Applying SDGs as a systematic approach for incorporating sustainability in higher education

Abstract

Purpose The achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for all communities and jurisdictions require a comprehensive roadmap that encompasses all dimensions of data infrastructure, social, economic, environmental and governance ecosystems. With this in mind, this paper aims to establish the link between the curriculum and intended learning outcomes of undergraduate and postgraduate subjects offered by the University and sustainability. This study is a part of a wider university strategy to embed sustainability knowledge and values in the university curricula. The 17 SDGs developed as a part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainability Development was used as tool to measure and map how the subjects are linked with sustainability. Design/methodology/approach To incorporate sustainability into the curriculum, this paper developed an interdisciplinary approach for analysing the interconnection between the SDGs, the expected subject learning points and the relevant aspects of sustainability (geospatial information, the legal, policies and institutional components). As part of the approach, in the first phase of the study, qualitative data were collected through a review of published information on the SDGs and the content of the subjects available in the subject handbook. Subject codes were assigned to the keywords and key phrases extracted from the SDGs and the subject content, and then compared and matched to establish the link between the subjects and the SDGs. Six university schools offering over 2,157 subjects were investigated. In the second phase, a survey was conducted involving subject coordinators with the purpose of validating the findings of the first phase and determining the strength of the linkages between the subjects and the SDGs. In the third phase, a plugin was designed to be used in the digital twin platform developed in the UoM, allowing visualisation of the research outcomes. Findings Based on the interim findings, it was found that some subjects within the schools are linked to more than one SDG. However, not all of the subjects within the schools can be linked to the SDGs. There is a scope of improvement for embedding sustainability in more subjects within the schools. Some of the schools were also found to have weak linkages with sustainability, which demonstrate the challenge in technical subjects in linking their subject contents with sustainability. Originality/value This study provides a methodology which enables the integration of sustainability into current state of the curricula at the university to be established. Further, with the advancement of geospatial technology and new visualisation opportunities through the use of the digital twin platform provides capabilities to communicate the outcomes of sustainability and involvement of each faculties and departments more effectively to the university community and wider stakeholders.

Awareness of Sustainable Development Goals among Students from a Chinese Senior High School

“…ESD is effectively integrated into the lessons of Chinese and native culture, foreign language, biology, geography and politics and economics. It is also essential to further incorporate the SDGs into other course subjects, including art, science and technology, to ensure that students understand all of the SDGs [79]. Biology, chemistry, geography, technology and laboratory courses, politics and economics and physics were the subjects that students considered to have integrated SDGs the most.…”

Expanded corporate social responsibility framework: companies’ role in improving higher education institutions infrastructure to Sustainable Development Goal 4

“…In the third quarter of 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to enhance the world's transformation (United Nations DESA, 2016;Rajabifard et al, 2021). From the Agenda, 17 SDGs and 169 targets emerged, an improvement from the MDG (United Nations, 2015).…”

An evaluation of a computational technique for measuring the embeddedness of sustainability in the curriculum aligned to AASHE-STARS and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

“…All 17 SDGs are interconnected, with both synergies and tradeoffs, in that key to success in achieving one goal is a requirement to address issues more commonly associated with other goals. Attempts have been made to identify keywords associated with each of the goals, thereby providing the basis for a sustainability lexicon that could be used to map curricular contributions to the SDGs (e.g., Mu and Kang, 2021;Rajabifard et al, 2021).…”

“…A growing number of case studies on how university curricular contributions to the SDGs are tracked reveal a common pattern of mapping used to identify gaps, opportunities and alignment to the SDGs in learning, teaching and assessment activities (Leal Filho, 2017). Yet, many academic faculties, particularly those without sufficient knowledge of sustainable development, face challenges in establishing links between the subject matter content of their respective disciplines and sustainability concepts, which challenge the integration of sustainability in existing curricula (Rajabifard et al, 2021). Hence, much of the current literature has focused on how sustainability is embedded in specific degree programmes or in their constituent modules/courses (e.g., Palacin-Silva et al, 2018).…”