TY - JOUR
T1 - Establishing sustainability science in higher education institutions
T2 - Towards an integration of academic development, institutionalization, and stakeholder collaborations
AU - Yarime, Masaru
AU - Trencher, Gregory
AU - Mino, Takashi
AU - Scholz, Roland W.
AU - Olsson, Lennart
AU - Ness, Barry
AU - Frantzeskaki, Niki
AU - Rotmans, Jan
N1 - Funding Information:
The Talloires Declaration of 1990, the first official statement made by university presidents, chancellors, and rectors of a commitment to sustainability in higher education, drew up an action plan for incorporating sustainability literacy in teaching, research, operations, and outreach at colleges and universities (Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future 2011). The Swansea Declaration was adopted at the conclusion of the Association of Commonwealth Universities’ Fifteenth Quinquennial Conference in 1993. The Co-operation Program in Europe for Research on Nature and Industry through Coordinated University Studies (COPERNICUS), which was established by the Conference of European Rectors (CRE) to promote a better understanding of the interaction between man and the environment and to collaborate on common environmental issues, created the CRE COPERNICUS Charter for Sustainable Development in 1994 (Conference of European Rectors 1994). The COPERNICUS conference held for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Rio?10, adopted the Lüneburg Declaration on Higher Education for Sustainable Development in 2001. The Declaration Ubuntu in Education, Science, and Technology for the Sustainable Development was adopted in 2002, with the signatories of major academic institutions such as the United Nations University (UNU), UNESCO, International Association of Universities, Third World Academy of Science, African Academy of Sciences and the Science Council of Asia, as well as the International Council for Science, World Federation of Engineering Organizations, Copernicus-Campus, Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership and University Leaders for Sustainable Future. The Barcelona Declaration, which was settled at the Second International Conference on Engineering Education in Sustainable Development in 2004, underlined the importance of sustainable development in all technological education, and called upon higher education institutions in the engineering field to progressively translate sustainable development objectives into concrete actions. The Graz Declaration of 2004, addressing the Bologna Process in particular, made the call to take appropriate actions toward incorporating the principle of sustainable development in the establishment of the European Higher Education Area.
PY - 2012/2
Y1 - 2012/2
N2 - The field of sustainability science aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between natural and human systems in order to transform and develop these in a sustainable manner. As sustainability problems cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, interdisciplinarity has become a central idea to the realm of sustainability science. Yet, for addressing complicated, real-world sustainability problems, interdisciplinarity per se does not suffice. Active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society-transdisciplinarity-must form another critical component of sustainability science. In addition to implementing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in practice, higher education institutions also need to deal with the challenges of institutionalization. In this article, drawing on the experiences of selected higher education academic programs on sustainability, we discuss academic, institutional, and societal challenges in sustainability science and explore the potential of uniting education, research and societal contributions to form a systematic and integrated response to the sustainability crisis.
AB - The field of sustainability science aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between natural and human systems in order to transform and develop these in a sustainable manner. As sustainability problems cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, interdisciplinarity has become a central idea to the realm of sustainability science. Yet, for addressing complicated, real-world sustainability problems, interdisciplinarity per se does not suffice. Active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society-transdisciplinarity-must form another critical component of sustainability science. In addition to implementing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in practice, higher education institutions also need to deal with the challenges of institutionalization. In this article, drawing on the experiences of selected higher education academic programs on sustainability, we discuss academic, institutional, and societal challenges in sustainability science and explore the potential of uniting education, research and societal contributions to form a systematic and integrated response to the sustainability crisis.
KW - Higher education institutions
KW - Institutionalization
KW - Interdisciplinarity
KW - Social experimentation
KW - Stakeholder collaboration
KW - Transdisciplinarity
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U2 - 10.1007/s11625-012-0157-5
DO - 10.1007/s11625-012-0157-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84857042248
SN - 1862-4065
VL - 7
SP - 101
EP - 113
JO - Sustainability Science
JF - Sustainability Science
IS - SUPPL. 1
ER -