COPERNICUS Alliance

We are looking back on a successful 2024 Higher Education Summit dedicated to "Co-creating change for sustainability"! From 8-10 September 2024, over 100 participants from 26 countries met at University of Padua to foster dialogue and collaboration among educators and stakeholders in higher education. In its fifth edition, the Higher Education Summit once again brought together old and new friends from around the world. They enjoyed a rich program including workshops, network corners, teaching and learning labs, excursions, social events, and great keynote speakers such as Marco Frey, Enrico Giovannini, Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Isabel Rimanoczy, Umesh Sharma and Arjen Wals.  

The annual conference of the International Association of Universities (IAU) is a unique global platform for higher education leaders to meet, network and exchange on the development of higher education. The 2024 Conference aims to bring together members of the global higher education community to consider University Values in a Changing World. Do higher education institutions around the world share certain fundamental university values? Are academic values, such as autonomy, academic freedom, and research integrity, at risk of being subverted by political pressures? These are questions that will be addressed from 22-24 November 2024 at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.

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Representing the SDG-iLevel project, Jesús Granados Sánchez hosted a "collective intelligence workshop" at the 2024 Higher Education Summit. He presented already finalized project results such as the Online Visibility Booster and the Self-Nudging Toolkit and engaged participants in a co-creation activity centered around the SDG-iLevel Maps. Participants were invited to evaluate the matrix and format of these maps, designed to showcase real-world examples of individual academics’ contributions to the SDGs.

The project "ATTUNE – Activate the University for Climate Change" is an innovative learning programme that addresses climate change on the university campus. At the final dissemination event, the project partners from Germany, Italy, Poland, Turkey and Spain, including the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), will present the results: a validated methodology that directly addresses climate change on the university campus and promotes as well as encourages action by all members of the university community, now available for any European university to implement. The event takes place on 10 October 2024 in Hildesheim, Germany and will also be streamed online.

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The universities in the Austrian province of Styria have developed a poster exhibition and extensive web material to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Thanks to the broad collaboration of different actors, the content has been prepared creatively and in a way that is appropriate for different target groups. The interaction of the poster exhibition, web content, audio guides and teaching materials enables access for different learning types. To date, more than 100 schools, communities and companies used the material, which is freely available online.

The coordination office of the working group "Sustainability at Brandenburg Universities" has published the English version of the practical guide for teachers and lecturers of all disciplines and multipliers who are committed to sustainable development at their university and want to integrate it in university teaching: "Designing future-oriented curricula – a practical guide for the curricular integration of higher education for sustainable development".

On 27 February 2024, Leuphana University Lüneburg organized a roundtable with twenty ESD stakeholders from Lüneburg and Hamburg to strengthen local cooperation on sustainability learning between the two regions. The roundtable explored strategies to seize opportunities and overcome challenges in connecting regional/local and global actions in Education for Sustainable Development (“glocalizing ESD”).

In our series "A conversation with..." this time we talked to Theodoros Xanthos, Professor for Physiology and Pathophysiology at School of Health Sciences, and Vice-Rector of International Affairs and Extroversion at University of West Attica. He outlines how sustainability is implemented at this young Greek university and emphasizes the necessity for colllaboration at all levels. 

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Students, student representatives, academics, university staff and education charities came together in Enschede, Netherlands at the University of Twente from 14-16 March 2024 for the SOS International Summit: "Travelling from crisis to perspective: A holistic journey for sustainability". Over 100 participants from over 40 organizations across Europe, Africa and the Pacific joined in-person and online. The event was supported by a CA Cooperation Fund.

The unicitiES 2030 program is a cooperation between the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz. It aims at promoting the development of end-of-degree/master projects between the university and the city, in which students, university faculty and municipal professionals collaborate to co-create solutions and contribute to sustainable urban transformation by solving specific challenges faced by cities to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. 

Naroa and Jon, students from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), immersed themselves last summer in an expedition through the Yucatan Peninsula, together with colleagues from several Spanish universities, with the initiative Ruta Inti, an experience that has the support from the Directorate of Sustainability and Social Commitment of the UPV/EHU.

From 2-5 April 2024, the SDG-iLevel project held a combined staff workshop and project meeting at Leuphana University Lüneburg. 15 academic staff members from University of Girona, University of Rijeka, and Kaunas University of Technology joined the workshop on "Empowering university staff for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals". They brought a diverse range of expertise, resulting in rich discussions and valuable contributions to the ambitions of the SDG-iLevel project.

One of the main goals of the SDG-iLevel project is ready for use: On a newly created website you can access over 30 self-nudges (small behavioral prompts) that encourage the users to think about their roles in the university and their current and potential contributions to specific SDGs. Check it out and see how you can easily implement sustainable habits in your daily life! 

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On 7 February 2024, a distinguished panel of experts met as part of the new "Rethinking Higher Education Dialogue Series" to discuss the recently adopted "Recommendation on Education for Peace and Sustainable Development". The event, organized by the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development at Leuphana University Lüneburg, aimed to delve into the implications of this revision, which sets forth a comprehensive framework for aligning education with global aspirations for peace and sustainability.

Again this year, on 16 February 2024, the University of Padua will join "M'illumino di meno", a campaign promoted by one of the national public service radio stations (Rai Radio2), aimed at raising public awareness on energy saving. For 20 years, the initiative has seen the participation of Italy’s most important institutions who choose to turn off the lights of the best-known monuments and buildings of the country. The 2024 edition proposes a focus on international alliances – all CA members and friends are invited you to join the initiative by switching off the lights of their buildings on 16 February! 

This year's edition of the Higher Education Summit was special: The 3-days online conference was the great result of a fruitful collaboration between the COPERNICUS Alliance and the students from oikos International. More than 100 participants joined the discussions on learner-driven education, which means that not only students, but also teachers and other educational and societal stakeholders learn by closely collaborating – a real Copernican Revolution in Higher Education! Recordings and further materials are available now.

Saving resources, reducing environ-mental impact, promoting sustainable mobility – the University of Graz has been consistently pursuing these goals for years. Now it is setting another milestone. It is the first university in Austria to set up a software solution, the "data warehouse", which centrally collects and evaluates all data on environmental performance.

In our series "A conversation with..." this time we talked to Dominik Allenspach, Sustainability Officer at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. He gives an insight into the Swiss university landscape and explains why it is a competitive advantage for universities to have a Sustainability Officer.

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