of) its caveats. This suggests the need to rework the equality of educational opportunity project and situate the project globally as well as nationally.
These authors identify transforming trends in society that are affecting the mission of universities, analyze the impact of those trends on the institutional and spatial structure of universities, and then summarize the factors that planners should be paying attention to in the future design of their institutions. Rifca Hashimshony is an architect and an associate professor in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. For many years she was assistant dean and deputy dean in charge of undergraduate studies. She teaches various design studios, and was involved in an international project initiated by Professor Alexander Tzonis of TU Delft, dealing with the design of the University of the Future. Among her research interests are the future of higher education, scientific education for young children, and building conservation. Jacov Haina is an architect and teaches Architectural Design in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. His master's thesis dealt with the design of the University of the Future. He is currently completing a second master's degree in Philosophy at the University of Haifa. His current research includes the history of university architecture in Israel.
A second academic revolution, integrating a mission for economic and social development is transforming the traditional teaching and research university into an entrepreneurial university. The Triple Helix thesis postulates that the interaction among university-industry-government is the key to improving the conditions for innovation in a knowledge-based society. More than the development of new products in firms, innovation is the creation of new arrangements among the institutional spheres that foster the conditions for innovation. Invention of organisational innovations, new social arrangements and new channels for interaction becomes as important as the creation of physical devices in speeding the pace of innovation. This paper draws for data on interviews conducted by the author in the USA, Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Portugal and Denmark.
This article reviews definitions and frameworks for sustainability in higher education by examining a set of major national and international declarations and institutional policies related to environmental sustainability in universities. It identifies emerging themes and priorities, and discusses how these declarations and policies are affecting various institutions in how they frame the central task of becoming sustainable and how they perceive their own commitment to sustainability. © 2002 International Association of Universities. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Most of the existing methods for qualitative trend analysis are based on discriminative models. A disadvantage of such models is that many heuristic rules or local search methods are needed. Recently, an effort has been made to develop a globally optimal method for qualitative trend analysis. This method is based on a generative (rather than discriminative) model and has shown to lead to excellent performance. However, this method comes at an extreme computational demand which renders the methods unlikely for on-line application. In this work, an alternative method, while still generative in nature, is proposed which is shown to deliver the same performance while reducing the computational demand considerably.
Futures studies are the scientific study of possible, desirable, and probable future developments and scope for design, as well as the conditions for these in the past and in the present. Modern futures studies assume that the future is not entirely determinable and that different future developments (‘futures’) are possible and there is scope for design. They are based on the realization that there are indeed a great number of possible futures but that these are not arbitrary. The term ‘Future-oriented Technology Analysis’ refers to potent changes and challenges for futures studies at the interface of technological change with increasingly science-based innovation, attention to societal issues and concerns. Futures Studies and Future-oriented Technology analysis are concerned with complex dynamic systems and processes and engage multiple stakeholders in participatory and interdisciplinary processes to assure distributed understanding and sustainable development. The article discusses principles and context of Futures studies and Futures analyses methodology. It puts forward five core research lines to outline Futures studies contribution to addressing issues in the research area of Internet & Society.
The release in early 2001 of a study of Australian social science academics perceptions of the impact of commercialisation on academic freedom (Kayrooz, Kinnear & Preston, 2001) led to sustained public debate over the issue of academic standards and the internationalisation of higher education in Australia. This debate gave expression to growing disaffection amongst Australian academics with the pressures for increased com mercialisation and entrepreneurialism in their work. In this paper I use the tools provided through the work of Michel Foucault to critically examine the terms of the debate as it was conducted in the public arena. The purpose of this analysis is to explore the ways in which international students were represented in the discourses of academic standards, and the conflation of the alleged decline in academic standards with the internationalisation of higher education, and in particular, with the presence of international students on Australian campuses.