Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to better inform environmental management at universities by applying and validating the policy integration processes theory through a case study of Manchester Metropolitan University.
Design/methodology/approach
Social network analyses were used to identify, differentiate and categorise working networks of individuals and departments and the interconnections between them.
Findings
In an organisation, networks can be developed and active at departmental level but not at individual level. High numbers of departments can be doing work related to sustainable development whilst having low and medium levels of interconnections between departments. Influence of stakeholders throughout the network suggests levels of sustainable development policy integration at individual and departmental.
Practical implications
New insights provide evidence for universities’ environmental managers of the need of developing and implementing strategies that involve individuals’ work between departments by providing incentives, supporting capacity building and staff empowerment.
Originality/value
This paper applied and validated the theory of policy integration processes, showing that work at individual level and between departments needs more attention.
Keywords
Citation
Vargas, V.R. (2023), "Intra-organisational sustainable development policy integration processes in higher education through staff networks: a case study from the United Kingdom", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 24 No. 9, pp. 178-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-05-2022-0160
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Valeria Ruiz Vargas.
License
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial & non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
1. Introduction
Progress towards sustainable development remains a key international challenge (United Nations, 2020). Sustainable development addresses conflicts between the environmental, social and economic aspects (WCED, 1987). Universities play an important role in driving progress towards sustainable development (Radinger-Peer and Pflitsch, 2017) by integrating sustainable development into their activities (e.g. education and estate management; Lozano et al., 2013). Their commitment to sustainable development is part of international (Lozano et al., 2013), national (Vargas et al., 2019a) and organisational level policy frameworks (Vargas et al., 2019b).
However, processes that integrate sustainable development into university activities have complications. Firstly, universities include a range of professional services and academic departments with different disciplinary foci. Secondly, internal cross-disciplinary working and holistic approaches are rarely facilitated across higher education institutions (Giesenbauer and Müller-Christ, 2020). Thirdly, universities tend to take compartmentalised approaches to embedding sustainable development across their activities (Farinha et al., 2020; Roos et al., 2020). Fourthly, it is often difficult to find key contacts in universities with holistic oversight of sustainable development activities within their institutions (Roos et al., 2020). Therefore, better understanding of policy integration in this context is required. Policy integration processes refer to: “an agency-driven process of asynchronous and multi-dimensional policy and institutional change within an existing or newly formed governance system” (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016, p. 217).
The environment, society and the economy have complex interconnections. The Sustainable Development Goals were developed through a long participatory process involving various stakeholders across the world, including local communities (Stevens and Kanie, 2016). Sustainable development is an iterative process that requires the inclusion of multiple perspectives and disciplines (Dockry et al., 2016). In the context of sustainable development, there are complex interconnections between different policy levels (e.g. organisational and international; Breuer et al., 2019). Therefore, sustainable development policy integration processes require the involvement of networks of organisations and individuals. Caiado et al.’s (2018) framework suggests that progressing towards the SDGs requires an approach that integrates solving problems, implementing solutions, monitoring, innovating, informing and educating. This requires a broad and a deep level of skills and knowledge that will not be achievable without widespread education networks (Persson et al., 2016; Stafford-Smith et al., 2017; Caiado et al., 2018).
A theory of policy integration processes was recently stipulated (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). This theory includes four policy integration process dimensions that occur both vertically and horizontally (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). The three dimensions are policy goals, policy instruments and policy context. The fourth dimension is the involvement of subsystems in the policy integration process. Subsystems refer to the different groups of stakeholders and their interactions that exist at different levels of the policy integration process. One example of subsystems is staff networks, which are a key aspect of sustainable development governance because they support vertical and horizontal policy integration processes in organisations (Bennett and Satterfield, 2018). Governance has been defined as “the institutions, structures and processes that determine who makes decisions how and for whom decisions are made, whether how and what actions are taken and by whom to what effect” (Bennett and Satterfield, 2018, p. 2).
Manifestations of subsystem involvement include two key predictors (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016).
