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In this paper, the authors emphasize that COVID-19 pandemic is a serious pandemic as it continues to cause deaths and long-term health effects, followed by the most prolonged crisis in the 21st century and has disrupted supply chains globally. This study questions “can technological inputs such as big data analytics help to restore strength and resilience to supply chains post COVID-19 pandemic?”; toward which authors identified risks associated with purchasing and supply chain management by using a hypothetical model to achieve supply chain resilience through big data analytics.

The hypothetical model is tested by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique on the primary data collected from the manufacturing industries.

It is found that big data analytics tools can be used to help to restore and to increase resilience to supply chains. Internal risk management capabilities were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic that increased the company's external risk management capabilities.

The findings provide valuable insights in ways to achieve improved competitive advantage and to build internal and external capabilities and competencies for developing more resilient and viable supply chains.

To the best of authors' knowledge, the model is unique and this work advances literature on supply chain resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to perform a worldwide survey on the opinion of over 1,000 stakeholders on the value of different approaches to improve global access to life‐saving medicines.

The research is based upon information gathered by triangulation of literature data, data from worldwide questionnaires and data from interviews originating from opinion leaders.

The findings revealed the main determinants, which contributed to the occurrence of drug pricing conflicts in some emerging markets in the past decade, and documented the preferred approaches to increase global access to life‐saving medicines for the next decade.

Limitations of the methodology are that some large countries were under‐represented in the questionnaire survey, and that the poorest stakeholders might have been under‐represented in the interviews.

The practical implication of this work is that it resulted in the formulation of an ethical policy or conceptual framework, referred to as the P3S3‐model, that the stakeholders, including policy makers, can use to work together in a setting of reduced conflict.

For pharmaceutical companies it is an ideal model to deploy their global social responsibility.

This is the first research that was designed to obtain and to build upon the in‐depth insights of key stakeholders and opinion leaders, on a comprehensive list of possible approaches to provide life‐saving medicines to poor people, at reasonable prices, globally. Therefore, the paper is of high originality/value.

The purpose of this paper is to show the activities that have been implemented in Monterrey Campus of Tecnológico de Monterrey to infuse sustainable development (SD) into the academic components, as well as to document similar SD activities that are being implemented in other campuses within the Tecnológico de Monterrey system. Another relevant issue is to share the experiences regarding SD incorporation in the academic area.

Capacity building courses to “educate‐the‐educators,” is the selected approach, to educate faculty regarding SD. Additionally, diverse methods are utilized to assess progress in incorporation of SD into courses and curricula. The capacity building is done through specific courses that are taught by faculty members with recognised knowledge in their fields but who also had the interdisciplinary skills to help the educators to understand and apply the concepts of the “triple bottom line”, to their academic programme. The educational programme is focused upon educators who expressed personal and professional interest in expanding their skills to teach SD to their students.

It is learned that working to catalyze the inclusion of SD concepts into courses and curricula requires a concerted effort among various stakeholders within the institution. It needs support from top administration, deans of academic divisions, the academic development department, as well as from faculty willing to participate in incorporating SD into their courses. Without this support, advances will be slow or non‐existent. A first course to incorporate SD in the educators' courses is offered, but one difficulty that the authors encountered, with this initial course, is it does not provided an integrated and interconnected outlook, which shows the learners not only the triple bottom line concepts but also other dimensions relevant to SD. So, a second course is designed and evaluation of the improvements in SD understanding by educators who take this improved course is done using conceptual maps. Although no definitive instruments are developed, work is done on the development and testing of criteria to assess the degree of incorporation of SD into the modified courses taught by the participating faculty.

It is shown that it is possible to support efforts to “weave SD as a golden thread” into the academic component of a HEI can be accomplished through the concerted action of various stakeholders. Good team teaching can facilitate faculty capacity building in SD. The evolutionary path of the “educate‐the‐educator's” program is one of the learnings by doing and continuous improvement. It is hoped that others will learn from the learning process.

To describe a way of teaching industrial ecology (IE) and to show some tools that may help for the IE teaching.

In the paper, the development of lectures, practical lessons and projects on real industrial ecosystems are described. Also the teaching materials used are described.

The presented methodology for teaching IE has been a good means for the understanding of the IE concept. Some of the educational tools presented have helped the students to increase their awareness of the distance between IE and the real industrial field, discover that there are a lot of by‐product exchange possibilities between industries, to develop their creativity, to connect the theory to practice in the industrial systems and have encouraged them to try to put the IE ideas into practice. This methodology has been useful for either small or big groups and for people with either the same or very different backgrounds. And it has been observed that the quality of the work is enhanced when the members of the group have different backgrounds.

The paper shows methodologies and tools that may encourage and help other teachers/professors to use them in their IE lessons. It may also help IE researches to know which real examples and methodologies help students to understand IE concept. This could encourage them to develop projects and research in those directions.

The paper fulfils the need of knowing real experiences in IE teaching and their results. And in special, experiences that have been tested for a long period of time and with a great number of students. All the experiences described in the paper have been created and put into practice by the author.

The aim of this paper is to explain the strategies and activities of a main technical University in Iran (Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT)) toward sustainable development goals.

In this paper, three main strategies of AUT to achieve sustainable developments goals in engineering education are explained. In addition, the main obstacles of these programs including the budget limitation for implementation of main activities related to sustainable development and difficulties in official procedure for the change of educational system is also explained.

