Abstract
Today, universities face the great challenge of becoming competently sustainable institutions. A crucial role is played by SDGs in a university's progress toward sustainability, which under the umbrella of the 2030 Agenda, set out the challenges faced by these institutions. This chapter determines the extent to which the prism of sustainability is present in the strategic planning of the public universities of the Andalusian Autonomous Community (Spain) and in their governance models. For this, the authors undertook an analysis of the strategic and operational plans of these institutions, focusing on the presence of SDGs in the various lines of action contained within them. In parallel, they also carried out an analysis of the socio-corporate image that these universities project from a sustainability perspective. The results show that these universities are motivated toward implementing a sustainable governance model, but they also highlight a number of deficiencies in addressing some SDGs that are sure to become future challenges.
TopIntroduction
The inclusion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the panorama of Higher Education is the product of the historical commitment of universities to incorporate the principles and logic of sustainability in their fields of teaching, management, research and transfer of knowledge. On the other hand, it is necessary for universities to generate their identity and corporate communication model based on the principles of Social Responsibility with the creation of new methodologies aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of these marketing strategies and knowledge transfer under the logic that marks the 2030 Agenda (Higgins and Thomas, 2016). Amongst the historical milestones that are at the basis of this commitment, we can highlight the World Conference on Higher Education (UNESCO, 1998), the Declaration of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014 (UNESCO, 2005; Mulà and Tilbury, 2009), Copernicus - Guidelines for sustainable development in the European Higher Educational Area: How to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into the Bologna Process (Campus, 2009), and in Spain, the context where this study is framed, the Guidelines for Curricular Sustainability (CRUE, 2005) and Royal Decree 1393/2007, of October 29 (BOE, 2007), establishing the organization of official university education and which, in its preamble, highlights the commitment of the universities to the “knowledge and development of Human Rights, democratic principles, principles of gender equality, solidarity, environmental protection, universal accessibility and design, and the promotion of a culture of peace”.
These SDGs, under the umbrella of the 2030 Agenda, set the challenges that humanity must embrace to move toward sustainability. In this task, Higher Education cannot fall behind. As Ull (2011) points out, for universities to contribute to the formation of citizens that are capable of living in a sustainable, competent and dignified manner, aware of their place within this “vital framework”, it is necessary for these institutions to incorporate fundamental changes to the curriculum, ensuring it sees the inclusion of competencies for sustainability, as well as has a broader vision of the role played by educational institutions (Ull, 2011, p.2).
The educational, social, economic and environmental impacts of higher education institutions justify their commitment to comply with the SDGs from the prism of education for sustainability (Aznar et al., 2011; Higgins and Thomas, 2016).
The consideration of SDGs in university strategic plans, the creation of new structures in their governance models or the redefinition of the mission and vision of existing ones, are, amongst others, a commitment by universities to respond to these requirements by generating socially responsible and sustainably committed management models (Moon et al., 2018; Utama et al., 2018; Franco et al., 2019).
From this current framework of action, this chapter aims to characterize the treatment given to the SDGs and sustainability across the ten Andalusian public universities, through the analysis of each institution’s strategic and operational plans where they set the guidelines for education and research and their projection and socio-corporate transfer.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Agenda 2030: Is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan (United Nations, 2015).
Governance-University Model: This concept makes mention of the exercise of political, economic, and administrative authority to direct higher education systems. It supposes the model that universities follow to organize themselves at the governmental and institutional management level from an internal and external perspective. Gutiérrez (2002) considers university governance as “a public management that concerns the institutional structure of political action, both of the government and of the actors of the university community and those of civil society; serve the expression of governance as a measure of the capacity of the university organization, with its special complexity, to relate to the environment on which it depends.”
Strategic Lines-University: The strategic lines are the means to achieve the strategic objectives set by the organization in a given time. Each line will lead to a series of actions that will make it possible to achieve the objectives set through the resources available by each university as well as the participation of the community.
Education for Sustainability: The sustainability concept leads us as humans to rethink how our way of life influences the environment and propose solutions that imply an improvement in the quality of life without degrading the environment. It is necessary to build a culture of sustainability, and a good vehicle for this is education for sustainability, which involves training for conscious action, whose objective is to learn to change, and which finds its best strategy in participation. in real projects of transformation and change. (Martínez Huerta, 2014). Education for sustainability implies generating work proposals and achieving social involvement and commitment to carry them out in a satisfactory way.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Represent a series of joint actions to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of people around the world. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental (United Nations, 2015). In 2015, all the Member States of the United Nations approved 17 Goals as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which establishes a plan to achieve the Goals in 15 years.
Vision-University: The future of the organization in a period of given time. When there is conceptual clarity about what you want to build in the future, the ability to direct and running toward your achievement steadily. To realize the vision of the university, as an institution you must ask yourself the following questions: What and how do you want? We will be in the following years? What do we want to become? Who will we work for? How are we differentiate ourselves? What values will we respect? (Strategic Plan University of Granada, 2006-2010).
Mission-University: Is reason of being of the university. It synthesizes the main strategic purposes, as well as the essential values that should be known, understood, and shared by all the individuals that are part of the university community. As an institution, the university must answer the following questions to define its mission: Who are we? What do we do? Why and for what do we do what we do? Who do we do it for? How do we do it? (Strategic Plan University of Granada, 2006-2010).
Strategic Plan-University: It is defined as an instrument that helps universities to trace their trajectory, through processes of reflection and participation to design the objectives they propose to achieve. With the preparation of this document, the foundations are laid to establish the lines of action that will energize the institution in the coming years. In most cases, strategic plans are defined based on three key points: mission, vision, and values.
Values-University: The values must reflect the identity of the university and become the frame of reference to achieve the purposes that the universities set for themselves when answering the questions derived from the mission and vision they intend to achieve.
Socio-Corporate Image: The new educational demands make the universities seriously consider what image they want to project to society. As they are institutions with a high social commitment, they must attend to the needs of the different interest groups to which they are directed. A good socio-corporate image will make the community have a positive predisposition towards the university as an institution. In addition to these aspects, universities must think about the best communication and dissemination channels to reach the community. In this way, they will be able to be in direct contact with society and show the results of the work that is carried out within the institution in order to create a university open to the environment.