Search Results (25)

Climate change poses a significant threat to Ethiopian agriculture, impacting both cereal and livestock production through rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and increased pest and disease outbreaks. These challenges intensify food insecurity, particularly for smallholder farmers and pastoralists who rely on climate-sensitive agricultural systems. This systematic review aims to synthesize the impacts of climate change on Ethiopian agriculture, with a specific focus on cereal production and livestock feed quality, while exploring effective adaptation strategies that can support resilience in the sector. The review synthesizes 50 peer-reviewed publications (2020–2024) from the Climate Change Effects on Food Security project, which supports young African academics and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using PRISMA guidelines, the review assesses climate change impacts on major cereal crops and livestock feed in Ethiopia and explores adaptation strategies. Over the past 30 years, Ethiopia has experienced rising temperatures (0.3–0.66 °C), with future projections indicating increases of 0.6–0.8 °C per decade resulting in more frequent and severe droughts, floods, and landslides. These shifts have led to declining yields of wheat, maize, and barley, shrinking arable land, and deteriorating feed quality and water availability, severely affecting livestock health and productivity. The study identifies key on-the-ground adaptation strategies, including adjusted planting dates, crop diversification, drought-tolerant varieties, soil and water conservation, agroforestry, supplemental irrigation, and integrated fertilizer use. Livestock adaptations include improved breeding practices, fodder enhancement using legumes and local browse species, and seasonal climate forecasting. These results have significant practical implications: they offer a robust evidence base for policymakers, extension agents, and development practitioners to design and implement targeted, context-specific adaptation strategies. Moreover, the findings support the integration of climate resilience into national agricultural policies and food security planning. The Climate Change Effects on Food Security project’s role in generating scientific knowledge and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration is vital for building institutional and human capacity to confront climate challenges. Ultimately, this review contributes actionable insights for promoting sustainable, climate-resilient agriculture across Ethiopia. Full article

Increased public scrutiny and accountability demands have pressured HEIs to demonstrate their value. This article explores one way that HEIs can respond—by practicing Strategic Academic Research and Development (SARD) to improve institutional effectiveness and equity. After reviewing common definitions for R&D, the article develops SARD as an alternate method and outlines how it was implemented in a multi-campus university’s transformation initiative to promote student success through data-driven, equity-focused interventions in college, graduation, and career readiness. The initiative involved substantial collaboration with K-12 schools, curriculum redesign, and career development support, with a focus on underserved student populations. The project used the “Insight Engine”, a research approach combining data analytics, qualitative research, and student feedback to refine academic and support services. Despite challenges such as leadership transitions and the complexity of managing large, decentralized organizations, the initiative emphasized collaborative engagement and fidelity in implementing strategic interventions. Lessons learned include the importance of scope manageability and stakeholder buy-in. The case study demonstrates the potential of SARD to create impactful, scalable changes in HEIs, advocating for deep, institution-wide collaboration as essential for sustaining improvements in education, research, and service missions. Full article

The adoption of Learning Management Systems (LMS) in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) offers a transformative potential to enhance educational quality, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness while promoting sustainable digital transformation. However, resistance to LMS implementation often undermines these benefits. Initial perceptions of an Organizational Change Readiness (OCR) play a crucial, as they shape attitudes and behaviors, often resulting in rumors, disengagement, and resistance. The objective of the study is to explore how attributes of change, leadership support, internal organizational context, and attributes of change targets impact OCR in the context of LMS implementation. Drawing from organizational change management and information systems literature, this study examines key factors influencing these early perceptions within LMS initiatives. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 316 university personnel across seven public universities and three private colleges. Data were analyzed using partial least squares, revealing that vision clarity, change appropriateness, top-management support, project champion effectiveness, and organizational flexibility explaining 75% of the variance in perceived OCR. Conversely, factors such as change efficacy, organizational history of change, organizational conflicts, and group self-efficacy demonstrated limited influence. These findings underscore the importance of aligning LMS initiatives with institutional goals, fostering sustainable digital practices, and enhancing policy frameworks to facilitate smooth adoption. This study provides actionable insights for promoting sustainable educational transformation in HEIs, particularly in contexts where traditional teaching methods prevail and resistance to technological change is common. Full article

Integrating remote Internet of Things (IoT) laboratories into project-based learning (PBL) in higher education institutions (HEIs) while exploiting the approach of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is a challenging yet pivotal endeavor. Our proposed approach enables students to interact with an IoT-equipped lab locally and remotely, thereby bridging theoretical knowledge with practical application, creating a more immersive, adaptable, and effective learning experience. This study underscores the significance of combining hardware, software, and coding skills in PBL, emphasizing how IoTRemoteLab (the remote lab we developed) supports a customized educational experience that promotes innovation and safety. Moreover, we explore the potential of IoTRemoteLab as a TEL, facilitating and supporting the understanding and definition of the requirements of remote learning. Furthermore, we demonstrate how we incorporate generative artificial intelligence into IoTRemoteLab’s settings, enabling personalized recommendations for students leveraging the lab locally or remotely. Our approach serves as a model for educators and researchers aiming to equip students with essential skills for the digital age while addressing broader issues related to access, engagement, and sustainability in HEIs. The practical findings following an in-class experiment reinforce the value of IoTRemoteLab and its features in preparing students for future technological demands and fostering a more inclusive, safe, and effective educational environment. Full article

