"Accelerating Education for the SDGs" - Launch of the Spanish Translation
The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) together with REDS (SDSN Spain) , SDSN Mexico , SDSN Andes , and in collaboration with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid , launched the Spanish translation of the Accelerating Education for the SDGs in Universities Guide. The report is a practical guide on how universities can leverage their learning and teaching functions to provide "Education for the SDGs" (ESDGs) by helping students develop knowledge, skills and critical thinking necessary to achieve the SDGs.
The official launch took place on May 18, 2021 through a virtual conference which convened for a practical dialogue on the important role that universities have in the implementation, promotion, and education on the SDGs for their achievement.
María Cortés Puch, Vice President of SDSN Networks, inaugurated the event highlighting the importance of the guide for the sustainable development framework within universities. After having thanked the involved networks for their commitment and work on the launch and the guide, María introduced Julio Lumbreras, Vice-Rector for Academic Strategy and Internationalization at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, to present the main findings of the report.
Julio Lumbreras presented the guide focusing on the concept of acceleration adapted by the report, namely how universities must integrate the SDGs more effectively to achieve Agenda 2030 in time. He stressed how this challenge can be approached through the strategic process explained in chapter 3 and the transformation highlighted in chapter 4 of the guide. In addition, he presented the existing global call for case studies and examples of education for the SDGS , which boasted 110 submissions of which 50 were selected for reference in the guide. He also highlighted the Spanish volume of case studies “Implementando la Agenda 2030 en la universidad: Casos inspiradores de educación para los ODS en las universidades españolas” a set of practical examples in Spanish”.
As a starting point for the following debate, participants were asked to provide their insights on the most important elements regarding ESDGs in their universities.
Carlos Mataix, director of UPM’s Centre for Innovation in Technology for Human Development (itdUPM), moderated the following panel of experts:
- María García Álvarez, Lecturer and Coordinator of Value Creators at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences
- Carla Sabbatini, Doctorate and Master’s degree professional in education at Universidad de San Andrés
- Javier Benayas, Lecturer and Professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
- Guadalupe Mendoza Zuany, educational researcher at Universidad Veracruzana
The discussion, enriched by the audience’s contributions, focused on the very important concept of values during the first part of the conversation. The panel discussed the capacity of universities to understand themselves as value creators, and how they can engage in fundamental action for Education for the SDGs.
All panelists agreed that a common framework of transformative values was a key point in the success of the guide's objectives and different specific interventions arose. Javier Benayas specifically targeted the importance of an internal transformation within universities, Carla Sabbatini mentioned how the national legislation on the 2030 Agenda must have implications on the educational levels due to a needed general social collaboration and Guadalupe Mendoza stressed the importance of taking advantage of diversity within the university community.
Carlos continued the discussion talking about the needed transformative consciousness of the system, the importance of understanding and collaboration between different disciplines, the necessity to educate professionals and teachers for an education with more sustainability implications - all within the common university context. This means that the fundamental role of higher education centers is to transform themselves in order to transform society.
Finally, the last contributions went towards the relevance that the own internal criticism of the educational community can have in order to really create a context in which the university is a social agent of transformation. The event closed with a hopeful message from María Cortés Puch, who analyzed how important the fact of understanding universities as social agents is in order to accelerate the Education for the SDGs in a true transformation.