1.1 Stakeholders’ involvement
Often research accounts for the stakeholders that participate in the policy integration process but not the ones who do not. However, both groups of stakeholders may allow insights into the level of policy integration (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). Stakeholder involvement is important for sustainable development policy integration processes because it is required for capacity building and knowledge co-creation, which in turn are required for cross-institutional change (Verhulst and Lambrechts, 2015; Blanco-Portela et al., 2017; Radinger-Peer and Pflitsch, 2017; Musch and von Streit, 2020). Thus, stakeholder involvement could provide insights into the potential for progress towards sustainable development within an organisation.
1.2 The density of stakeholder interactions
Studying informal or formal staff networks across disciplines at different organisational levels, could support understanding integration processes of sustainable development in higher education institutions. However, there is a dearth of studies focused on this area (Disterheft et al., 2015).
A recent study to understand sustainable development policy integration processes in higher education evaluated interactions within national networks using stakeholder involvement and density measures (Vargas et al., 2019a). However, to further develop insight into the policy integration processes theory, it needs to be applied at different subsystem levels (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). This gap leads to the following research question:
How have sustainable development subsystems’ involvement, including stakeholder involvement and interconnections (i.e. network density), developed in a higher education institution?
Vargas et al. (2019a), in their study, also included stakeholder influence as a third measure of manifestations of subsystems’ involvement. Stakeholder involvement, stakeholder interconnections (i.e. network density) and stakeholder influence (i.e. centralities) are key aspects of network analysis (Provan and Kenis, 2007; Reed, 2008; Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). Bristol and Shirrell focused on influential individuals and linked their influence to the dynamics of the network using centrality measures to understand sustainable development policy integration processes (2019). The policy integration processes theory could be applied and validated by including centrality measures to understand stakeholder influence. This gap leads to the following research question:
How have sustainable development stakeholder influences (i.e. centralities) developed in a higher education institution?
The two previous research questions focus on the whole organisation. However, there is also a lack of research on internal networks at different institutional levels for integrating sustainable development (Disterheft et al., 2015). For instance, in a comprehensive case study, different subsystems within the organisation ought to be studied. This leads to the following research question:
How are different subsystem’s levels within a university linked in the context of sustainable development policy integration processes?
The three research questions developed above lead to an overarching research question:
How have sustainable development policy integration processes through subsystems’ involvement at different organisational levels developed in a higher education institution?
The aim of the paper is to develop insights for environmental management by applying and validating the policy integration processes theory through a case study at Manchester Metropolitan University. The case study focuses on three predictors of subsystems’ involvement covers vertical and horizontal policy integration, and uses social network analyses. Social network analysis was used to identify, differentiate and categorise internal individuals and departments and the interconnections between them at two different organisational levels (i.e. departmental and individual).
Despite a growing academic literature on sustainable development in the higher education sector in the UK, a lack of links between theory and practice remains (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015; Boström et al., 2018). This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge in sustainable development in the higher education sector by applying and validating the theory of policy integration processes. It will do this by providing a case study of how environmental management accreditation could affect policy integration in an organisation. The focus will be on the manifestations of subsystems’ involvement in one higher education institution in the UK. This will benefit environmental managers at universities to understand in-depth nuances in sustainable development policy integration processes.
2. Methods
2.1 Research design
A good practice case study was designed to gain an in-depth understanding of practices in one university (Sibbald et al., 2021). Good practice in sustainable development at universities refers to following and going beyond international standards and practice whilst also having processes for continuous improvement (McCowan et al., 2021).
The UK has a well-established and internationally recognised higher education system (Musselin, 2018; Blackledge, 2021). Manchester Metropolitan University is one of the leading universities in sustainable development in the UK. This university has been in one of the top three positions of the People and Planet University League from 2013 to 2022 (People and Planet, 2023). Furthermore, it was one of the first universities to achieve the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001:2015 standard (ISO, 2015; Manchester Metropolitan University, 2018) and to gain the National Union of Students Responsible Futures (NUS RF) accreditation since 2015 (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2023). Finally, this university has produced an Annual Environmental Sustainability Statement since 2013, which follows the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Reporting Standards and the ISO 14001:2015 Standards (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2018). Hence, Manchester Metropolitan University was an appropriate good practice case study.
