Special Issue "Sustainability in Higher Educational Institutions: Incorporating Environment, Society and Economy Spheres in Education, Research and Campus Life"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Inês Ribeiro
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: sustainability; manufacturing; life cycle assessment; cost modeling
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Tiago Domingos
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
MARETEC—Marine, Environment and Technology Centre, LARSyS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: ecological economics; dynamic energy budget theory in biological systems; economics; energy and economic growth; sustainable agriculture; thermodynamics; ecology
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Silvia Di Salvatore
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
MARETEC—Marine, Environment and Technology Centre, LARSyS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: accessibility of built environment; inclusive cities and communities; sustainability in higher education institutions; urban transformation of historic cities

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of sustainability in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), contributing to the achievement of the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has been the focus of many universities and colleges as they have a key role in transferring knowledge to society, and in the education and shaping of future behavior of their students. This role goes far beyond minimizing the local impacts of HEI campuses. HEIs which include sustainability in their strategy are engaged in integrating sustainable practices in education, research, community outreach, campus operations, networking, staff programs, assessment, and reporting.

This Special Issue welcomes papers covering approaches for sustainability in HEI, strategies for overcoming resistance to change and other challenges, experiences and case studies, new methodologies, assessment methods, and university collaborations and networks. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, several facets of sustainability in HEIs:

  • Education—Promotion and integration of sustainability contents in the curricula of the degrees, inclusion of sustainability aspects in the projects and thesis developed by students, and identification of these aspects in the existent syllabuses.
  • Research—Promotion of sustainability driven research projects and their identification, collaboration between departments fostering multidisciplinary teams to respond to local and global sustainability challenges.
  • Resources (energy, water, waste, air, biodiversity)—Waste reduction and its conscious management in HEIs, improvement of energy efficiency, air quality, and biodiversity within university campuses.
  • Architecture—Thermal efficiency and comfort of buildings, guidelines to design and transform spaces adapted to new pedagogical models.
  • Mobility—Promotion to foster more sustainable behaviors, experimentation of new modes of urban mobility and other projects or case studies involving HEIs, communities and municipalities in the process of achieving best practices fostering sustainable mobility.
  • Social inclusion (accessibility, accommodation and integration of students, equal opportunity)—Promotion of physical, communication, and organizational conditions for the inclusion of students, researchers, staff, and visitors with temporary or permanent special needs.
  • Wellbeing—Contribution to healthy, safe, and respectable work environments within the HEIs, promoting the wellbeing of all staff, students, and researchers and reducing psychosocial risks.
  • Communication—Strategies for efficient communication of all suitability actions and projects within HEI, not only increasing their acceptance in the community, but also promoting the participation and involvement of all.
  • Monitoring, Assessment, and Reporting—Definition of indicators to assess the sustainability of HEIs within the campus and through outreach to society, methodologies for measurement, analysis, and monetarization of all aspects of sustainability within the three pillars of sustainability—environment, society, and economy.
  • Strategy and Governance—Integration of sustainability in the strategy of HEI and governance solutions to incorporate sustainability in the operational, management, and board structures of HEI.

Prof. Dr. Inês Ribeiro
Dr. Tiago Domingos
Dr. Silvia Di Salvatore
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable development
  • higher education institutions
  • environment
  • society and economy
  • sustainable practices in education
  • research
  • community