The study of strategies and activities of a university can provide useful information for other universities (especially in developing countries) that like to promote their activities toward sustainable development goals. According to the final results, international education of engineering students and teachers, especially those who are living in developing countries, have an important role in promoting their environmentally aware attitudes, skills and behavior patterns help their societies make the transition to sustainable development.

As earlier mentioned, these experiences are useful for the universities that like to promote their education system toward sustainable development. In addition, it is necessary to think about solving the main obstacle of these activities especially in the universities of developing countries. Further, action should be taken toward international cooperation of universities in order to improve their educational system, which will be suitable for the new millennium.

This paper describes the strategies, activities and main obstacles of a main technical University that has adopted the strategy “pioneer of sustainable development” in Iran for the next decade. The paper mainly focuses on experiences regarding these activities.

The purpose of this paper is to present information about a team‐teaching course on sustainable development (SD) for educators in an institution of higher education, Monterrey Campus of ITESM in México.

Four faculty members were invited to work together with the Sustainable Campus Programme coordinator in the process of developing the “Educate‐the‐Educator's” SD course. The course was structured using lectures, readings, class role play activities, homework, and general discussion. Additionally, a workshop‐format was woven throughout the course; its function was to help the educators incorporate SD issues within their own courses.

It was found that a multi‐disciplinarily developed and delivered course is an effective vehicle for educating educators on SD. Documentation of some facets of the learning process further helped the “students” and the course leaders to better understand the whole learning process.

The paper's value rests on the interconnected structure, showing resonance with the triple bottom line, as well as many other dimensions linked with sustainable development. This structure increased the course participants' comprehension of sustainability. Furthermore, the use of concept maps and digraph theory to evaluate “faculty participants'” comprehension of the interconnections and dimensions of SD proved to be a successful innovation.

Owing to its complexity, sustainable development (SD) cannot be simply integrated as a supplementary course within the engineer's curricula. The first aim of this paper is to focus on how to reflect pedagogically this complexity. After dealing with these questions, the paper aims to present a tool that can evaluate the student's understanding of SD concepts.

A method of analysis of a student's sustainability's comprehension, based on cognitive maps, has been developed. The students are asked to write and connect by arrows all the terms that they associate to the concept of SD. The assessment of the aforementioned cognitive maps is based on an approach via semantic category.

This study shows that the students' perception of SD before the training seems mainly focalised on environmental and economical aspects. After the SD course, an increase of the number of words quoted is noted for each category (social and cultural aspects; stakeholders, principles of SD and allusions to complexity, temporal and spatial dimensions). Their vision seems richer and wider. The training seemed successful to help the students who did not associate SD to diverse dimension to improve this perception.

This cognitive map method can be a useful tool to improve learning in quantitative terms but also in qualitative terms. Identifying knowledge gaps and misunderstood ideas allows the improvement in the training.

This study presents a new method that can be used to evaluate the impact of training sessions on students. Another advantage is to analyse how the student's knowledge are interconnected. This seems particularly interesting because the study of this transdisciplinary concept as well, necessitates an integrated vision.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the hypothesis that it is fruitful to study new areas within research for sustainability, through experimental education courses, that are based on international and multilateral (transcultural) learning processes.

This way of introducing education into open research issues is presented throughout the experiences and the results of the DECOS campus network (Design in Emerging COntexts for Sustainability). This is an informal expert network on higher design education which involves university campuses from emerging and industrialized countries. The learning process established among those universities has been yearly assessed by the didactic observatory of the Politecnico di Milano University, considering also the feedbacks of the various involved professors.

The paper presents both the opportunities of such learning processes and the results actually achieved (designed) by the students, i.e. the students' sustainable system concepts.

The described experience encourages its continuing and its further implementation and dissemination.

The originality this experience is due to the combination of both experimental education and open‐front research issues and design for sustainability with transcultural learning processes.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on how two rural‐based universities in South Africa can contribute towards sustainable development especially in their immediate rural communities. It addresses the following questions: what conditions or policy frameworks exist that can engender a sustainable development trajectory? How can rural‐based universities reconstitute themselves so they can become effective agents for sustainable rural development? Historically, because of apartheid policies, these and other black universities were on the margins of the knowledge production process and have not effectively engaged in real development activities that would meaningfully improve the livelihoods of rural dwellers. The research identified policy and legislative instruments and strategies that can promote a dynamic interaction with other institutions thus empowering and promoting sustainability. The aim of the paper is to raise awareness about existing possibilities at the disposal of these institutions.

The paper is the outcome of two research initiatives: one was a doctoral study by one of the authors, and the other was a study conducted at both universities. Both studies involved extensive interviews with a wide spectrum of stakeholders (local and provincial authorities, members of the business and university communities). Both also involved document analyses.

That rural‐based universities are advantageously situated and possess a variety of characteristics that can enable them to effectively contribute to sustainable development. These include their strategic location within the rural communities; reinventing their mission orientation so as to enhance their research capacity; expanding their intellectual/entrepreneurial/social capital; and the establishment of strong collaborative relationships.

The first aim of the paper is to raise the awareness of policy makers and other stakeholders about the strategic value of these institutions. The awareness should lead to a series of engagements with appropriate individuals with the view to develop appropriate strategies for application.

The contribution of rural‐based universities to sustainable development has not been sufficiently researched in South Africa and, therefore, the study fills the gap by adding valuable knowledge, new perspectives, and presents possibilities for consideration.