H.G. Wells claimed: “History is a race between education and catastrophe”.
The University for Sustainability
At the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), countries acknowledged the importance of education for sustainable development in the outcome document, and made a commitment to strengthening it.
Rationale and background Poverty, climate change, frequent natural disasters and dramatic social inequities are but a few of an unprecedented set of challenges the global community faces today. In a world of 7 billion people, with limited natural resources, individuals and societies have to learn to act more sustainably. Sustainable development can be achieved but technological solutions, political regulations or financial instruments are not enough. Long-term sustainable development can be achieved only if individuals and societies change the way they think and act. Education is key to achieving this transformation. The University for Sustainability helps individuals and groups to find solutions for sustainability challenges including priority sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; for example, climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable production and consumption.
The university seeks to link forces for sustainable development creating innovation as well as collecting commitments for action from sustainable development activists from around the world. Flagship peer-learning initiatives will help strengthen the capacities of policymakers to integrate sustainable development into policies as well as strengthen partner institutes’ capacities to integrate sustainable development into their educational, research and engagement portfolio.
The University for Sustainability is needed to support and to scale up and generate sustainable development action around the world. The creation of a network of universities and their partnership for Sustainable development is crucial to its implementation.
Beneficiaries and stakeholders
Direct beneficiaries:
Policymakers, educators, a variety of ESD stakeholders (including youth, civil society organizations, academia, media)
Partners: Universities, research institutes and UN partners (e.g. UNICEF, UNEP, UNDP, UN CBD, UNU, UN Alliance on Climate Change Education, Training and Public Awareness); UNESCO Centre for Environment Education, India and other similar institutions.
All activities will be designed and implemented in close collaboration with partners as indicated in and guided by the articles of incorporation, policy handbook, and ...
Direct beneficiaries will be engaged with the project development from the start. Implementation strategy UNESCO will undertake three main activities to accelerate and scale up ESD action worldwide within the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ES developed and implemented in cooperation with UNESCO experts in the different regions, UN partners on ESD as well as identified relevant national stakeholders. The activities will be gender sensitive.
...mGap...
Who We Are
USustainability (University for Sustainability) was created through an initiative of the International Council for Sustainability and was officially launched in 2016.
USustainability is a cooperative network of universities, colleges, research institutes and other organizations concerned with education and research in and about sustainability.
USustainability builds and strengthens collective resources and collaborative infrastructure, thereby enabling member institutions to better serve their constituents and their regions.
Cooperation in education, research, outreach and engagement enhances human capacity, promotes viable communities and sustainable development .
The University for Sustainability is needed to scale up and generate sustainable development action around the world.
Overall Goal/Objective
To foster innovation in higher education that empowers citizens around the world to take action on building a sustainable future.
The project has the following specific objectives:
• A great number and variety of partners will undertake Sustainable development action in countries around the world;
• Benefitting policy makers will integrate ESD components in policies and plans, and provide the political leadership and support needed for integrating ESD into teaching and learning practice; • Benefitting higher education the University will reach out to thousands of students and will strengthen their capacities to integrate sustainable development ... into education and learning practice. Main expected results 1. Sustainable development action in all world regions is implemented; 2. Benefitting policy makers integrate ESD components in their policies and plans; 3. Capacities of partner institutes are strengthened to integrate Sustainable development into their educational, research and engagement portfolio and practice.
Activities and deliverables Activity 1: facilitating a Global Action Program on higher education for sustainable development (expected result 1) • ESD Partner Networks set up. Partner Networks will consist of stakeholders with major commitments made to support one or more of the five Priority Action Areas of the Global Action Program and who will help catalyze the generation of further activities by other stakeholders. • Clearinghouse website to showcase and provide access to resources established to enable stakeholders around the world to connect with each other, and to exchange and share experiences, learning resources and innovative research. Dedicated spaces for sub-regional exchange of experiences developed as part of the clearinghouse.
Global Fora on ESD, a global platform for ESD stakeholders, convened to facilitate, among others, exchanges of information and experiences and the global monitoring of progress.
Activity 2: Scaling up ESD Teacher Networks (expected result 2) • Peer-to-peer learning programmes set up for partners to share good practices in reaching out and engaging with new members. This aims to reach out to partner educators. • ESD teacher training organized in cooperation with partners to engage newly interested educators on a long-term basis with the university for sustainabilinetwork.
Mission
Provide an integrated global platform providing unique educational and research opportunitiesthrough collaboration within a powerful network of members.