The research for this paper has been approved by the Science and Engineering Research Ethics and Governance Committee at Manchester Metropolitan University.
2.2 Data collection
The inclusion criterion for participants on this study was to be staff at Manchester Metropolitan University. At the time of the research, the University’s environmental management system included a publicly available Environmental Sustainability Strategy 2014–2021, which states that by 2020/2021, “The University will have embedded the principles of Education for sustainable development into the whole “university experience” for staff and students.” In addition, the Strategy states that:
The environmental sustainability commitments and principles set out will be embedded through the formal and informal curriculum, research, through access to professional development, through our estates and operations, and will be part of our culture and organisation leadership (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2020).
Therefore, a questionnaire was distributed to all staff in the university’s Outlook directory (n = 5282) through a personalised email. This personalised sampling strategy ensured that as many relevant staff as possible were reached. The questionnaire was available through joint information systems committee online surveys and remained open from November 2019 to March 2020. The response rate was 19% (i.e. 1,013 respondents, n = 5,282).
The closed questionnaire was designed to collect data on policy integration processes through subsystem involvement using three indicators. The three indicators were interconnections between departments, interconnections between individuals and interconnections across time (Table 1). The indicators provided the three key predictors for the manifestations of subsystems’ involvement for the application and validation of the policy integration processes theory (i.e. stakeholder interconnections, stakeholder influence and stakeholder involvement).
In this study, the two vertical levels of analysis were department and individual. Departmental level refers to stakeholders as whole departments across the university. Individual level refers to stakeholders as individual staff members across the university. The departmental level and the individual level were studied separately.
Vertical policy integration between departmental level and individual level refers to interconnections between (1) stakeholders (i.e. density), (2) stakeholder involvement (i.e. network) and (3) stakeholder influence (i.e. centrality).
Horizontal policy integration at departmental level refers to interconnections between (1) departments (i.e. density), (2) stakeholder involvement (i.e. network) and (3) stakeholder influence (i.e. centrality).
Horizontal policy integration at individual level refers to interconnections between (1) individuals (i.e. density), (2) stakeholder involvement (i.e. network) and (3) stakeholder influence (i.e. centrality).
The university has achieved ISO 14001:2015 and NUS RF accreditations since 2015. ISO 14001 has been used at universities (Fuentes-Bargues et al., 2018) and has provided environmental, social and financial benefits for organisations and the communities linked to them (Ociepa-Kubicka et al., 2021). The NUS RF has also been associated with sustainable development integration across universities in the UK (Gough and Longhurst, 2018). To capture changes before and after the ISO accreditation, this case study evaluated staff networks in two specific time periods. The first snapshot of staff networks was in the period before 2015, and the second period was in 2018–2020.
2.3 Data analysis
Confidentiality was ensured by anonymising all responses before the analyses. The anonymous data were then used to create a table in Excel software. The latter included the number of mentions per key contact and the total number of individuals per section and frequency. This was done to have a snapshot of individuals’ networks and the stakeholders involved in sustainable development work.
The interconnections between departments were presented on two network diagrams created in Adobe Illustrator software. These were created to show a snapshot of departmental-level networks. These data were counts of interconnections between departments and stakeholders who were involved in sustainable development work. Each diagram focused on a time span i.e. 2018–2020 and before 2015.
The densities and centralities of the network data were calculated. The density of a network is the ratio of actual interconnections over the potential interconnections between stakeholders in that network (Scott and Carrington, 2014). The measure of density was used because it is a suitable indicator of interconnections between stakeholders (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Vargas et al., 2019a). One table was created in Excel to present the network densities at departmental level. Network density (%; D) was calculated with equation (1):
Closeness centrality was used because it is an indicator of stakeholder influence within a network (Rowley, 1997). Closeness centrality refers to the number of direct connections that one department has with another department in a network (Rowley, 1997). Closeness centralities for each department were presented in a table. Closeness centrality (%; C) was calculated by using equation (2):
The scale of closeness centrality ranges from 0% to 100%. If one of the departments has 100% centrality, it has the potential to influence all the other departments in the network.
