COPERNICUS Alliance

Green Offices stand for institutionalizing sustainability in higher education by empowering students and staff as changemakers. From 21-22 October 2022, students and staff from Belgian Green Offices – including several CA members – gathered for a meet-up. The two-day meeting served for knowledge exchange between well-established Green Offices and newer ones as well as for joint workshops with partner organizations.

The COPERNICUS Alliance was invited by three other networks to represent our European network on higher education for sustainable development at their events: The international week of the Top Management Programme for senior higher education leaders organized by Advance HE, the Annual Meeting of PRME’s chapter France & Benelux, and the Summit for Future Generations of the Foundation for Future Generations. We provide a brief overview of the key messages given and taken during these three events.

From 10-11 November 2022, the SDG-iLevel project partners met in Rijeka, Croatia. Current activities involve interviews with decision makers at universities and a large survey among European academics. SDG-iLevel Maps will connect specific tasks performed by employees in major university staff groups and academic domains with specific individual contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals at macro, meso and micro (individual) level. 

For university lecturers in Austria, there is currently a lack of both adequate further training offers on sustainable development and suitable incentives to participate in them. How can sustainable development in its various forms be integrated into schools, if student teachers at universities have so far received too little insight into the topic? Against this background, the "Alliance of Sustainable Universities in Austria" developed the 2-semester further education program "ESD-Certificate" for university teachers.

From 6-8 September 2022 Hasselt University opened its doors to the conference highlight of the year: Well over a hundred participants gathered at the Higher Education Summit 2022 in Hasselt, Belgium. Under the theme "Daring to transform learning for a future-proof economy" the summit brought together changemakers in the field of transformative learning for sustainable development within higher education. The program offered plenary sessions, interactive workshops, inspiring talks, onsite excursions, lots of networking opportunities and thought-provoking keynotes by Guia Bianchi, Sam de Muijnck, Vivek Gilani, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Kate Raworth, Gustavo Rodriguez, Olivia Rutazibwa, Stephen Sterling, Lilian Trechsel and Renate Wesselink. Check out recordings, photos and further material of the conference! 

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"Wake Up – The Lao Coffee Game" is a Swiss–Lao co-production co-created by the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) at the University of Bern. Aimed at 17–23-year-old students, the game can be played in person or online. It combines interactive, face-to-face role play with digital gaming trajectories. Using the example of coffee, its purpose is to offer an in-depth learning experience of the system dynamics of global agricultural commodity value chains and the implications for sustainable development. 

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Surging from a workshop during the Higher Education Summit 2022 three learner- and student-driven initiatives are taking the ambition to explore the potential impact on transforming education. The Green Office Movement (member of Students Organising for Sustainability SOS-International), oikos International and the Young Person’s Guide to the Future aim to create a joint program that combines Education for Sustainable Development with leadership skills and the Inner Development Goals. Are you future-ready and/or do you want to learn with us together?

The project TRACCskills, in which the CA is involved as a partner, aims towards developing a practice-oriented compendium for high-quality and future-fit adult education that focuses on "people skills". As the project is making progress, we want to shed a light on a concept that amongst others is being used: the Inner Development Goals (IDGs). The current IDGs framework represents five dimensions and 23 skills and qualities which are especially crucial to reach the SDGs. Find out more about TRACCskills and the IDGs!

The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) responds to its commitment to sustainability by calculating the food waste generated on its three campuses. Recent investigations in the project "Food waste at the UPV/EHU: Measuring to reduce" show the potential for food waste reduction in all canteens and cafeterias.

To accelerate the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in a decade of action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UNESCO is launching the new global network of education stakeholders: ESD-Net 2030. The Network aims to create synergy among members and foster cross-sectoral collaboration to support the implementation of ESD nationally, regionally, and globally.  

Networks fuel innovation and support careers, and they act as drivers of change – this was one of the key messages during the workshop "The future of university networks – What is their added value for each member university and for the network?" at BOKU Vienna. The workshop on 24 May 2022 was organized on the occasion of BOKU’s 150th anniversary, which was celebrated with a memorable event entitled "Featuring Future Conference". Former CA President Anne Zimmermann represented the CA at the workshop next to eight other networks. The aim was to discuss what were the three most important benefits that members expected from each university network, and were these expectations met?

Transformative science in the digital space requires new knowledge, attitudes and skills. Co-creation, especially in a transdisciplinary environment, is not easily converted from physical meetings to an online format. Rather, it requires a conscious use of digital tools and a critical reflection about their influence on our interactions: how does the online environment influence communication? How can participation and inclusion be enabled, contributive fairness be fostered and trust be created in an online setting? A research team at the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, developed guidelines based on experiences of researchers and lecturers at CDE during the COVID crisis, with a view to offering hands-on suggestions for online practice.

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What personal competencies are necessary for professionals to achieve sustainable development? A recent publication by CA colleagues from the Netherlands addresses this question in their paper "Competencies of Sustainability Professionals: An Empirical Study on Key Competencies for Sustainability". This freely available paper bridges the divergence in literature between theoretically and empirically driven research and offers novel insights on sustainability competencies for the fields of sustainability science, human resource management, and higher education. Colleagues who are interested in this topic may also follow the EU project TRACCskills, which seeks to identify "transformational, cross-cutting people skills for the SDGs".

To support the ambitious Circular Economy Strategy action plan adopted by the European Union, the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable Product Management enabling a Circular Economy (CD-Lab) at the University of Graz acts as a creative space for developing and conducting research in sustainable product management, the results of which will support the transition toward a circular economy.

The 17^th IRDO International Conference "SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE SOCIETY 2022: Green, digital, and inclusive transition: how to make it happen?" was held from 2-3 June 2022 online. The conference attracted more than 100 participants and 70 authors with 36 papers from more than 10 countries. Its main purpose was to explore conceptual framework(s), conditions and possibilities for a green, digital and inclusive transition that enables the development of a common sustainable future, as embraced by the European Green Deal and in line with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs.

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Nearly one year after the Berlin Declaration on Education for Sustainable Development was adopted by 2,800 education and environment stakeholders from 161 countries at the 2021 UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development, UNESCO has published an Explanatory Note on the Berlin Declaration which can be used as a pedagogical tool in educational settings for teachers, educators, learners and all other interested parties. Furthermore, a Brochure on the Berlin Declaration has been published, with the aim of being disseminated to policy-makers in order to spread the message of the Declaration.

The COPERNICUS Alliance is a partner in the recently started EU Erasmus+ project SDG-iLevel (Leveraging Individual SDG Contributions by University Staff). From 25-26 April the project partners from five countries met for the kick-off meeting in Girona, Spain. SDG-iLevel will create approaches, methods and tools aimed at uncovering, harnessing and strengthening the individual contributions of higher education employees to the Sustainable Development Goals in order to improve their mental well-being, job satisfaction, productivity and teamwork and to promote further SDG contributions.

The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Faculty of Engineering in Bilbao supports a group of students and faculty advisors who collaborate to develop an innovative educational project: Formula Student Bizkaia (FSB). Each year they design, test and manufacture an electric car (prototype) under the principles of sustainable awareness to compete in the international Formula Student university events.