[Podcast] Latest approaches for sustainable universities

11 July, 2024

The 2024 Global Sustainable Development Conference organized by Times Higher Education took place in June in Thailand. The event gathers the leading experts and organizations interested in and sharing new perspectives worth learning on the journey to implementing the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals to 2030 (SDGs).

The 5 sustainability crises of our time

At the beginning of the conference, the urgent global issues continued to be raised, along with an urgent call for a community to act together.

We have been facing five “sustainability crises of our time” in the balanced relationship between economic and social development and environmental conservation, including: (1) wages sustainable food, land, water and oceans; (2) decarbonization of energy consumption and sustainable industry; (3) the development of sustainable cities and communities; (4) education, gender and inequality; (5) health, well-being and demographics.

Facing that situation, many questions have been raised regarding the role of each individual, organization, country, and continent in the process of working together to ensure a sustainable future.

“The process of recognizing sustainable development crises and attempting to resolve them by aligning national and organizational strategies with the 17 SDGs requires optimistic thinking and patience from leaders. This is not a journey to a dead end of development” – Ms. Supamas Isarabhakdi – Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation of Thailand emphasized in the opening session of the conference with the theme “Unifying higher education, government, industry and society for a sustainable future”.

Overview of the opening session of the conference

New approaches of universities in global sustainable development

The experts affirm that higher education institutions have two important roles to play in supporting global sustainability: First, intermediaries lead democratic, fair and cultural dialogues with relevant parties; Second, sustainable knowledge education, inspiration, and creation of a community with the same will, aiming to change the thinking and actions of the generations who will master the future.

To carry out the above two roles, a variety of discussions have taken place, contributing and drawing profound conclusions for higher education institutions and relevant parties in the process of joining hands to solve the 5 sustainability crises of the current time.

A sharing session among 60 discussion topics within the conference framework

* 5 important elements in the sustainable university model

The sustainable development model allows universities to understand and to transform the 17 SDGs into action, emphasizing the following 5 important factors: (1) an academic environment that encourages innovation, (2) co-creation knowledge (co-production), (3) sustainable practices on campus, (4) empowering the younger generation and (5) partnerships for progress. These factors contribute to the development orientation of Training, Research, Community Engagement, Operation of University campuses and Administration.

* Innovate training and research in accordance with “co-creation”

In this model, “sustainable knowledge” becomes the point connecting bilateral and multilateral stakeholders through the co-production/co-creation mechanism in which the school plays an intermediary role. They could be between schools and learners, schools and researchers, researchers and the business community, schools and local authorities.

The output of this process is the classes on sustainable development knowledge in general or specific fields listed as climate change, biodiversity, gender equality, and community health. In particular, the agenda on “green skills” for students and the young generation was set for the first time for schools and businesses at the conference. These are professional skills trained in association with understanding climate change, biodiversity, gender equality, and community health mentioned above.

* The responsibility to promote lifelong learning towards building a sustainable workforce does not only depend on Universities

In a rapidly changing world, organizations must continually “re-engineer” the purpose, content and delivery of education and training, with the goal of a sustainable workforce.

According to the experts, the responsibility for promoting lifelong learning relies on not only schools but also businesses and employers. In terms of schools, curricula need to be developed to equip learners with comprehensive skills and knowledge to lead and advocate for sustainable development. In terms of employers, professional development and team capacity building activities need to be invested in promoting and developing skills related to sustainability, gender equality and social inclusion. From this foundation, business organizations need to change the perspective of “investing in the team” as an asset and lifelong learning ability as a sustainable factor in creating values for the organization.

* Technology and artificial intelligence to promote sustainable development solutions

To solve global challenges, revolutionary solutions are needed, experts have emphasized the role of technology, especially artificial intelligence, in this process. In a special sharing session on “Addressing climate change: Negative emissions and the development of energy systems AI-Driven Innovations”, Prof. Xi Chen – President, Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong – shared some of the recent breakthrough advances in AI-driven materials and system design that could significantly boost energy conversion efficiency in an effort to further close the carbon loop through direct capture of carbon dioxide in the air and conversion into usable CO2.

From a university governance perspective, digital transformation and application of advanced technologies continue to be emphasized as important internal forces for universities to position and to promote sustainable development on a large scale.

In addition to the new perspectives mentioned above, the conference mentioned possible solutions to solve sustainability crises, posing problems for urban managers in the process of implementing the 17 global development goals. The organizer Times Higher Education (THE) also has many sharing sessions on sustainable university governance to increase its position on THE Impact rankings; processes, mechanisms and plans for statistics and data declaration to serve this ranking.

It can be stated that the new approaches to sustainable development from the 2024 Global Sustainable Development Conference not only provide useful sharing but also suggest an innovative and comprehensive approach to the UEH Multidisciplinary & Sustainable Strategy. Learning and implementing these approaches will contribute towards promoting a pioneering UEH, in both the academic field and the leading sustainability and implementing social responsibility, first of all in Vietnam.

This is an article in a series of articles spreading research and applied knowledge from UEH with the message “Research Contribution For All – Research For The Community”, UEH respectfully invites readers to read the upcoming UEH Research newsletter Insights #117.

News and photos: Sustainable University Project Committee, UEH Department of Marketing and Communications