Information on ESD in the university context

The BNE 2030-Roadmap of UNESCO summarises the central goals and content of the UNESCO ESD 2030 programme. It serves as a guide, offers suggestions for implementation and shows how global challenges can be solved with the help of education for sustainable development. It is the basic ESD document and applies to all areas of education.

The National Actions Plan shows ways in which the UNESCO goals can be implemented in Germany. With 130 goals and 349 specific recommendations for action in the individual areas of education, the aim is to ensure that Education for Sustainable Development is structurally anchored in the German educational landscape. It covers all areas of education. Goals and recommendations for action for ESD at universities are described from page 51 onwards

Numerous publications deal with the goals, content and basic principles of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), often with a focus on school education. At universities, however, ESD must fulfil the requirements of academic education and teaching. In the University Agreement 2023 – 2027 JMU has committed itself to teaching its students ‘interdisciplinary methodological skills and reflective-critical thinking, particularly in terms of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)’. In doing so, JMU always upholds the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of art, science, research, teaching and study. It is therefore the responsibility of JMU teaching staff to decide which sustainability science content or which goals for sustainable development are to be specifically addressed in teaching and which forms of teaching and didactic methods are to be used. The binding guidelines here are the scientific nature of the argumentation and the critical, reflective and multi-perspective discussion of facts and opinions.

The following publications show different approaches to how ESD can be taught as a cross-cutting task at universities.

Advance HE (2021) Education for Sustainable Development Guidance https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/education-sustainable-development-guidance

Bianchi, G. (2020). Sustainability competences. Publications Office of the European Union. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC123624

Brundiers, K., Barth, M., Cebrián, G., Cohen, M., Diaz, L., Doucette-Remington, S., ... & Zint, M. (2021). Key competencies in sustainability in higher education—toward an agreed-upon reference framework. Sustainability Science, 16, 13-29. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00838-2

HOCHN-Leitfaden „Bildung für Nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) in der Hochschullehre“ https://www.hochn.uni-hamburg.de/-downloads/handlungsfelder/lehre/hochn-leitfaden-lehre-2020-neu.pdf

Molitor, H., Krah, J., & Bruns, A. (2023). Gelingende Verankerung von Hochschulbildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in den Curricula. Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung, 18(4), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.21240/zfhe/18-04/02

Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., & Redman, C. L. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability Science, 6, 203-218. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0132-6

Wiek, A., Bernstein, M. J., Foley, R. W., Cohen, M., Forrest, N., Kuzdas, C., ... & Keeler, L. W. (2015). Operationalising competencies in higher education for sustainable development. In Routledge handbook of higher education for sustainable development (pp. 241-260). Routledge.