HIGHER EDUCATION SUMMIT 2020: Call for Contributions open
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 16 March 2020.
Virtual events bear a huge potential to contribute to sustainable development by bridging geographical gaps on a gobal 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 will take place from 24-26 June 2020 in Vienna. It provides a rare and important opportunity for leaders of sustainability centers to share common challenges and identify solutions. 
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.
UNESCO invites interested organizations and individuals to submit their proposals to set up booths and organize workshops as part of the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development, which will take place in Berlin, Germany from 2 to 4 June 2020. Applications can be submitted before 10 February 2020.
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. Full papers are due by 31 March 2020.
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.