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

Article
Perception of Social Responsibility Strategy in Higher Education: Empirical Study in Poland
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9417; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169417 - 22 Aug 2021
Viewed by 300
Abstract
Today, the role of universities in the education of future managers who promote the principles of social responsibility (SR) and CSR in business practice is pivotal. Properly educated management staff of organizations can disseminate knowledge on this subject and apply its principles in [...] Read more.
Today, the role of universities in the education of future managers who promote the principles of social responsibility (SR) and CSR in business practice is pivotal. Properly educated management staff of organizations can disseminate knowledge on this subject and apply its principles in practice. The research scope of the paper is to identify the knowledge and perception of the University Social Responsibility Declaration (Polish national programme in this field, hereinafter called USRD) among the students of the University of Economics in Katowice. The research assumes that most of the students do not have any knowledge about such programs as the USRD, and that despite this, they see the need for implementation of the specific principles of the USRD into university’s activities. Significance of specific principles is associated with students’ sociodemographic and psychographic characteristics. The strongest relation between the perception of the importance of the objectives of USRD and students’ characteristics is observed in the declared extent to which respondents implement the principles of social responsibility in their everyday life, as well as in their age and year of study. The more the students use those principles, the higher they personally rate specific principles of the USRD. Full article
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Article
Environmental Impact of Mobility in Higher-Education Institutions: The Case of the Ecological Footprint at the University of A Coruña (Spain)
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6190; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116190 - 31 May 2021
Viewed by 393
Abstract
Ecological footprint (EF) determines the area of ecologically productive territory necessary to produce the resources utilised and to assimilate the waste produced by a given population over a year. Knowing your own EF is the first step in planning and implementing policies to [...] Read more.
Ecological footprint (EF) determines the area of ecologically productive territory necessary to produce the resources utilised and to assimilate the waste produced by a given population over a year. Knowing your own EF is the first step in planning and implementing policies to reduce it. Considering that transport is a significant component of the impact of human activity on the environment, this study calculates the EF of the CO2 emissions associated with person mobility (EFM) at the University of A Coruña (UDC). The results presented are based on statistical inference from surveys conducted in 2008, 2016, and 2020. The period 2008–2016 coincides with the effects of the economic crisis, and 2020 with those of the COVID-19 pandemic. The EFM of UDC in 2016 was 2177 global hectares (gha), 148 times its biocapacity. Ninety-two percent of it was generated by car trips. Policies to reduce the environmental impact of mobility should focus on reducing car use. This study analyzes various factors of variability. The EFM per capita of the commutes from the place of residence to the UDC campuses grew between 2008 and 2020 by 17%. The results obtained are compared with those of other nearby universities and around the world. Full article
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Article
Towards a Smart & Sustainable Campus: An Application-Oriented Architecture to Streamline Digitization and Strengthen Sustainability in Academia
Sustainability 2021, 13(6), 3189; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063189 - 15 Mar 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 706
Abstract
The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been a recurrent view of the physical technological environment, in the light of which it is expected that everyday artifacts are connected, enhancing the availability and ubiquity of “smart” services. Higher education institutions can [...] Read more.
The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been a recurrent view of the physical technological environment, in the light of which it is expected that everyday artifacts are connected, enhancing the availability and ubiquity of “smart” services. Higher education institutions can be seen as a privileged ecosystem for the development of intelligent and smart solutions, due to its dynamic and everyday changing environment, which includes not only physical infrastructures, digital services, but also people, i.e., students, researchers, lecturers, and staff. This work introduces an Application-oriented Architecture-AoA that has been designed to streamline the design and development of “smart” solutions inside the campus, by focusing on the Application side and reshaping the concept of “service” to a piece of “functionality” with a clear and objective purpose, rather than the classic and conventional approach, more focused on the development or technical sides. The proposed approach provides the mechanism to have multiple applications interacting and sharing data and functionalities, ensuring coexistence between new and legacy systems that are in use on the campus, removing the major drawbacks that basic monolithic applications typically require. The generic AoA model is described and the procedure to create a new application is systematized. Lastly, three case studies (RnMonitor, Refill_H2O, and BiRa) are presented end elaborated using the AoA procedure designed to create a new application. Full article
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of sustainability in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), contributing to the achievement of the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has been the focus of many universities and colleges as they have a key role in transferring knowledge to society, and in the education and shaping of future behavior of their students. This role goes far beyond minimizing the local impacts of HEI campuses. HEIs which include sustainability in their strategy are engaged in integrating sustainable practices in education, research, community outreach, campus operations, networking, staff programs, assessment, and reporting.

This Special Issue welcomes papers covering approaches for sustainability in HEI, strategies for overcoming resistance to change and other challenges, experiences and case studies, new methodologies, assessment methods, and university collaborations and networks. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, several facets of sustainability in HEIs:

  • Education—Promotion and integration of sustainability contents in the curricula of the degrees, inclusion of sustainability aspects in the projects and thesis developed by students, and identification of these aspects in the existent syllabuses.
  • Research—Promotion of sustainability driven research projects and their identification, collaboration between departments fostering multidisciplinary teams to respond to local and global sustainability challenges.
  • Resources (energy, water, waste, air, biodiversity)—Waste reduction and its conscious management in HEIs, improvement of energy efficiency, air quality, and biodiversity within university campuses.
  • Architecture—Thermal efficiency and comfort of buildings, guidelines to design and transform spaces adapted to new pedagogical models.
  • Mobility—Promotion to foster more sustainable behaviors, experimentation of new modes of urban mobility and other projects or case studies involving HEIs, communities and municipalities in the process of achieving best practices fostering sustainable mobility.
  • Social inclusion (accessibility, accommodation and integration of students, equal opportunity)—Promotion of physical, communication, and organizational conditions for the inclusion of students, researchers, staff, and visitors with temporary or permanent special needs.
  • Wellbeing—Contribution to healthy, safe, and respectable work environments within the HEIs, promoting the wellbeing of all staff, students, and researchers and reducing psychosocial risks.
  • Communication—Strategies for efficient communication of all suitability actions and projects within HEI, not only increasing their acceptance in the community, but also promoting the participation and involvement of all.
  • Monitoring, Assessment, and Reporting—Definition of indicators to assess the sustainability of HEIs within the campus and through outreach to society, methodologies for measurement, analysis, and monetarization of all aspects of sustainability within the three pillars of sustainability—environment, society, and economy.
  • Strategy and Governance—Integration of sustainability in the strategy of HEI and governance solutions to incorporate sustainability in the operational, management, and board structures of HEI.

Prof. Dr. Inês Ribeiro
Dr. Tiago Domingos
Dr. Silvia Di Salvatore
Guest Editors

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