A conversation with... Jorge Ricardo Nova Blanco & Anne-Mieke Vandamme
In our series "A conversation with..." we talk with our members. In the third edition, a business manager and a scientist from KU Leuven demonstrate how top scientists can ensure that their findings have a real impact on society. Jorge Ricardo Nova Blanco and Anne-Mieke Vandamme tell us how their chance meeting led to co-creation of an Institute for the Future where stakeholders pose challenges for transdisciplinary research. The researchers are students, coached by acknowledged academics, often together witrh stakeholders…
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. 
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. 
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) announced the paper “Mainstreaming Education for Sustainable Development at a Swiss University: Navigating the Traps of Institutionalization” by author Lilian Trechsel (researcher at the Centre of Development and Environment, University of Bern) as a finalist for the 2019 AASHE Sustainability Awards in the Campus Sustainability Research category for outstanding research in sustainability. 
The Educating Future Change Agents (EFCA) project, a joint research initiative of Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany and Arizona State University, USA has been conducting research since 2016 which seeks to collect empirical evidence on how key competencies in sustainability can be effectively developed. A team of researchers has carried out an integrated and innovative multi-case study design at both universities and initial results are beginning to be published.
In the week of 6 May a Sustainability Week was organised at KU Leuven (Belgium). This was an initiative of the Green Office for KU Leuven, in collaboration with the student unions of all faculties, the student council, the Sustainability Office of the vice-rector for Sustainability, and Pangaea (a welcoming place for international students). The goal was to create awareness about sustainability in all its dimensions, by bringing less known dimensions – such as economic and social aspects – into the spotlight.
The Sustainability Office of the University of the Basque Country has launched a new website that includes all the programmes and actions carried out by the university to meet the Agenda 2030. This website presents the university’s specific contributions to 12 of the 17 SDGs. In addition to these 12 SDGs, the University has included its commitment to language and cultural diversity through SDG 17+1.
Ahead of the 
A consortium from nine European countries including University of Maribor is working in the Erasmus+ project “Education for Zero Waste and Circular Economy”. Its aim is to fill a gap in Vocational Education and Training by creating a new training course focusing on waste and circular economy, and by developing interdisciplinary skills needed for new jobs in the area.
The 2nd International Conference on Technologies & Business Models for Circular Economy (TBMCE) will take place from 24-26 October 2019 in Portorož, Slovenia, organized by University of Maribor. TBMCE is devoted to presentations of circular economy concepts, technologies and methodologies that contribute to the shift of business entities and society as a whole to a more responsible, circular management of resources. 
Prof. Michel Ricard, ESD UNESCO Chair at Bordeaux INP (Institut National Polytechnique), France, invited CA President Anne Zimmermann to present the COPERNICUS Alliance at the 3rd International Conference of the chair, entitled “Education for Sustainable Development, a Transition Lever for our Societies”. This was an opportunity to establish contacts with some higher education institutions in France and present to them the COPERNICUS Alliance’s new Vision, Mission, and Action Plan.
Under the title “Skilled migrants in Austria: Needed but unwelcome?”, the WU Vienna Competence Center for Sustainability Transformation and Responsibility (STaR) hosted its first public panel discussion on 10 April. The event owed its inspiration to the ongoing research on migration at WU Vienna, where several groups of researchers across different academic disciplines are working on topics related to this important issue.
In this piece of news, Beatriz Perez-Soto shares her experiences with sustainable education and tourism as Visiting Professor at Universidad Metropolitana of Ecuador (UMET).
