Virtual education has unexpectedly become a global necessity these days. The open source publication "Virtual conferences in higher education: Teasing out their transformative potential for sustainable development" provides insights into this topic.

Propose forward-looking HESD issues for debate, present the bugs you want to improve in solutions you tested, join others for co-creating new initiatives, meet ESD-minded people from unexpected communities, and help us achieve a more systemic and effective understanding of how to enable transformative learning for sustainable development while also assuring quality at higher education institutions! We invite you to submit your contributions to the HES2020 before 6 April 2020 (extended deadline!).

In our series "A conversation with..." we talk with our members. On the occasion of Women’s Day, Anna Batorczak tells us about the importance of women leaders for sustainable development, historical particularities about Women’s Day in Poland, and a brand new interdisciplinary, interfaculty, and international Sustainable Development Masters Programme at the University of Warsaw. 

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The open access journal Mountain Research and Development (MRD) – the leading international scientific journal specifically devoted to sustainable development in the world’s mountains – is looking for contributions that address the title question by presenting systematically validated experiences, integrated analyses, and well-referenced reflections and suggestions regarding thematic issues, pedagogic concepts and methods, formal and informal practices, institutional setups, and policy frameworks in, on, and for mountains. Full papers are due by 30 April 2020 (extended deadline!).

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Our colleagues from the University of Warsaw critically reflect on the implementation of a newly established interdisciplinary Sustainable Development graduate programme. One of the positive aspects raised is the high rate of foreign students enrolled, which enhances the intercultural approach of the programme and enriches academic discussions. A key challenge noted by the authors is the complexity of coordinating teaching by colleagues from eight university faculties.

The international summer school will take place from 17-28 August 2020 at the University of Bern. It is offering students a chance to deepen their knowledge of sustainable development and to acquire the competencies needed to act as change agents. Students will learn about issues such as consumption, food production, public goods, and inequality, as well as sharpen their skills to work for human well-being and social and ecological justice. Register now.

Virtual events bear a huge potential to contribute to sustainable development by bridging geographical gaps on a global scale while reducing CO₂ emissions. Building on experience garnered during the COPERNICUS Alliance Online Conference 2019, we developed guidelines on how to prepare, host and evaluate virtual conferences.

The workshop, planned from 24-26 June 2020 in Vienna, has been postponed to 2021 because of the outbreak of the corona virus. 

With their EHUagenda 2030 for sustainable development the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has provided a blueprint to bring their work in line with the SDGs and to find sustainable environmental, social and economic solutions to global problems. Over the last three years the university's scientific contribution to the SDGs has increased hugely.

Just founded at the University of Bern, the Wyss Academy for Nature promises to become a leading research and practice centre in the field of nature and people. Scientific teams will work with practitioners and representatives from policy, business, and civil society to develop innovations for the protection and sustainable use of nature across four continents. Made possible by philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss, the Wyss Academy is a joint endeavour of CDE, the Oeschger Centre, and the Institute of Plant Sciences, all of the University of Bern. CDE Director Peter Messerli has been designated to lead the new centre.

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The WU Vienna Center for Sustainability Transformation and Responsibility (STaR) hosted its first panel discussion at the WU Matters WU Talks public lecture series, titled “The UN Sustainable Development Goals: Why Should They be Your Business?” The event attracted a highly diverse audience of nearly 350 students, faculty and staff, business practitioners, locals and internationals. The issues tackled by the panelists concerned the ways in which SDGs can be embedded into different business models, the differences between the SDG framework and other means of fostering corporate responsibility, SDG communication, measuring SDG impact, and the thorny topic of “SDG-washing”.

The workshop hosted at Freie Universität Berlin has been postponed to 31 August – 4 September 2020. 

On 18 November 2019 the Annual Conference of the European Environmental Bureau took place in Berlin, where key players from the European environmental movement met with political decision-makers. The focus was on the upcoming EU presidency and its strong commitment to the environment expressed in the Green Deal.

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education of Andorra (AQUA) and the Aragon Agency for Quality Assurance and Strategic Foresight in Higher Education (ACPUA) have developed a Proposal of indicators to embed the Sustainable Development Goals into Institutional Quality Assessment.

The WU Vienna Center for Sustainability Transformation and Responsibility (STaR) organized the 1^st Research Conference on Responsible Innovation (22-23 November 2019, Vienna). The two-day conference brought together internationally recognized scholars from various fields and disciplines to reflect on the nature, drivers, and outcomes of Responsible Innovation.

Last November, during the 25^th European Week of Advanced Management, the new educational model of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) was presented in front of over 200 participants at the event "IKD jendartea".