Purpose This study aims to understand better the student awareness and knowledge on how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used in higher education institutions (HEIs) to motivate students’ learning on sustainability. It is essential to consider students’ understanding of sustainability at the end of their studies to assess whether they feel prepared to apply sustainability in their daily work life. Design/methodology/approach The study has a quantitative case study design, and the specific method used is an online survey with masters’ students using the university student platform EvaSys. The study assesses approaching how students perceive the overall education integrating sustainability into programs and curricula. Findings The results showed that work-integrated learning (WIL) projects learning and real-life experiences as part of their studies enhanced the students’ understanding of sustainability. Moreover, the study showed that integrating an understanding of the SDGs in teaching offers universities a way to frame students’ key competencies in ways that allow them to develop their interpersonal competencies as ambassadors for sustainability in their future work life. Practical implications This study supports the argument that WIL and real-life university experiences enhance students’ key competencies critical for sustainability. Originality/value The pedagogical approach advanced in this paper addresses how WIL and real-life experiences might develop students’ key competencies on sustainability. This approach indicates that working with SDGs in teaching encourages students to promote their interpersonal competencies for sustainability.

Purpose This study aims to explore an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach for advancing knowledge and understanding of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) at higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study conducted an explorative experiment to elaborate on forms to advance a pedagogical approach that embeds sustainability. The design of the pedagogical project was explorative and interdisciplinary, using a predefined framework on key competencies for sustainability. Findings The findings showed that an interdisciplinary approach can create a learning setting that stimulates students’ problem-solving competencies for sustainability-related issues. Students were trained in the five key sustainable competencies addressed by Wiek et al. (2011). Moreover, although it is not always possible to arrange an interdisciplinary pedagogical setting, this might be a key condition for the development of students’ key competencies regarding their understanding of the SDGs. Addressing the SDGs from an interdisciplinary perspective paved the way for the development of students’ strategic competencies, including systems thinking and anticipatory competencies. Practical implications The pedagogical project, as an interdisciplinary explorative experiment, was shown to be a potentially suitable method to counteract “cherry-picking” approaches to teaching the SDGs at HEI. Originality/value The pedagogical approach advanced in this paper, extends active learning and interdisciplinarity in higher education. The authors argue that this approach encourages students to take ownership of and responsibility for their learning process and indicates a changed mindset and behavior.