The 2024 Higher Education Summit entitled "Co-creating change for sustainability" will take place from 8-10 September 2024 at the University of Padua. Whether you are a passionate educator, a dedicated researcher, a curious undergrad, an eager graduate student, or simply someone with a keen interest in education and sustainability in any context – this conference is a unique opportunity to foster dialogue and collaboration among educators and stakeholders in higher education. Several highlights await you in Padua: workshops, network corners, teaching and learning labs, excursions, social events, and great keynote speakers: Juanita Johnston-Bailey, Marco Frey, Enrico Giovannini, Isabel Rimanoczy, Umesh Sharma and Arjen Wals. Registrations will open soon!
The 2024 Higher Education Summit is organized by the University of Padua and the COPERNICUS Alliance. The conference will take place from 8-10 September 2024 in Padua, Italy. It is a unique opportunity to foster dialogue and collaboration among educators and stakeholders in higher education. Whether you are a passionate educator, a dedicated researcher, a curious undergrad, an eager graduate student, or simply someone with a keen interest in education and sustainability in any context – your presence and contributions at the Higher Education Summit 2024 will be invaluable!
TRANSFORMATION TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY
Transformations are never easy; oftentimes they are disorienting and disruptive. To provoke transformation, there must first be an awareness of problematic yet deeply embedded paradigms and practices; only then can they be critically examined and changed into more sustainable ones. A sustainability-oriented transformation is thus a journey that looks inward through critical reflection, as much as it is one that reaches outward through collective effort and dialogue and moves forward by searching for sustainable solutions. How can higher education transform itself and what would this transformation entail? How could this positively impact the greater community and ultimately lead to meaningful change?
WHOLE-INSTITUTION APPROACH
Many suggestions that come from education for sustainability underline the need for a whole-institution approach (WIA), an integrated means to address all educational processes that influence learning. Aligning and coordinating these processes with each other, it drives and stimulates educators to systematically promote learning and find solutions for the problems we face today. Moreover, this approach helps organizations incorporate the principles of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for 2030 in an organic and systemic way, with attention to vision, curriculum, pedagogy and teaching, and management of the organization itself, and research.
TRANSDISCIPLINARY COLLECTIVE EFFORTS
In this way, education professionals are prompted to reflect on their own learning needs and forge more transdisciplinary collaborations within the university, as well as engage with stakeholders outside their organization. The aim is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by creating learning environments that stir critical reflection, welcome dialogue, and put primacy in transdisciplinary collective efforts.