USustainability benefits students, public and private sectors by creating strong internationalcollaboration among its members that:• Creates shared knowledge, competences and resources by matching capacity to needs • Connects traditional and indigenous knowledge systems with modernacademia • Partners with diverse communities and indigenous populations to respond to their educational aspirations and requirements • Bridges dialogue across different sectors, regions and with the world • Builds shared services that facilitate and promote cooperation and collaboration • Increases collaboration opportunities for our community of faculty, staff and students • Promotes the collective views of its members and broadens the voice of the those most impacted by climate change.
The University of the Sustainability sees its mission as fostering research collaboration, joint educational programs and student and faculty mobility. Its moniker is something of a misnomer: is not a degree-granting institution as the descriptor “university” would imply but rather an association of about 150 colleges, universities and research institutes.
A main goal of USustainability is to increase access to sustainability-themed educational programs by increasing mobility and capacity both. While the individual elements of USustainabilty are not unique, the emergent properties that obtain from the whole make remarkable.
Among those parts, USustainability has an undergraduate education component -- a series of sustainable development studies courses taught online by faculty at various USustainability institutions and open to students at any college within the network.
It manages a mobility program, which shall annually send around 200 students on funded exchanges throughout the network. And it lends its imprimatur to “thematic networks” and institutes, which are both meant to promote research and teaching collaboration across USustainability member institutions on such diverse themes as Arctic geology, sustainability policy, food security, health, etc.
Each of the thematic networks shall be comprised of experts from at least three USustainability institutions with funding from grants and from a foundation affiliated with USustainability.
The thematic networks are very important because in some of the disciplines you don’t find this kind of systemic orientation.
USustainability shall create both an institutional network and a person-to-person network that exists nowhere else. A challenge to which USustainabiity is responding is that a relatively small number of institutions that have major resources while many of the smaller institutions don’t have the faculty and research resources to deal with the pressing problems in their domain.
The network shall pursue nation federal funding but shall be substantially dependent above all on resources provided by the member institutions and governmental and foundation grants obtained for specific projects. The various offices of USustainability shall be be distributed among its members, with the Office of the Secretariat located at ....
The central organization shall have a core budget of about €400.000.. It’s a consortium of voluntary efforts.
What’s fundamental to the mission of USustainability seeks to accomplish is connecting and drawing upon and amplifying those resources and focus them on the global challenge of sustainable development. Poverty, climate change,and dramatic social inequities are merely some of the unprecedented set of challenges the global community faces today.
... The moral obligation of universities to address these issues....
In a world of seven billion people, with limited natural resources (with limits to growth) individuals and societies have to learn to act more sustainably.
Long-term sustainable development can be achieved only if individuals and societies change the way they think and act. Education is key to achieving this transformation.
The University for Sustainability helps individuals and groups to find solutions for sustainability challenges.
The USustainability shall integrate priority sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; for example, climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable consumption.
Within the context of its broadening network, partners can join forces with USustainability to scale up action in all levels and areas of higher education and learning to accelerate progress towards sustainable development.
USustainability will facilitate the implementation of an integrated educational program cultivating strong partnerships with all relevant stakeholders will be developed to offer a systemic approach to education for sustainable development supporting educators, youth, and local communities.
USustainability's systemic approach strengthens its capacity for promoting education for sustainable development implementation. Its interdisciplinary approach and mandate provides it with the unique advantage of drawing upon expertise in the areas education, natural science, social sciences, culture as well as communication to make an important contribution to sustainable development.
Educational Access
Students shall have access to the best and most relevant instructional and training resources.
• USustainability leads student mobility efforts among the those states most impacted by issues of climate change• Students shall have access to and participate in top-quality undergraduate and graduate programs addressing sustainability.• students shall have easy access to field schools and joint programs among USustainability member institutions • students can participate in degree programs, shared courses or field schools initiated by USustainability Thematic Networks • USustainability members combine student and faculty mobility with research cooperation adding values to learning environments
ResearchUSustainability members are the key participants in sustainability research.• USustainability maintains the foremost inventory of sustainability research capacity • USustainability members are involved together in addressing critical sustainability research issues • The Council on sustainability and others look to USustaiability and its members as their shared infrastructure to address relevant research needs • Thematic Networks link educational and research programs that identify and respond to the strategic needs of the thosestates most impacted by climate change.• USustainability develops new methods to combine academic research and traditional knowledge through participation by and with indigenous communities. • USustainability works with .......and other partners to build strong northern-relevant and collaborative research capacity in the North
The University for Sustainability
At the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), countries acknowledged the importance of education for sustainable development in the outcome document, and made a commitment to strengthening it.