3. Results and discussion
3.1 Stakeholder influence
3.1.1 Stakeholder influence at the departmental level.
Only 8.5% of all departments (n = 71) had high centrality before 2015 (Figure 1), which suggests that few departments were highly, but most were not influential. A network with few departments which have high influence can be problematic (Rowley, 1997; Vargas et al., 2019a). This is because if the highly influential department decided to stop their sustainable development work, then sustainable development policy integration throughout the whole system would be hindered (Rowley, 1997; Vargas et al., 2019a). This is especially the case when the rest of the departments in the network have low influence (Rowley, 1997; Guan et al., 2020). So, to strengthen the system for sustainable development policy integration, all departments need to have opportunities to become influential.
The centrality of 76% of departments (n = 79) increased between the period before 2015 and between 2018 and 2020. A department’s high centrality indicates high influence within a network (Rowley, 1997; Guan et al., 2020). Some departments have had a sharp increase in centrality (i.e. from low to high) during the study period (Figure 1). Increased centrality throughout a network suggests an increased influence of the departments and increased involvement overall (Rowley, 1997; Bristol and Shirrell, 2019). Reasons for this increase might include perceived relevance, increased interest to become influential or increased opportunities to become influential. Influential stakeholders working on sustainable development throughout a network support sustainable development policy integration (Bristol and Shirrell, 2019; Vargas et al., 2019a). Although the changes in influence vary across the network over time, there is a trend towards cumulative departmental influence overall. Therefore, at departmental level the increase in influence throughout the network suggests that there is progress towards horizontal integration of sustainable development work at departmental level.
Further research on the factors that help staff increase their sustainable development influence is needed to further understand the links between stakeholder centralities and policy integration.
3.1.2 Stakeholder influence at the individual level.
Individual staff involved in work related to sustainable development had a centrality of 0.38% (n = 5,282) or less in the network. Low centrality denotes low influence on the network (Rowley, 1997; Bristol and Shirrell, 2019). Individuals without influence within a network may be due to lack of support for policy integration (Brusca et al., 2018). Reasons for this can include a lack of opportunities to become influential as an individual or lack of interest in becoming influential. Increasing stakeholder influence can help increase work between departments. Work between departments can support cross-disciplinary work. Evidence suggests that cross-disciplinary academic work is disincentivised by existing disciplinary fragmentation, quality assessments and tenure track standards (Barth and Michelsen, 2013). Developing incentivisation strategies for sustainable development work between individuals from different disciplines could support the progress towards sustainable development in higher education institutions. Additionally, creating mediating structures that support cross-boundary work could help address the disciplinary divides (Acar et al., 2019). Here, creating incentives or opportunities for staff to work in cross-disciplinary roles and approaches may support the development of influential individual networks. Supporting leadership development and incentives related to sustainable development work for individuals could help improve policy integration through stakeholders’ influence.
The individual who had the highest centrality (0.38%, n = 5,282) in the network had 20 connections and was based in Science and Engineering. This was the most influential individual in the organisation, and still, their centrality was low. This might be due to a lack of interest or capability of becoming influential in this network for individuals. Increasing the influence of individual staff is key to make progress in sustainable development integration (Brusca et al., 2018). Supporting individuals to expand their networks could support policy integration. However, there is a dearth of studies focused on networks’ characteristics and their development at the individual level (Disterheft et al., 2015). Additional research is needed to understand the barriers impeding development of staff cross-disciplinary work interconnections.
3.2 Stakeholders’ involvement
3.2.1 Stakeholders’ involvement at the departmental level.
Figures 2 and 3 show the interconnections between departments. These figures show departmental activity, which spans 95% of all departments in Figure 2 (before 2015; n = 78) and 97% in Figure 3 (2018–2020; n = 78). Between 2018 and 2020, only one department was not involved in sustainable development work. This suggests progress from before 2015, when there were five departments not involved in sustainable development work. This suggests high horizontal policy integration at departmental level (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016), which could be due to additional opportunities within departments to be involved in sustainable development work (Disterheft et al., 2015; Giesenbauer and Müller-Christ, 2020) from the previous period. Thus, stakeholder involvement within departments may be establishing as an aspect of sustainable development policy integration in this university.
