Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the contributions of the Asia‐Pacific region to leading practice in sustainability in higher education (HE), as prelude and orientation to this special issue collection from different countries and regions.

This is a critical review that includes international and regional policy contexts in sustainability and “education for sustainable development” (ESD), whilst exploring the trajectories of key initiatives across the region and considering the broader context of sustainability innovation within the HE sector.

The Asia‐Pacific region offers many creative initiatives and shows considerable progress in ESD and in understanding the learning dimensions of sustainability. At the same time, it mirrors global trends in that further work is needed to promote systemic change in educational arenas, particularly in terms of strategic integration within HE institutions. The Asia‐Pacific contributions to this collection demonstrate the need to harness national policy, to develop local and regional initiatives and to work effectively towards more profound change in HE curricula and through collaboration with external communities and stakeholders.

This is a distinctive collection of new initiatives from the Asia‐Pacific, which compensates for the comparative lack of dissemination in this area. There is considerable sustainability innovation emerging in this region which shows leading‐edge responses from within the HE sector on a number of key challenges and issues.

The purpose of this paper is to create an area profile of significant activity and possibility in higher education for sustainable development (ESD) in the island nations of the South Pacific Ocean.

This is a descriptive research paper on philosophy, policy, and practice according to a methodology of categorical analysis by developments, challenges, and prospects. The focus is on higher education institutions, particularly the University of the South Pacific, the regional university of 12 Island nations in Oceania. The developments and prospects are contextualized, however, in the larger regional Pacific Education for Sustainable Development Framework and the Action Plan for Sustainable Development in the Pacific Islands 2008‐2014. Academic programs, policy statements, and education projects are analyzed.

South Pacific universities possess rich missions that valorize traditional knowledge and culture. The region also has a sophisticated policy environment for sustainability. These factors create many opportunities for sustainability in higher education. Nevertheless, enormous challenges of distance, funding, cultural traditions, globalisation, and adaptation to the devastating effects of climate destabilisation make progress difficult. Successes and promising prospects are described, including a new major effort to mainstream higher ESD by creating a Pacific Network of Island Universities (the NIU Project), which will reach 13 nations, including Papua New Guinea.

Little analysis of sustainability in higher education has been done in this geographical area. The categorical approach of this paper will provide researchers with findings appropriate to several endeavors, including charting a way forward in sustainability in higher education in the South Pacific Island nations. South Pacific initiatives arising from the unique nature of island geography and tradition could illuminate for others what is called the “Pacific Way.” Comparative analysis to mainland nations in the Asia‐Pacific region may also prove useful to researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to identify components and educational design principles for strengthening sustainability competence in and through higher education.

This is a conceptual paper that uses an exemplary autobiographical empirical case study in order to illustrate and support a line of reasoning.

A number of “Gestalts” of mind‐sets of sustainability competence and key elements of the learning processes needed for developing such competence have been identified.

This is one of the first papers to consider sustainability competence from a transformative social learning perspective. The value of the paper lies in its potential to help teachers of university courses in re‐designing their educational processes with sustainability competence in mind.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent and type of extra‐curricular ESD‐related practice in UK universities and to record opinions about the utility of such work.

A postal questionnaire survey of all UK universities was undertaken in 2006. Over half (51 per cent) of the UK's 140 universities with degree‐awarding powers responded.

Extra‐curricular ESD‐related interventions were found to be widespread and in 31 per cent of cases were the primary approach to ESD. Respondent opinions highlight a paradox whereby the voluntary nature of extra‐curricular interventions can both extend and limit the reach of ESD.

The survey approach gathers impressions of UK practice at one point in time, only. Further case study research to look at the impact of such practice is now under way.

In the UK, much recent work to support ESD has focused on efforts to support curriculum change. The paper suggests that attention should also be directed at the extra‐curricular sphere in parallel.

This paper partly fills a gap in the literature, there being little empirical enquiry into extra‐curricular ESD in higher education.

This paper aims to examine the social sustainability of academic work in Australian tertiary institutions, in addition to offering a summary of recent research on social sustainability with a particular emphasis on Barron and Gauntlett's work.

Barron and Gauntlett's principles of social sustainability are used as a lens to investigate some of the current conditions of the academic profession.

It appears that Australian universities often fail to perform in a way that complies with the principles of social sustainability. This paper identifies examples in the literature of conditions which inhibit academic staff's ability to work in socially sustainable ways.

The paper proposes that universities incorporate principles of social sustainability into their planning and change management policies and processes.

The paper recognises the importance of social sustainability in contemporary discourses of higher education. It contributes to the debates on both social sustainability and the ways in which corporatising universities impacts academic staff.