Rationale and background Poverty, climate change, frequent natural disasters and dramatic social inequities are but a few of an unprecedented set of challenges the global community faces today. In a world of 7 billion people, with limited natural resources, individuals and societies have to learn to act more sustainably. Sustainable development can be achieved but technological solutions, political regulations or financial instruments are not enough. Long-term sustainable development can be achieved only if individuals and societies change the way they think and act. Education is key to achieving this transformation. The University for Sustainability helps individuals and groups to find solutions for sustainability challenges including priority sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; for example, climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable production and consumption.
The university seeks to link forces for sustainable development creating innovation as well as collecting commitments for action from sustainable development activists from around the world. Flagship peer-learning initiatives will help strengthen the capacities of policymakers to integrate sustainable development into policies as well as strengthen partner institutes’ capacities to integrate sustainable development into their educational, research and engagement portfolio.
The University for Sustainability is needed to support and to scale up and generate sustainable development action around the world. The creation of a network of universities and their partnership for Sustainable development is crucial to its implementation.
Beneficiaries and stakeholders
Direct beneficiaries:
Policymakers, educators, a variety of ESD stakeholders (including youth, civil society organizations, academia, media)
Partners: Universities, research institutes and UN partners (e.g. UNICEF, UNEP, UNDP, UN CBD, UNU, UN Alliance on Climate Change Education, Training and Public Awareness); UNESCO Centre for Environment Education, India and other similar institutions.
All activities will be designed and implemented in close collaboration with partners as indicated in and guided by the articles of incorporation, policy handbook, and ...
Direct beneficiaries will be engaged with the project development from the start. Implementation strategy UNESCO will undertake three main activities to accelerate and scale up ESD action worldwide within the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ES developed and implemented in cooperation with UNESCO experts in the different regions, UN partners on ESD as well as identified relevant national stakeholders. The activities will be gender sensitive.
...mGap...
Who We Are
USustainability (University for Sustainability) was created through an initiative of the International Council for Sustainability and was officially launched in 2016.
USustainability is a cooperative network of universities, colleges, research institutes and other organizations concerned with education and research in and about sustainability.
USustainability builds and strengthens collective resources and collaborative infrastructure, thereby enabling member institutions to better serve their constituents and their regions.
Cooperation in education, research, outreach and engagement enhances human capacity, promotes viable communities and sustainable development .
The University for Sustainability is needed to scale up and generate sustainable development action around the world.
Overall Goal/Objective
To foster innovation in higher education that empowers citizens around the world to take action on building a sustainable future.
The project has the following specific objectives:
• A great number and variety of partners will undertake Sustainable development action in countries around the world;
• Benefitting policy makers will integrate ESD components in policies and plans, and provide the political leadership and support needed for integrating ESD into teaching and learning practice; • Benefitting higher education the University will reach out to thousands of students and will strengthen their capacities to integrate sustainable development ... into education and learning practice. Main expected results 1. Sustainable development action in all world regions is implemented; 2. Benefitting policy makers integrate ESD components in their policies and plans; 3. Capacities of partner institutes are strengthened to integrate Sustainable development into their educational, research and engagement portfolio and practice.
Activities and deliverables Activity 1: facilitating a Global Action Program on higher education for sustainable development (expected result 1) • ESD Partner Networks set up. Partner Networks will consist of stakeholders with major commitments made to support one or more of the five Priority Action Areas of the Global Action Program and who will help catalyze the generation of further activities by other stakeholders. • Clearinghouse website to showcase and provide access to resources established to enable stakeholders around the world to connect with each other, and to exchange and share experiences, learning resources and innovative research. Dedicated spaces for sub-regional exchange of experiences developed as part of the clearinghouse.
Global Fora on ESD, a global platform for ESD stakeholders, convened to facilitate, among others, exchanges of information and experiences and the global monitoring of progress.
Activity 2: Scaling up ESD Teacher Networks (expected result 2) • Peer-to-peer learning programmes set up for partners to share good practices in reaching out and engaging with new members. This aims to reach out to partner educators. • ESD teacher training organized in cooperation with partners to engage newly interested educators on a long-term basis with the university for sustainabilinetwork.
Mission
Provide an integrated global platform providing unique educational and research opportunitiesthrough collaboration within a powerful network of members.