These results show the spread of involvement at departmental level and the progress from before 2015 when ISO 14001 and NUS RF audits took place. This could be due to relevant enablers, requirements or incentives (Disterheft et al., 2015; Giesenbauer and Müller-Christ, 2020) supported by ISO and NUS RF accreditations. Therefore, enablers, requirements and incentives developed by national and international environmental management system standards and change programmes could act as drivers for increased stakeholder involvement within universities and departments.
3.2.2 Stakeholders’ involvement at individual level.
One thousand five hundred and eighty-eight members of staff (30%, n = 5,282) were involved in sustainable development work (Figure 4). Horizontal policy integration at individual level through stakeholder involvement was low (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). This might be due to differences in interest and opportunities between staff (Disterheft et al., 2015; Giesenbauer and Müller-Christ, 2020). Stakeholder involvement helps build capacity and knowledge co-creation, which in turn help advance policy integration (Musch and von Streit, 2020). Stakeholder involvement issues are among the most common barriers to sustainable development integration at universities (Verhulst and Lambrechts, 2015; Blanco-Portela et al., 2017). Staff at universities often have heavy workloads that make it difficult to include sustainable development concerns in their work (Cebrián et al., 2015). In addition, some roles may be more strictly defined than others (Cebrián et al., 2015; Lazzarini et al., 2018). For instance, staff in academic roles may focus their work on issues of their interest due to academic freedom (Cebrián et al., 2015; Lazzarini et al., 2018) but this flexibility may not exist for staff in professional roles (Chambers and Walker, 2016). If a university has a sustainable development policy framework, staff in professional services roles may be compelled to engage more readily than staff in academic roles. Further understanding of the differences in staff motivations and support mechanisms is needed to improve individual staff involvement in sustainable development work.
3.3 Network interconnections
3.3.1 Network interconnections at the departmental level.
The network before the ISO 14001:2015 and NUS RF accreditations had a density of 23.4% (n = 78; Figure 2). The low density suggests limited interconnections related to sustainable development between different departments. Different departments tend to have different disciplinary foci. The lack of interconnections between departments whilst there are high levels of stakeholder involvement (Section 3.1.1) suggests that there are barriers to cross-disciplinary work related to sustainable development but not necessarily barriers to sustainable development work per se. This may be due to departments finding it challenging to break disciplinary silos (Kirwan et al., 2022). Working in silos has been highlighted as one of the key barriers for implementing sustainable development work across universities (Blanco-Portela et al., 2017). Additionally, professional services and academic departments tend to find it challenging to collaborate with each other (Kirwan et al., 2022). Hence, understanding and addressing barriers for work between the professional services and academic departments, as well as between different disciplines, could support horizontal integration of sustainable development.
Blanco-Portela et al. (2017) suggested that often competitiveness between departments impedes cross-disciplinary work. Also, organisational structures and differences between departments can make work between departments challenging (Blanco-Portela et al., 2017). Therefore, understanding competitiveness between departments as well as differences in organisational structures may inform horizontal policy integration.
The network density in the 2018–2020 period was 40% (n = 78; Figure 3). Medium density suggests barriers to integration still exist in this period. However, the increased density, compared to the pre-2015 period, suggests that some of the barriers to cross-disciplinary work may have been lessened or overcome. In the 2018–2020 period, the network has been able to reach nearly half of the possible interconnections between departments. A network with high density may facilitate implementing sustainable development more effectively than a network with low density (Vargas et al., 2019a). The increased density most probably was due to the preparation and implementation processes for ISO 14001:2015 and NUS RF accreditations. Thus, external accreditations could support cross-disciplinary work for horizontal sustainable development policy integration.
