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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) contain a set of 17 measures to foster sustainable development across many areas. It offers a good opportunity to reinvigorate sustainable development research for two main reasons. First, it comprises many areas of SD research, which have become mainstream thanks to the UN SDGs. Second, the fact that the UN and its member countries have committed to attaining SDGs by 2030 has added a sense of urgency to the need to perform quality research on SD on the one hand, and reiterates the need to use the results of this research on the other. Even though the basic concept of sustainability goes back many centuries, it has only recently appeared on the international political agenda. This is partly due to an awakening of the fact that the human ecological pressure on the planet is still much larger than what nature can renew or compensate for. Based on this state of affairs, this paper presents an outline of the process leading to the agreement on the UN SDGs, and looks at some of the ecological aspects as a result of continued pressure of human activities on natural resources. Furthermore, a set of research needs is proposedalso based holistically on updated research trendsdiscussing the degree of urgency of some measures and explaining why the UN SDGs need to be accorded greater priority in international sustainable development research efforts.

Background “The impacts of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the shutdown it triggered at universities across the world, led to a great degree of social isolation among university staff and students. The aim of this study was to identify the perceived consequences of this on staff and their work and on students and their studies at universities. Method The study used a variety of methods, which involved an on-line survey on the influences of social isolation using a non-probability sampling. More specifically, two techniques were used, namely a convenience sampling (i.e. involving members of the academic community, which are easy to reach by the study team), supported by a snow ball sampling (recruiting respondents among acquaintances of the participants). A total of 711 questionnaires from 41 countries were received. Descriptive statistics were deployed to analyse trends and to identify socio-demographic differences. Inferential statistics were used to assess significant differences among the geographical regions, work areas and other socio-demographic factors related to impacts of social isolation of university staff and students. Results The study reveals that 90% of the respondents have been affected by the shutdown and unable to perform normal work or studies at their institution for between 1 week to 2 months. While 70% of the respondents perceive negative impacts of COVID 19 on their work or studies, more than 60% of them value the additional time that they have had indoors with families and others. . Conclusions While the majority of the respondents agree that they suffered from the lack of social interaction and communication during the social distancing/isolation, there were significant differences in the reactions to the lockdowns between academic staff and students. There are also differences in the degree of influence of some of the problems, when compared across geographical regions. In addition to policy actions that may be deployed, further research on innovative methods of teaching and communication with students is needed in order to allow staff and students to better cope with social isolation in cases of new or recurring pandemics.

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