{"id":1271,"date":"2017-12-12T10:54:37","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T10:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/sustainability\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2017-12-12T11:01:38","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T11:01:38","slug":"universities-academics-and-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/2017\/12\/12\/universities-academics-and-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Universities, academics and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Graham Long<\/a><\/p>\n

Universities, globally, have a unique place in accelerating implementation of the SDGs, even as they face uneven contexts and challenges. They can play a key role in engaging youth as a force for change, and in helping to generate the knowledge, analysis and expertise needed to understand and implement the SDGs as a universal and interlinked agenda. Some recent resources and initiatives have been launched to guide universities in these areas \u2013 notably the Sustainable Development Solutions Network\u2019s (SDSN)\u00a0Guide for Universities<\/a>, and the\u00a0SDG Accord<\/a>, an initiative to encourage universities and academics (and institutions of further education too) to publicly commit to the SDGs. Universities are talking about SDGs, too \u2013 from the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI)\u00a0event<\/a>\u00a0on the final day of the 2017 High Level Political Forum, to my own university\u2019s\u00a0conference on this<\/a>\u00a0two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Much has been\u00a0said<\/i>\u00a0about universities and the SDGs, but there is little research around what role academics see for\u00a0themselves<\/i>. To address this gap here, I draw on the\u00a0preliminary findings of research<\/a>\u00a0I recently conducted with the help of Ana Flamind, Louise Luxton, and Dani Morgan at Newcastle University. We contacted 400 academics in developing countries to ask them about the SDGs in the context of their countries\u2019 Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) this summer, receiving 87 responses. In this blog I want to highlight three key messages around SDGs and academics, linking the findings from this specific research to the wider picture around the role of universities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1.The SDGs as relevant for academic research<\/i><\/b><\/h4>\n

Mapping university research against the SDGs, and showing how the work being undertaken is relevant to these global challenges, is central to the SDG Accord. The alignment of research with the goals is also a focus of the SDSN guide. \u00a0But where academics don\u2019t see their work as SDG-relevant, such mapping could seem artificial and undesirable. Our findings, helpfully, show that for the academics who responded to our survey \u2013 from a diverse range of social and natural science disciplines, applied and abstract \u2013 almost all saw that the SDGs spoke to their areas of expertise:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean, though, that universities should stop at mapping research against the goals. One particular weakness of our study is that we didn\u2019t investigate the place of the SDGs in teaching, and this is something we can address next time around. More broadly, future work could focus on the role of universities in contributing to driving SDG implementation across all aspects of their operations: SDSN\u2019s listing of areas for university action across the goals (pages 24-26 of the guide) is an especially important resource.<\/p>\n

2. Academic involvement in Voluntary National Reviews<\/i><\/b><\/h4>\n

One aspect of this wider role that needs more attention is the participation of academics in review and monitoring of the SDGs, globally, regionally, and in country contexts. Analysis, critical thinking, assessment of complex data, and problem-solving are important parts of the academic skillset and of universities\u2019 wider role. These processes of monitoring and review, furthermore, should be \u201copen, inclusive, participatory and transparent\u201d (para 74 of a\/res\/70\/1). The SDSN guide, however, mentions university involvement in national and local review only in passing, as far as I can see, and spends only two sentences sketching global and national processes of review \u2013 even though SDSN themselves do global review\u00a0really well<\/a>. The SDG Accord is deliberately more limited in its scope, but this is something that a future development of the Accord might encourage reporting around.<\/p>\n

Our survey asked about this issue in the context of the 2017 VNRs. In our survey, 48% of 85 respondents on this question knew that their country had agreed to\u00a0undertake\u00a0<\/i>a VNR, but only 31% of 87 respondents knew the\u00a0process<\/i>\u00a0by which their VNR was being conducted and only 33% of 85 respondents agreed that\u00a0there were opportunities<\/i>\u00a0for academic engagement.<\/p>\n

The academics who responded\u00a0want<\/i>\u00a0to get involved through a range of means:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This, perhaps, offers some pointers for governments on how to facilitate academic involvement \u2013 as part of a wider effort to make reviews inclusive for all stakeholders. But it also prompts a set of questions about how academic and multi-stakeholder networks, partnerships and other forms of coordination could support this involvement, given the apparent desire for coordination.<\/p>\n

3.The demand for information and collaboration<\/i><\/b><\/h4>\n

Perhaps the key finding of our survey research is just how great the academic desire for\u00a0information\u00a0<\/i>around the SDGs is \u2013 even amongst academics who already knew about the goals. Respondents overwhelmingly thought more information on the SDGs themselves, on review structures at global, regional and national levels, and on the UN\u2019s Global Sustainable Development Report would be very valuable (scores of 9 or 10 on our scale). There is a connection here with the mapping discussed under (1). It is one thing to see which targets are relevant to your research, but quite another to understand the Agenda2030 framework and its accompanying governance. In the UK context, for example, it is common for\u00a0research directed at the challenges of developing countries<\/a>\u00a0to be mapped onto particular SDG targets, but it is not clear, yet, how far this translates into genuine understanding of the goals as\u00a0integrated<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0universal<\/i>, or into knowledge of the new institutions and processes around the SDGs.<\/p>\n

Respondents also thought\u00a0collaboration<\/i>\u00a0between countries was important, suggesting the need for networks and coordinating organisations to fill this gap:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The need for collaboration and partnership goes beyond the VNR context, of course. Another area for investigation in the future is how universities can best develop the north-south and south-south partnerships that are needed as conduits for sharing research, expertise, and capacity-building \u2013 addressing SDG targets 17.6 and 17.8 \u2013 despite the diverse and common challenges they face.<\/p>\n

For all the talk of the SDGs by universities, and the mapping of academic research onto goals, then, these findings prompt questions: is enough work going on to build a deep understanding of the SDGs amongst academics? and how can these collaborations to drive and deliver the goals \u2013 north-south and south-south \u2013 be fostered and coordinated?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dr Graham Long is an Associate Director of the Institute for Sustainability at Newcastle University in the UK. From 2013-15 he worked on the SDGs as part of Beyond2015, including co-facilitating the Beyond2015 working group on follow up and review. He currently works with stakeholders on issues around SDG data, review and follow-up structures. Two of his ongoing projects are the\u00a0Together2030 survey on stakeholder participation in the 2017 VNRs\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 and a similar project on the upcoming 2018 VNRs \u2013 and, with UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development,\u00a0SDG monitoring in the UK<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on the Together 2030 blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Together 2030 (<\/i>www.together2030.org<\/i><\/a>) is a civil society initiative that promotes national implementation and tracks progress of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Initiative, set up in December 2015, seeks to generate knowledge and project voices from civil society and stakeholders around the world on the challenges and opportunities for the 2030 Agenda. \u00a0Together 2030 brings together civil society and non-governmental actors to discuss the way to formulate and implement roadmaps at national level and hold governments to account at all levels. As of November 2017, 570 organizations have joined Together 2030 from more than 100 countries. 72% of which are based in the Global South.<\/i><\/p>\n

DISCLAIMER. The views expressed in this blog are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Together 2030 Initiative and its members.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Graham Long Universities, globally, have a unique place in accelerating implementation of the SDGs, even as they face uneven contexts and challenges. They can play a key role in engaging youth as a force for change, and in helping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5836,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[88,130,132],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-globalgoals","tag-newcastle-university","tag-sustainability","tag-sustainable-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/globalchallenges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}