Dear Colleagues,

In the last few years, a growing endorsement of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), in both research and praxis, has been observed worldwide. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has described ESD as the biggest challenge in the current century. Since then several states, NGOs, and educational organizations such as schools or universities have undertaken intensive efforts to anchor the concept into educational settings, systems and organizations at the global, national, regional, and organizational levels. At the same time, the definitions and operationalizations of ESD vary considerably. ESD in so-called developing countries, for instance, may be understood completely different than in the so-called industrialized world.

Since social innovations such as ESD are implemented and realized through social relations, applications of quantitative and qualitative techniques of Social Network Analysis (SNA) or network and governance approaches as such to study the increasing relevance of ESD seem apparent. Despite considerable research on the involvement of ESD, however, its implementation through relations, as well as the interactions between different actors in these processes, have been researched scarcely with social network approaches. This Special Issue addresses the research gap and welcomes articles that are related to aspects of social networks and collaboration with a focus on education and sustainability. It encourages contributions employing different approaches and quantitative and/or qualitative network methods and drawing on different data. Possible topics for article submission include, but are not limited to:

1. Social networks and collaboration in ESD
2. Social network analysis in ESD
3. Cross-sectional partnerships in ESD
4. Diffusion or transfer of ESD
5. Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in education
6. Student engagement in ESD
7. Strategic partnerships
8. Gender, Diversity, Heterogeneity or Inclusion in ESD
9. Incentives for integrating ESD in networks—including excellence ranking and ratings
10. Measuring and monitoring ESD

Prof. Dr. Nina Kolleck
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Education for Sustainable Development
• Climate Change Education
• Social Networks
• Social Network Analysis
• Governance