Guest editorial

Citation

Ryan, A., Tilbury, D., Blaze Corcoran, P., Abe, O. and Nomura, K. (2010), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 11 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe.2010.24911baa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Volume 11, Issue 2

The Asia-Pacific region has an increasingly influential presence and role in the global higher education (HE) landscape, which underlines the importance of its progress and vision in the field of sustainability. At present, and apart from certain key initiatives from Australia and New Zealand, the scholarly literature does not sufficiently reflect the significance and scope of developments in sustainability practice, education, and research from across this diverse region.

This special issue redresses the imbalance, presenting distinctive efforts to accelerate sustainability innovation from a broad range of Asia-Pacific contexts, with contributions from Japan, India, the Philippines, the South Pacific Islands, China, and Taiwan. It brings new perspectives to the field of HE, where the sustainability agenda is growing in prominence at all levels of policy and practice, as the sector examines its contribution to leadership, partnership, and learning for more sustainable ways of life.

The pursuit of sustainability requires that educational systems become testing grounds for new experiments, ideas and values to help improve prospects for sustainable development. Academic institutions have particular contributions to make, using their freedom and creativity to engage with the complexities and challenges of sustainability. Strategic understandings of educational change underpin many of the initiatives highlighted in this collection, setting an important example and raising many issues for further collegial discussion worldwide.

If sustainability is fundamentally a learning process as much as it is an ideal, the efforts of academia are critical to its steady progress. Whether sustainability innovation takes place in campus “greening,” in curriculum evolution or research discoveries, the ability to learn and to integrate the lessons from these efforts is crucial. Each contribution to this collection therefore explores key developments, examines challenges faced by specific societies and initiatives, and considers the prospects this suggests for sustainability in HE.

Asia-Pacific sustainability innovations in HE can provide critical indicators of the possibilities in this sector, whilst also exposing the depth and scale of the challenges involved. As a rapidly expanding academic producer and partner, the Asia-Pacific region is likely to play a definitive role in future efforts to address sustainability issues and to guide sustainability learning at global level. It is hoped that this collection helps to nurture the necessary learning, discussion, and practice that will guide this field in future years.

Alexandra Ryan, Daniella Tilbury, Peter Blaze Corcoran, Osamu Abe, Ko NomuraGuest Editors