Sustainability in Higher Educational Institutions: Incorporating Environment, Society and Economy Spheres in Education, Research and Campus Life
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 26504
Special Issue Editors
Interests: sustainability; manufacturing; sustainable business models; life cycle assessment; cost modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: ecological economics; dynamic energy budget theory in biological systems; economics; energy and economic growth; sustainable agriculture; thermodynamics; ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: accessibility of built environment; inclusive cities and communities; sustainability in higher education institutions; urban transformation of historic cities
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The integration of sustainability in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), contributing to the achievement of the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has been the focus of many universities and colleges as they have a key role in transferring knowledge to society, and in the education and shaping of future behavior of their students. This role goes far beyond minimizing the local impacts of HEI campuses. HEIs which include sustainability in their strategy are engaged in integrating sustainable practices in education, research, community outreach, campus operations, networking, staff programs, assessment, and reporting.
This Special Issue welcomes papers covering approaches for sustainability in HEI, strategies for overcoming resistance to change and other challenges, experiences and case studies, new methodologies, assessment methods, and university collaborations and networks. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, several facets of sustainability in HEIs:
- Education—Promotion and integration of sustainability contents in the curricula of the degrees, inclusion of sustainability aspects in the projects and thesis developed by students, and identification of these aspects in the existent syllabuses.
- Research—Promotion of sustainability driven research projects and their identification, collaboration between departments fostering multidisciplinary teams to respond to local and global sustainability challenges.
- Resources (energy, water, waste, air, biodiversity)—Waste reduction and its conscious management in HEIs, improvement of energy efficiency, air quality, and biodiversity within university campuses.
- Architecture—Thermal efficiency and comfort of buildings, guidelines to design and transform spaces adapted to new pedagogical models.
- Mobility—Promotion to foster more sustainable behaviors, experimentation of new modes of urban mobility and other projects or case studies involving HEIs, communities and municipalities in the process of achieving best practices fostering sustainable mobility.
- Social inclusion (accessibility, accommodation and integration of students, equal opportunity)—Promotion of physical, communication, and organizational conditions for the inclusion of students, researchers, staff, and visitors with temporary or permanent special needs.
- Wellbeing—Contribution to healthy, safe, and respectable work environments within the HEIs, promoting the wellbeing of all staff, students, and researchers and reducing psychosocial risks.
- Communication—Strategies for efficient communication of all suitability actions and projects within HEI, not only increasing their acceptance in the community, but also promoting the participation and involvement of all.
- Monitoring, Assessment, and Reporting—Definition of indicators to assess the sustainability of HEIs within the campus and through outreach to society, methodologies for measurement, analysis, and monetarization of all aspects of sustainability within the three pillars of sustainability—environment, society, and economy.
- Strategy and Governance—Integration of sustainability in the strategy of HEI and governance solutions to incorporate sustainability in the operational, management, and board structures of HEI.
Prof. Dr. Inês Ribeiro
Dr. Tiago Domingos
Dr. Silvia Di Salvatore
Guest Editors
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.
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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.
Keywords
- sustainable development
- higher education institutions
- environment
- society and economy
- sustainable practices in education
- research
- community
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