COPERNICUS Alliance

Check out the latest edition of the COPERNICUS Alliance Newsletter! Learn about members' activities, project updates, publications, upcoming events and much more. Not subscribed yet? Just follow the link below!

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The 2026 Higher Education Summit will take place from 26-28 August 2026 in Bordeaux under the theme "Unleashing Transformative and Decolonised Education for Sustainability in a Globalised World". The conference will bring together an international audience of students, educators and changemakers providing a unique opportunity for dialogue and collaboration. We invite you to submit a proposal to one of five thematic areas and different session formats by 15 January 2026!

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Are you looking to bring a transformative edge to your life, your leadership, your professional role? TheLEN – The Learning Edge Nexus is a brand-new learning platform, created by ten collaborating organisations, including the COPERNICUS Alliance. Between 15 December 2025 and 28 February 2026, you have the opportunity to join free webinars, courses and other events as part of the pilot release of TheLEN. By joining, you gain access to inspiring learning opportunities and you also help to shape the future of the platform before its public launch.

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According to the latest edition of the QS Sustainability Ranking, Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) is among the top 25 % of the most sustainable universities worldwide. Three key areas are assessed: environmental impact, social impact, and governance. This year, KTU strengthened its overall standing and is now positioned within the top quarter of institutions globally.This is the fourth edition of the ranking, which evaluates how effectively universities contribute to the advancement of global sustainable development goals.

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At the CA Annual General Meeting on 10 December 2025, the CA members paved the way for the future of the network. As the terms of the current team of three Co-Presidents (Elisabeth Hofmann, Tom Kuppens, Eglė Staniškienė) come to an end this month, a new Leadership Team was elected. As of 1 January 2026, Elisabeth Hofmann (Université Bordeaux Montaigne), who will stay on board, will take the lead together with Antje Disterheft (University of Lisbon) and Michael Yang (oikos International). They will be supported by the Network Manager Mario Diethart.

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The partners of the Sub-Saharan Africa Teacher Leadership project successfully launched a flagship training course for teacher educators called "Sustainability Starts With Teacher Leaders", co-funded by the European Union in 13 countries in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa under the ERASMUS+ Capacity Building in Higher Education scheme. Teacher educators based in project countries from primary and secondary education, and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) from 10 countries are involved in the project. The project is led by Leuphana University Lüneburg, leader of the UNITWIN network on ESD and Social Transformation. 

From December 2021 to December 2025, the DigiCLIL-Exchange project at Leuphana University Lüneburg worked to support students in improving their intercultural, communicative and collaborative competencies through virtual exchange as part of the Digital Transformation Lab for Teaching and Learning (DigiTaL). The project brought together students from four continents to investigate sustainability solutions in their local neighbourhoods and explore the link between culture and sustainability.

Leuphana University Lüneburg is pleased to announce the appointment of Prof. Harald Hantke as Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development. His expertise in social science education, particularly at the intersection of political, economic, and vocational education, will strengthen the Chair’s interdisciplinary work and future direction. Together with Chairholder Daniel Fischer, Harald will contribute to advancing transformative learning, research, and international collaboration within the global ESD community.

With our webinar series "CA Exchange" we highlight great activities in our network and foster interaction and exchange between colleagues from different member institutions and beyond. On 9 December 2025, Giulia Sonetti introduced the project Cycling to Care (C2C) and shared emerging findings from pilot interventions in Barcelona, where young volunteers cycle with older residents to explore emotional, social, and environmental transformation in everyday urban life. 

The 14th Global Conference of Regional Centres of Expertise for Education for Sustainable Development, which took place from 21 to 23 October 2025 in Okayama, Japan, was attended by over 260 participants from around the world. The event provided a recap of the global RCE network’s 20-year history. The COPERNICUS Alliance was represented in the Ubuntu Committee of Peers for RCEs by Advisory Board member Jana Dlouhá.

More than 85 participants, from Canada to Kenya, from New Zealand to Europe, joined the Higher Education Summit "Bold Education in Scary Times" from 19-20 November 2025. The two-day online conference was the great result of a fruitful collaboration between the CA, oikos, SOS International and Students4Sustainability. In keynotes, panel discussions and several workshops, we examined how "bold education" can make "scary times" less daunting and inspire hope for a sustainable future. We have gathered a rich set of materials from the summit – have a look at the recordings of our excellent keynote speakers Jean-Christophe Carteron and Michiel van Harskamp, and the panel discussion with Oshin Ghiotto and Isabel Menezes! 

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The Students Organizing for Sustainability (SOS) International Summit 2025, hosted in Ghent, Belgium, marked a critical moment for the global student movement. Under the theme "Mobilizing Student Leadership for Environmental Justice", students, educators, and leaders from around the world convened to outline a decisive, action-oriented path toward a sustainable and equitable future. The post-summit compendium of presentations highlights a commitment to moving beyond traditional sustainability and embracing the urgency of Environmental Justice.

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The innovative project SEDUCED by NATURE, funded by UHasselt, explores the potential of outdoor spaces on and around the UHasselt campuses as learning environments for education for, about, and as sustainability. Together with students and teaching staff from five faculties, multiple physical outdoor learning spaces are co-created across both campuses, and alternative teaching methods are designed and tested for these spaces. It allows lecturers to expand the opportunities to embed sustainability competences into their courses, and students to develop and strengthen their sustainability competences.

In light of the global challenges, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU) is advancing its sustainability activities with the goal of making a proactive contribution to sustainable development. Across 156 pages, the sustainability report provides a comprehensive overview of BOKU's diverse sustainability activities, highlighting successes and areas for improvement. It is structured around six areas, that cover both university-specific topics such as teaching and studies, research, and social impact, as well as ESG topics such as environment, social affairs, and governance.

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Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) has joined the Cleantech Cluster Lithuania. The partnership, initiated by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Design Centre and the Institute of Environmental Engineering, will help strengthen the University’s study and research activities focused on environmental well-being and the development of sustainable technologies in both national and international contexts.

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In our series "A conversation with..." this time we talked to four colleagues of our most recent member institution Ukrainian National Forestry University. Rector Volodymyr Zahorskyi, Vice-Rector Vasyl Lavnyy, Ihor Soloviy and Uliana Pavliuk emphasise the importance of belonging to an international community and explain how they manage to sustain teaching and research under the current challenging circumstances. 

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The Ukrainian National Forestry University (UNFU) continues to lead in sustainability and international collaboration. This fall, the university will reaffirm its top position in the UI GreenMetric ranking and expand its role in the ConnectED German–Ukrainian network. Through EU-funded projects like CireHive and SysMind, policy dialogues, and student initiatives, UNFU integrates sustainability into education, research, and governance – contributing to Ukraine’s green recovery and European future. UNFU also supports academic reform through the national UIHERP program.

We warmly welcome the Ukrainian National Forestry University (UNFU) as new member of our network! Thanks to the initiative of Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, contacts were established and an official ceremony was organized during a visit by representatives of UNFU to Eberswalde.