3.3.2 Network interconnections at the individual level.
There were 2,778 interconnections between individual staff in the network (this is the sum of the individual connections in Figure 1). The highest density of an individual’s network is 0.02% (n = 5,282).
The low density suggests that work between individuals in different departments is limited. Limited work between departments may be due to difficulty in breaking disciplinary silos (Kirwan et al., 2022). Furthermore, the low density suggests a lack of horizontal integration of sustainable development (Vargas et al., 2019a) at the individual level. Although there is progress at the departmental level, there are still widespread barriers to cross-disciplinary work in sustainable development. Differences, including working cultures, epistemologies and language, make cross-disciplinary work challenging. Therefore, focusing on improving opportunities and building capacity, as well as addressing barriers for cross-disciplinary work may promote horizontal policy integration in sustainable development.
3.4 Links between subsystem levels
The influence of 76% departments (n = 79) has increased between the periods before 2015 and between 2018 and 2020. This increase suggests that at departmental level horizontal policy integration is high in terms of stakeholder involvement. However, individuals’ influence remains low (highest centrality 0.38%; n = 5,282). This suggests that individual level, horizontal policy integration is low in terms of stakeholder involvement.
This discrepancy in horizontal policy integration may be attributed to differences between roles, responsibilities, workloads and interests (Cebrián et al., 2015; Sammalisto et al., 2015) and to differences between staff capacity or cross-disciplinary work (Kirwan et al., 2022). Hence, understanding and addressing these differences and inclusive capacity building opportunities, may advance sustainable development policy integration in terms of stakeholder involvement.
4. Conclusion
In this study, the theory of policy integration processes was applied and validated. New insights were developed by exploring the relationships between stakeholder involvement, stakeholder influence and stakeholder interconnections (i.e. subsystems’ involvement predictors) at department and individual levels (i.e. subsystem levels).
The increase in department influence, the spread of interconnections throughout most departments in the network (five departments not involved, Figure 2; one department not involved, Figure 3), and the increase in interconnections (density 23.4%, Figure 2; density 40%, Figure 3) are evidence of increasing policy integration in sustainable development within the university. Increasing policy integration may be due to the university establishing processes and structures that support sustainable development such as ISO14001 and NUS RF accreditation. However, when looking at patterns at the individual staff level, most key contacts for sustainable development have networks of three or less individuals beyond their department. This shows that even a university with medium and growing levels of policy integration at departmental level can still have challenges at the individual level.
Individuals’ low influence may be due to lack of structures and organisational culture that empowers individuals to work outside their department (Cucino et al., 2020). Each department has influential individuals, but this is not a quality for staff who may remain disempowered. Empowering staff increases their individual influence and network centrality (Rowley, 1997; Cucino et al., 2020; Guan et al., 2020), which may subsequently also increase network density at the individual level (Rowley, 1997; Guan et al., 2020). Furthermore, the staff who become influential have opportunities to provide advice to others, which may lead to accurate decision-making in the network (Bonaccio and Dalal, 2006; See et al., 2011). Therefore, empowering individuals may lead to increased sustainable development policy integration as well as to improved network decision-making.
Stakeholder involvement demonstrates shared values and norms and appropriate communication between the actors who form the network (Huang and Liu, 2019; Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Shared values and norms, and appropriate communication are essential network characteristics (Huang and Liu, 2019) that facilitate horizontal sustainable development policy integration (Vargas et al., 2019a). Therefore, understanding and addressing differences at stakeholder level improves involvement, which in turn improves both horizontal and vertical policy integration.
This study provides three new insights by applying and validating the theory of policy integration processes (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016) in terms of subsystem involvement:
In an organisation, networks may be developed and active at departmental level but not at individual level (i.e. high or medium subsystem involvement between departments with low subsystem involvement at individual level).
Many departments may be doing work related to sustainable development but with few interconnections between them (i.e. high stakeholder involvement with low and medium level of interconnections).
The influence of stakeholders throughout a network may indicate the degree of sustainable development policy integration at the individual and departmental level. Therefore, stakeholder centralities could be considered as a third manifestation of the theory of policy integration processes.
