Social Licence to Operate is a framework for thinking about the relationship between an organisation or project and its host communities and other stakeholders. Key aspects are the extent of acceptability, legitimacy and trust local people accord to the project. A social licence is not necessarily enduring, rather it is dynamic, varying over time. Little research has been conducted into the dynamics of social licence and how it responds to changes in local context. By examining a new university campus, we highlight how all organisations need to consider the dynamic nature of their relationships with host communities. We assessed Wenzhou-Kean University, a partnership between Wenzhou City Government (Zhejiang Province, China), Kean University (a public university in New Jersey USA), and Wenzhou University. Three villages were resettled for the campus, experiencing many social impacts. Although residents initially allocated a high social licence to the project, this varied over time. To maintain and improve an organisation's social licence to operate and grow, having a good understanding of the local context and periodic assessment of social licence are needed.
Background The implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires much planning and the provision of resources, especially regarding the necessary investments, technologies and infrastructures needed. Yet, it is presently unclear how available these elements are, what gaps exist, what changes have taken place in terms of their availability since the adoption of the SDGs and what their requirements will be in the future. The knowledge gap has become even more concerning because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a bibliometric analysis, an assessment of the global progress of SDG implementation and requirements, identifying challenges through the development of a matrix, and a set of 11 case studies to triangulate the holistic analysis, an assessment of the global progress of the SDGs implementation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this process was carried out. Results The findings suggest that the scope and width of resources limitation are currently undermining the implementation of the SDGs. Apart from the fact that the pace of progress has been insufficient, the potential of the SDGs in pursuing sustainability and improving life quality is not fully realised. This trend suggests that a substantial acceleration of the efforts is needed, especially for the five SDGs whose progress since 2015 has not been optimal, namely SDG2, SDG11, SDG13, SDG15, and SDG16, while SDG3, SDG7, SDG9, SDG14, and SDG17 show signs of progress. The case studies showed that different industries have dissimilar effects on achieving the SDGs, with the food sector correlating with 15 SDGs, as opposed to the energy sector correlating with 6 SDGs. Accordingly, the priority level assessment in terms of achieving the SDGs, points to the need to further advance the above-mentioned five SDGs, i.e., 2, 11, 13, 15 and 16. Conclusions This study fills in a knowledge gap in respect of the current need for and availability of investments, new technologies, and infrastructures to allow countries to pursue the SDGs. It is suggested that this availability is rather limited in specific contexts. In respect of the needs to be addressed, these include resource-related constraints, limited technologies and infrastructures, affecting SDG2, SDG11, SDG13, SDG15, and SDG16, whose progress needs to be enhanced. Since the global progress in the process of implementation of the SDGs depends directly and indirectly on addressing the resource gaps, it is suggested that this topic be further investigated, so that the present imbalances in the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental, be adequately addressed.
Transnational higher education is big business. However, it is unclear what transnational universities must do to behave in a responsible way or to gain a social licence to operate. Examining the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), we discuss what universities could do to gain approval from host communities. They have to meet home and host country regulations, and the expectations of local communities and other stakeholders. Consideration of their social licence and of the negative and positive social impacts they create will contribute to their reputation and ability to access local knowledge. To earn a social licence to operate and grow, universities must understand and respond to their local context, share benefits with local communities, and have effective community engagement practices. In the universities we studied, there was limited information provided to community stakeholders and poor stakeholder engagement. However, high levels of trust from residents existed, partly because of the good reputation of universities generally.
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