Future sustainability scenarios for universities: moving beyond the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

Abstract

As achievements of the completed United Nations Decade (2005e2014) 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 systematically Barth et al.

Implementing Sustainability Co-Creation between Universities and Society: A Typology-Based Understanding

“…By rewarding achievements in knowledge production output such as publications and conference presentations through tenure and funding allocation [7,9], academic incentive systems have historically privileged this type of scientific activity. In contrast, the other end of the continuum concerns collaborations undertaken across societal sectors with explicit ambitions to implement knowledge, create tools and solutions, and transform society [12,14,42,48]. The nature of sustainability co-creation activities differs strongly in accordance with the varying emphasis placed on these objectives.…”

“…Regarding internal faculty review structures, in order for the university to attain its full co-creative potential, societal impacts and efforts spent engaging with stakeholders by individual faculty must be taken into account [7,42,90]. This could be accomplished by institutionalizing into departmental review guidelines for faculty promotion and tenure a set of explicit achievement standards (e.g., unmeritorious, meritorious, excellent, outstanding) that define various qualitative conceptions of socially impactful research.…”

“…For example, answering the first question would build understanding into qualities and benefits that motivate societal organizations to involve universities in sustainability co-creation. In an age of rapid transformations of university missions, structures, and governance in accordance with evolving stakeholder demands [42,43], this would ensure that desirable qualities are preserved. Conversely, identifying the factors that impede fruitful collaborations with societal partners would give valuable clues as to the future changes required to bring university structures and practices better in line with stakeholder expectations.…”

Architectural and spatial changing of university complexes and buildings in the reformation stage of higher education in Russia

“…Institutions of higher education currently are striving to become centres of regional innovative development and have every reason for this starting with the educational, human resources base and ending with the territorial and spatial resources. Enumerated interactions lead to the integration of the given potential into innovative research clusters [4]. For modern Russian universities this is the key vector of development in the contemporary stage.…”

Policy, entrepreneurship, creativity and sustainability: The case of ‘Principi Attivi’ (‘Active Ingredients’) in Apulia Region (southern Italy)

“…Challenging traditional curricula and habits to enhance new disciplines and production processes is the key to sustainability (Lozano, 2014;Lozano et al 2015;Chin and Jacobsson, 2015). Adequate governmental policies are needed to encourage appropriate responses of the system under challenge (Suryawanshi and Narkhede, 2015), and to assist with educational transformations (Holm et al 2015;Beynaghi et al 2016). …”