We are happy to announce that the conference website now features key questions for contributions. Submissions will be possible as of late January 2020. The Summit will enable participants from a number of different stakeholder and expert groups interested in transformation towards sustainable development to meet beyond their “natural borders” and to discuss both research and practice-related issues.
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.
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”.
Calls for abstracts for oral & poster presentations are now open for the 5th Spring Campus Conference of the University Alliance for Sustainability: “Commitments for Future: Sustainability in Higher Education”. The conference will be hosted at Freie Universität Berlin from 30 March – 3 April 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 1st 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 25th 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".
The 2019 GSDR, entitled “The Future is Now: Science for Achieving Sustainable Development”, was unveiled at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday, 11 September 2019. Drafted by an independent group of 15 scientists co-chaired by CDE Director Peter Messerli (University of Bern), the report finds that the current development model is not sustainable, and the progress made in the last two decades is in danger of being reversed through worsening social inequalities and potentially irreversible declines in the natural environment that sustains us. The scientists conclude that a far more optimistic future is still attainable, but only by drastically changing development policies, incentives, and actions.
The first multiplier event of the project "Education for Zero Waste and Circular Economy (EduZWaCE)" was held in the Congress Centre Bernardin in Portorož on 24 October 2019. 50 participants from universities, research institutes, enterprises, decision makers and postgraduate students discussed about possibilities and future efforts to improve the upcoming Vocational Education and Training (VET) online program "Education for Zero Waste and Circular Economy" and current developments in this field.
The seminar took place on 9 October 2019 in Bizkaia Aretoa (Bilbao). It analysed how the environmental and social footprint of the University of the Basque Country could be reduced. Materials and videos are available.
3 days, 80 participants, 30 countries, 0 travel carbon: The COPERNICUS Alliance Online Conference 2019 from 9-11 September, entitled “Reaching out for the Stars: Consolidating the HESD Constellation” was a success. The event brought together people and institutions committed to transforming higher education towards sustainable development. Participants from around the world joined the virtual conference rooms and engaged themselves in discussions and interactive sessions.
Videos of our thought provokers are now available!
The BOKU University for Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, together with the University of Hamburg and the University of Zurich, organised a workshop on "Universities and Sustainable Development Goals", which was supported by a CA Micro Fund. It took place on 11 September 2019 as part of the Pre-Conference of the SBE19 (Sustainable Built Environment D-A-CH Conference 2019) at the Graz University of Technology, Austria.
The University of Bern is currently developing a comprehensive strategy for reducing its CO2 emissions caused by business travel. As a first step, the Executive Board of the University has issued recommendations on how employees can make business travel more sustainable.
The workshop will take place from 24-26 June 2020 in Vienna. It provides a rare and important opportunity for leaders of business school sustainability/responsibility centers to share common challenges and identify solutions. Interested persons can join the bottom-up approach to building the event’s program. The call for workshop session submissions is now officially open.
Based on a survey, the University of Gävle, in cooperation with the Autonomous University of Madrid, investigated sustainability being taught, sustainability competences developed, and pedagogical approaches used at European Higher Education Institutions.
You can register to the low-traffic COPERNICUS Alliance mailing list which is used for distribution of CA newsletters and other important information from the CA secretariat to both members and non-members of the COPERNICUS Alliance.
Are you or your institution interested in becoming a member of the COPERNICUS Alliance? Find out more about how you can benefit by being part of a vibrant network!
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