These three insights inform environmental managers at universities to involve departmental and individual level stakeholders during strategy development, prioritisation and implementation. Additionally, these three insights highlight the need to support work within as well as between departments and the need to understand and work on issues related to stakeholder influence in sustainable development policy integration processes. Furthermore, empowering and building capacity at universities for staff to engage in cross-disciplinary work focused on sustainable development may foster policy integration and improve decision-making processes.
Long-term, inclusive and cross-institutional incentives may increase the influence of individuals across staff networks whilst increasing work interconnections between different departments. Such incentives could be further supported by appropriate governance processes that ensure inclusion of individuals’ contribution through key activities such as:
Senior leadership can include time for sustainable development activities in workload models for all staff.
Recurrent and long-term funding opportunities for interdisciplinary staff teams, with developmental opportunities to create and implement projects.
Inclusion of criteria related to inter-departmental academic citizenship activity related to sustainable development in career progression routes.
Processes, related funding and staff responsible leading sustainable development activity.
In this case study, the vertical and horizontal dimensions of policy integration processes seem to be interdependent. Such an interdependence would suggest separating vertical from horizontal policy integration processes to be counterproductive in their governance. Individuals’ contributions through key activities ought to be included systematically in policy frameworks and supported by appropriate governance mechanisms.
However, within extant literature on the analytical and conceptual aspects of sustainable development governance need further development (Bennett and Satterfield, 2018, p. 2). Therefore, further understanding of sustainable development governance is required to develop practices and policy that go beyond international standard requirements through policy integration processes (Wagner, 2020).
New governance frameworks for sustainable development in higher education are needed. Novel governance frameworks ought to support environmental managers as diagnostic tools as well as tools to develop action plans to advance sustainable development in higher education.
These new insights may be transferable to policy integration processes in other areas than sustainable development. However, further theoretical development is required to uncover additional issues around stakeholder involvement, influence and interconnections between departments and between individual staff in integrating sustainable development at universities.
Figures
Figure 1.
Centralities by section and department
Figure 2.
Staff work interconnections before 2015 and related network density – see Figure 1 for all abbreviations
Figure 3.
Staff work interconnections between 2018 and 2020 and related network density – see Figure 4 for all abbreviations
Figure 4.
Number of staff identified by their colleagues as current key contacts for sustainable development-related work by section
Survey questions and indicators
| Survey questions | LT* | LD* | LI* | TW |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Which section are you in? Possible answers are all sections and other | X | X | ||
| 2. What department are you in? Possible answers are all department and other | X | X | ||
| 3. If you selected other section or department, please specify and include your department | X | X | ||
| 4. Would you consider your work at Manchester Metropolitan University to combine aspects related to the natural environment, society, and the economy (this could be in a specific project or in your day-to-day activities through education, outreach, research, strategy development and campus operations)? Possible answers yes, no, other – if answered yes goes to 5, if no goes to 9 | X | |||
| 5. Which sections do you engage with in work that combines aspects related to the natural environment, society and the economy? Possible answers are all sections | X | |||
| 6. In these sections, Which departments do you engage with in work that combines aspects related to the natural environment, society, and the economy? | X | |||
| 7. For how long, less than two years or more than five year? | X | |||
| 8. Who is/are your main contact(s) for this work within this department (Please write up to three names)? | X | |||
| 9. Thank you page |
Survey questions are sequential from 1 to 9 unless otherwise stated. LT = interconnections across time; LD = interconnections between departments; LI = interconnections between individuals; TW = type of work; *indicators
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Corresponding author
About the author
Valeria Ruiz Vargas is a Research Associate working on Education for Sustainable Development in the Department of Natural Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research is multidisciplinary and focused on organisational change, institutionalisation processes, governance and integration of sustainable development. She has conducted higher education policy review at institutional, national and international level whilst also developing and implementing institutional policy at Manchester Metropolitan University and supporting policy development for education in Colombia. She has experience of working in research projects and activity to support implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals in a range of contexts and settings.