One objective of the SDG-iLevel project is the development of Policy and Implementation Guidelines that will enable higher education leaders (deans, associate deans and heads of department) to strategically plan, design and implement actionable measures aiming at promoting and exploiting individual SDG contributions of their staff. Consequently, departments, faculties or entire institutions will strengthen their capacity and create additional opportunities in sustainable development, staff support, and public image promotion.
Focus groups with university leaders
The three university partners of the project (University of Girona, Kaunas University of Technology and University of Rijeka) have conducted focus group interviews with their university leaders to gather inputs and suggestions for the implementation of policies and initiatives that promote individual academic staff contributions to the SDGs.
In the following, we take a closer look at the results from the University of Girona. The 80-minute focus group interview involved six leaders of the university, including a former rector, a dean, three associate deans and a UNESCO chair in social responsibility and community engagement. The conversation was initiated with questions about personal and institutional contributions to the SDGs, as well as questions related to institutional incentives to academics:
- “Could you share some of your personal initiatives and contributions related to the SDGs?”
- “Are you familiar with initiatives and policies at your institution that you characterize as incentives for your personal contributions to the SDGs?”
- “What initiatives and policies have you been missing at your institution that would motivate you in the first place to engage in SDG related activities, or to enable your present personal contributions to the SDGs to be stronger and more visible?”
The main part of the conversation focused on the following question:
- “What kind of initiatives, policies and accompanying measures would you strongly advocate for to be included in the action plan of your department/institution to enable your academic staff’s individual contributions to the SDGs?”
10 Measures
The results from the focus group led to the following ten measures that could be implemented in future at the University of Girona:
- To create and offer a training course to all academics on ESD and SDGs.
- To include the SDGs as a requisite in final degree and master dissertations.
- To create a degree and master final award related to sustainability and the SDGs. The award will benefit both the student and the supervisor.
- To create a space in the newsletter of the faculty where every month a best practice on the introduction of the SDGs in teaching, research, community engagement and management is highlighted.
- To promote an annual faculty event and award for academics (and alumni) as an open recognition to the contribution to the SDGs, based on the good practices that have been highlighted in the newsletter during the academic year.
- To create a SDG commission at faculty level to help and encourage academics to consider the Agenda 2030 in their professional activities.
- To create a compulsory faculty or university/campus course on sustainability principles and the SDGs.
- To include the SDGs as an element to be considered in research and innovation grants at department, faculty and university level.
- To create incentives for publications related to the SDGs.
- To reduce teaching hours for academic staff if they update their courses to include the SDGs.
These measures, together with those suggested by the Kaunas University of Technology and University of Rijeka, will be part of the Policy and Implementation Guidelines, which will be published at the end of the SDG-iLevel project in early 2025.