Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development

Abstract

The emerging academic field focused on sustainability has been engaged in a rich and converging debate to define what key competencies are considered critical for graduating students to possess. For more than a decade, sustainability courses have been developed and taught in higher education, yet comprehensive academic programs in sustainability, on the undergraduate and graduate level, have emerged only over the last few years. Considering this recent institutional momentum, the time is seemingly right to synthesize the discussion about key competencies in sustainability in order to support these relatively young academic programs in shaping their profiles and achieving their ambitious missions. This article presents the results of a broad literature review. The review identifies the relevant literature on key competencies in sustainability; synthesizes the substantive contributions in a coherent framework of sustainability research and problem-solving competence; and addresses critical gaps in the conceptualization of key competencies in sustainability. Insights from this study lay the groundwork for institutional advancements in designing and revising academic programs; teaching and learning evaluations; as well as hiring and training faculty and staff.

Cognitive Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study on Serum Vitamin D and Its Interplay With Glucose Homeostasis in Dutch Older Adults

“…De Haan (2010) and Wiek et al (2011) as starting points, complemented by sets of SD competencies reported by Ellis and Weekes (2008), Mogenson and Schnack (2010), Schnack (1996) and Wilson et al (2006). From this they composed a list of seven competencies for sustainability.…”

“…De Haan (2010) and Wiek et al (2011). In general, these sets of competencies find their origins in educational literature and are based on literature reviews; without hardly any verification whether or how these competencies are connected with managerial CSR tasks.…”

Science with Society in the Anthropocene

“…New hybrid disciplines such as ''environmental sciences'' have emerged, and integrated projects and integrated modeling are promoted. This also has implications for the education of students, who are increasingly involved in interdisciplinary settings to tackle (contested) human-environmental problems Barth et al 2007;Wiek et al 2011).…”

Transferring Sustainability Solutions across Contexts through City–University Partnerships

“…Interest refers to a university or city's expressed attention to and concern for issues related to sustainability. Individual competence is the sustainability knowledge, skills, and attitudes possessed by an individual in an organization [14]. For sustainability solutions, individual competence refers to the knowledge and skills to design, test, and implement sustainability solutions of researchers or city staff that are engaging in or could be engaged in the partnership [6].…”

“…Throughout the world there are university departments, centers, and degree-granting programs oriented towards sustainability, where students and faculties take on more active roles in applied research, capacity building, and communication of knowledge to the public [13,14]. Societal actors, too, are reframed from passive recipients of knowledge to knowledge creators and essential partners in an educational and research agenda capable of leveraging many forms of knowledge in service of better, more sustainable futures.…”