USustainability benefits students, public and private sectors by creating strong internationalcollaboration among its members that:• Creates shared knowledge, competences and resources by matching capacity to needs • Connects traditional and indigenous knowledge systems with modernacademia • Partners with diverse communities and indigenous populations to respond to their educational aspirations and requirements • Bridges dialogue across different sectors, regions and with the world • Builds shared services that facilitate and promote cooperation and collaboration • Increases collaboration opportunities for our community of faculty, staff and students • Promotes the collective views of its members and broadens the voice of the those most impacted by climate change.
The University of the Sustainability sees its mission as fostering research collaboration, joint educational programs and student and faculty mobility. Its moniker is something of a misnomer: is not a degree-granting institution as the descriptor “university” would imply but rather an association of about 150 colleges, universities and research institutes.
A main goal of USustainability is to increase access to sustainability-themed educational programs by increasing mobility and capacity both. While the individual elements of USustainabilty are not unique, the emergent properties that obtain from the whole make remarkable.
Among those parts, USustainability has an undergraduate education component -- a series of sustainable development studies courses taught online by faculty at various USustainability institutions and open to students at any college within the network.
It manages a mobility program, which shall annually send around 200 students on funded exchanges throughout the network. And it lends its imprimatur to “thematic networks” and institutes, which are both meant to promote research and teaching collaboration across USustainability member institutions on such diverse themes as Arctic geology, sustainability policy, food security, health, etc.
Each of the thematic networks shall be comprised of experts from at least three USustainability institutions with funding from grants and from a foundation affiliated with USustainability.
The thematic networks are very important because in some of the disciplines you don’t find this kind of systemic orientation.
USustainability shall create both an institutional network and a person-to-person network that exists nowhere else. A challenge to which USustainabiity is responding is that a relatively small number of institutions that have major resources while many of the smaller institutions don’t have the faculty and research resources to deal with the pressing problems in their domain.
The network shall pursue nation federal funding but shall be substantially dependent above all on resources provided by the member institutions and governmental and foundation grants obtained for specific projects. The various offices of USustainability shall be be distributed among its members, with the Office of the Secretariat located at ....
The central organization shall have a core budget of about €400.000.. It’s a consortium of voluntary efforts.
What’s fundamental to the mission of USustainability seeks to accomplish is connecting and drawing upon and amplifying those resources and focus them on the global challenge of sustainable development. Poverty, climate change,and dramatic social inequities are merely some of the unprecedented set of challenges the global community faces today.
... The moral obligation of universities to address these issues....
In a world of seven billion people, with limited natural resources (with limits to growth) individuals and societies have to learn to act more sustainably.
Long-term sustainable development can be achieved only if individuals and societies change the way they think and act. Education is key to achieving this transformation.
The University for Sustainability helps individuals and groups to find solutions for sustainability challenges.
The USustainability shall integrate priority sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; for example, climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable consumption.
Within the context of its broadening network, partners can join forces with USustainability to scale up action in all levels and areas of higher education and learning to accelerate progress towards sustainable development.
USustainability will facilitate the implementation of an integrated educational program cultivating strong partnerships with all relevant stakeholders will be developed to offer a systemic approach to education for sustainable development supporting educators, youth, and local communities.
USustainability's systemic approach strengthens its capacity for promoting education for sustainable development implementation. Its interdisciplinary approach and mandate provides it with the unique advantage of drawing upon expertise in the areas education, natural science, social sciences, culture as well as communication to make an important contribution to sustainable development.
Educational Access
Students shall have access to the best and most relevant instructional and training resources.
• USustainability leads student mobility efforts among the those states most impacted by issues of climate change• Students shall have access to and participate in top-quality undergraduate and graduate programs addressing sustainability.• students shall have easy access to field schools and joint programs among USustainability member institutions • students can participate in degree programs, shared courses or field schools initiated by USustainability Thematic Networks • USustainability members combine student and faculty mobility with research cooperation adding values to learning environments
ResearchUSustainability members are the key participants in sustainability research.• USustainability maintains the foremost inventory of sustainability research capacity • USustainability members are involved together in addressing critical sustainability research issues • The Council on sustainability and others look to USustaiability and its members as their shared infrastructure to address relevant research needs • Thematic Networks link educational and research programs that identify and respond to the strategic needs of the thosestates most impacted by climate change.• USustainability develops new methods to combine academic research and traditional knowledge through participation by and with indigenous communities. • USustainability works with .......and other partners to build strong northern-relevant and collaborative research capacity in the North