Ecocampus: Programme for sustainable tertiary education of the Flemish Ministry of Environment, Nature and Energy
Countries throughout Europe agree on the pivotal role of tertiary education in sustainable development. This is has been confirmed by several international agreements like the EU Sustainable Development Strategy or the UNECE ESD-strategy. But can tertiary education independently deliver on these big expectations? In Belgium, the Flemish government decided to support tertiary education in its orientation towards sustainability. Thus, the Ecocampus program was born in 2008.
The Ecocampus program was built on principles of transition management, like a high degree of participation and a system-wide approach. Ecocampus focuses on educators, researchers and students.

A recent update of the program added a new dimension. Ecocampus aims to be the bridge between the international ‘sustainable tertiary education’-community and Flanders. In this light, Ecocampus became a member of the COPERNICUS Alliance. Membership provides us with opportunities to learn from others and spread international good practices in Flanders. We also hope to share Flemish good practices with the COPERNICUS Alliance. Finally, we hope to learn what the international community defines as current priority barriers in order to set up new pilot projects – and possibly international collaborations – concerning these barriers.
You can read more about Peter Schildermans, our COPERNICUS Alliance Ecocampus colleague at https://be.linkedin.com/pub/peter-schildermans/3a/a58/670.