*3.1. Contextual Challenges for SUD Education in HEIs*

There is a critical need for the knowledge, innovation, and skills to address significant challenges in sustainable development. HEIs have an important role to play in driving sustainable change—through the provision of education, skills, and research—and as such, universities globally have positioned themselves as critical actors in achieving sustainable development and the SDGs. In Finland this year, universities agreed on a number of theses intended to move sustainable development and responsibility "from words to actions".

However, teaching of sustainability poses a multitude of challenges to HEIs, as sustainability problems are inherently multidisciplinary, complex, and require a broad understanding of issues. Wiek et al. [17] claim that instead of focusing on isolated events, it is important to gain deep understanding of "sustainability problem constellations" in order to deal with the root causes of these events. This way of thinking directs attention to complex and dynamic processes that underlie individual, easily perceptible problems. These processes take place and interact across multiple scales and are dependent upon people's beliefs, habits, motives, and practices.

In addition, HEIs also face the challenge of needing to evolve to meet societal needs [18]. There is a need to change the ways that HEIs function and interact with wider society [19], including government and industry, in order to help develop the solutions to key environmental, social, and economic sustainability problems. Furthermore, HEI administrative structures are typically organized around rigid disciplinary frameworks, and integrating a broader, interdisciplinary subject such as sustainability into such a framework is challenging.
