The Higher Education Academy’s Education for Sustainable Development Programme

The Sustainability of Sustainability: Developing the Leaders of Tomorrow

David Sadler

Director (Networks)

Higher Education Academy

A growing movement...

• UN Decade for ESD (2005-15)• DIUS Sustainable Development Action Plan• HEFCE’s Strategic Review of SD in HE and SD Action Plan (2009)• HEFCE’s Carbon Reduction Target and Strategy for HE (2010)• HEFCW Corporate Strategy and Plan • HE Academy ESD Project - recognised as a priority • Sustainability CETLs and a growing number of leader HEIs• People and Planet ‘Green League’• Future Leaders Survey• Green Gown Awards• Rise of Regional Centres of Expertise• Universities UK SD Group and Statement of Intent• 2008 Review of ESD in HE in Scotland

Tensions: ESD =add-on or transformation?

• Technical issue relating mainly to estates and resource use

• Principally an environmental issue

• Requires add-on, or reformative approach

• Involves a few disciplines only

• Is an additional agenda, easily accommodated

• Has clear goals, measurable

• Broad relevance to all aspects of HE operation and provision

• Also encompasses social relations, justice, ethics, economic viability etc

• Requires holistic and transformative approach

• Interdisciplinarity across curriculum

• Is an overarching agenda and challenges existing policy and practice and involves organisational change

• Emerging and contested area

Barriers

Cited factors• Limited institutional

commitment• Crowded curriculum• Perceived irrelevance• Limited staff awareness

and/or expertise• Limited commitment from

external stakeholders• Perceived as separate

and/or too demanding

Types of barriers

• Paradigmatic/psychological

• Policy/purpose related

• Structural (governance, compartmentalisation etc)

• Resource/information deficiency

based on Sustainable Development in HE,

HE Academy 2005 (Dawe report)

5

Some challenges for the ‘sustainable university’, how to...

• bring together and reconcile agendas coherently: e.g. employment, internationalisation, enterprise and sustainability

• spearhead sustainable development regionally with stakeholders, and support healthy and sustainable economies and communities

• model sustainability on campus, procurement, food and resource use etc

• anticipate social, economic and ecological change, particularly related to climate change

• ensure ‘sustainability literacy’ of staff and students

• get all this to be a central part of the HEI’s culture

HE Academy Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Project

Purpose: ‘to help institutions and subject communities develop curricula and pedagogy that will give students the skills and knowledge to live and work sustainably.’

HE Academy ESD (Project)

Aims

1. ‘To research and support the development of ESD in the HE sector, particularly within subject communities’.

2. ‘To build capacity amongst individuals, subject communities and institutions to embed ESD in curricula and pedagogy’.

3. ‘To assist the coordination and dissemination of policy, research and practice relating to ESD in institutions, the HEA and the wider field’.

‘Sustainability literacy’: the ability..

• to appreciate importance of environmental, social, and political contexts

- to solve real-life problems in a non-reductionist manner

- to think creatively and holistically and make critical judgements

- to develop high-level of self reflection, personal and professional

- to identify, understand, evaluate and adopt values conducive to sustainability

- to bridge the gap between theory and practice

- to participate creatively in inter-discipinary teams

- to initiate and manage change

AND, have a broad and balance foundation knowledge of SD

•SD in HE: Current practice and future developments, Higher Education Academy 2005

Plan of Work 2009-10 (highlights)

• Student engagement research

• Student engagement event

• Produce a Learning and Teaching Framework for ESD

• Two single institutional strategy and change events in Scotland

• Coordination of Sustainability in Higher Education Developers (SHED Act) network (with EAUC)

• Fund a number of small curriculum development grants around interdisciplinarity

• Subject Centre interdisciplinary research grants

Thanks for listening

• Bi-monthly e-newsletter

• Weekly e-bulletin (to subscribe to both/ either email: sustainability@heacademy.ac.uk)

• Academy ESD website (www.heacademy.ac.uk/esd)