Dear Colleagues,

Call for Papers: “Symposium on Universities and the Sustainable Development Goals” , Manchester, UK, Wednesday 11th April 2018

Higher education institutions are well placed to pay a key role in the 
implementation of the Agenda 2030 of the United Nations. The
17 global goals (known as the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs) 
and their 169 targets are focused on protecting our planet and
its lifeforms, and ensuring prosperity for the present and future 
generations.

Realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offers universities a 
unique opportunity to meet their social obligations as education 
institutions on the
one hand, and to realise their social mission as agents for change on 
the other, and to provide a sound basis upon which the SDGs may be met.
The implementation of the SDGs does not only  require knowledge 
creation. Rather, it also requires an integrated thinking, in the 
context of which
research and teaching on, for and about sustainable development, may 
lead to changes and to improvements in the way students see,
perceive and treat their environment.

But despite the fact that the SDGs were agreed in 2015 and the 
implementation period ends in 2030, there is at present a paucity
of initiatives from higher education institutions in this key area. It 
is against this background that the
 “Symposium on Universities and the Sustainable Development Goals” is 
being organised  by Manchester Metropolitan University,
the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme, and the 
World Sustainable Development Research and Training
Centre, in cooperation with a number of  institutions of higher 
education active in this field. It will involve researchers
in the field of sustainable development in the widest sense,  from 
business and economics, to arts and fashion,
administration, environment, languages and media studies.

The aims of the “Symposium on Universities and the Sustainable 
Development Goals”are as follows:

i.    to provide teaching staff at universities active and/or interested 
on the SDGs with an opportunity to display and present their works 
(i.e.  curriculum innovation, empirical work, activities, case studies 
practical projects);
ii.    to foster the exchange of information, ideas and experiences 
acquired in the implementation of the SDGs,  especially successful 
initiatives and good practice;
iii.    to discuss methodological approaches and projects which aim to offer
a better understanding of how the SDGs can be considered in university 
teaching and research;
iv.    to network the participants and provide a platform so they can 
explore possibilities for further cooperation.

Last but not least, a further aim of the event will be to document and 
disseminate the wealth of experiences on implementing the SDGs available 
today. To this purpose, accepted papers will be published in the 
peer-reviewed book titled “Universities and the Sustainable Development 
Goals: catalysing changes in research and teaching practices”. This  
will be part of the award-winning  “World Sustainability Series”, 
published by Springer, one of the world´s top five scientific publishers.

Further details are available at: 
https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/ftz-nk/events/sdg.html