The increasing demand for sustainable products and services has become a constant requirement for the different stakeholders in an organization. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have a crucial role in training conscious and competent professionals to lead these changes. Chemical analyses laboratories bring together the proper mix, where the adoption of mature and efficient management systems proves to be crucial not only to better train the institutions’ human resources but also to cooperate in recruiting research projects and other services to benefit society. Maturity models assist in the needed stages for sustainable growth to take place. This paper proposes a maturity model based on standardized norms to guide adjustments related to quality, risks, safety, and environment of chemical analyses laboratories in public higher education institutions. This research was done in four stages: theoretical research about maturity models, sustainability, and integrated management systems; survey with laboratories; case study at a chemical analyses laboratory of an HEI; and structuring and validating a maturity model. As the main results, it was observed that more than 80% of public laboratory managers believe it would be relevant to adopt a maturity model to help organize the laboratory’s internal and external processes. 86% of public laboratory managers understand that using management systems can contribute to hiring new services. We can also observe that 42.9% of public laboratory managers do not know any maturity model. As conclusion, the model includes eight dimensions, 31 subdimensions, and 204 management practices to assess and guide chemical analyses laboratories to sustainable maturity levels. Full article

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the World Bank have collaborated on a project entitled the National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP) to improve agricultural higher education in India, paving the way for sustainable higher education in agriculture. As part of this project, the present investigation was carried out through national-level workshops involving seven State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) across India, with participants from academia and industry, to strengthen ‘academia–industry collaboration’ through effective linkages. Based on the responses of 199 respondents from academia and industry, the study demonstrates an absolute need for linkages between universities and industries (p < 0.001), which are perceived to help improve higher education sustainably. Academic institutions believe that such linkages benefit students concerning their employability, entrepreneurial skills, and financial support received. At the same time, industries believe that they would benefit from novel technologies and influencing academic curricula. This article also establishes an alliance between some parts of academia and industry in the form of MoUs in the identified areas. However, many other areas need more appropriate linkage models. Both sectors, i.e., academia and industry, concur that such exposure and collaboration between the two entities will help to improve the quality of education. Moreover, such collaborations provide financial support, increase students’ employability, and improve their entrepreneurial skills. Among the areas requiring collaboration, the ‘capacity building of students’ was rated most important by academia and industry. Overall, the present study has significant implications for university administrators and industry leaders involved in enhancing academia–industry cooperation and improving the quality and sustainability of higher education in agriculture. Further, the study greatly contributes to the National Education Policy (NEP) to promote innovation among the student communities through Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) and to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Full article

Sustainability within higher education institutions (HEIs) is a well-established topic in the literature. Many fields of education for sustainable development have been explored, mainly focused on HEI students, as well as on academic staff. The technical, administrative, and management staff, referred to as non-academic staff has not received as much attention as the remaining HEI community, which leaves a gap in the successful implementation of sustainability practices and policies, as they play a vital and central role in the HEIs’ everyday functioning. Hence, the EUSTEPs project launched two sustainability training courses dedicated exclusively to this segment of the university community, aiming to increase their knowledge on facts and tools for the best sustainability transition. The first short-term online training, organized by the University of Aveiro and Universidade Aberta, Portugal, was run in May 2021. The training targeted 27 non-academic staff from different sectors. The second online training course was implemented one year later and involved 17 elements from the previous training. The results showed very high levels of overall satisfaction and full achievement of the participants’ expectations in sustainability issues. The non-academic staff learned and discussed the human–environment relationship, tracked and discussed their personal ecological footprint in the workspace, actively participated on how to run the university ecological footprint calculator, developed within the EUSTEPs project, and felt mobilized to implement actions to reduce their university’s environmental impacts (as well as in their general daily activities). Similar training programs can be used to empower non-academic staff for the implementation of sustainability in other higher education institutions, hence contributing to a successful integrated sustainability approach for the whole school. Full article

Driven by education policies, digitally enhanced partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) have become increasingly important in the pursuit of sustainability in European education. This article emphasizes the necessity of evidence-based policy implementation to prevent tensions between the decision-making layer (the upper level) and the institutional layer adopting the new norms (the bottom level) in the context of digital inter-university collaboration. To address this need, we conducted a comprehensive three-year (2020–2022) research project within the framework of Erasmus+. Our consortium comprises seven renowned European universities. The project’s primary objective was to investigate how digitalization impacts HEI cooperation and joint learning activities both at the intra- and inter-institutional levels. We conducted experiments that accounted for specific challenges or lessons emerging from three perspectives: organization, pedagogy, and technology. In the organizational domain, we identified challenges related to HEI alliance aspects, such as trust, teacher incentives, legal frameworks, operational requirements, external policies, and mobility needs; and information flow, specifically in terms of disseminating local projects, and clarifying local institutional jargon. The pedagogical perspective revealed challenges in pedagogical support, especially in developing teachers’ digital skills; learning assessment, involving agreement among teachers and externals participants; and course design, including a wide variety of aspects, such as course flexibility, different calendars, async/sync balance, mandatory and optional regimes, content creation, and learning validation. Lastly, in the technology dimension, we found challenges related to the relevance of software choices, and centralized digital structures. This research aims to highlight the importance of evidence-based data in shaping education policies. By drawing on real-world experiences from a consortium of universities, we shed light on the intricate dynamics of digital inter-university collaboration. Full article

The numerous effects of climate change on the urban environment over the past decades have urged many planning professionals to implement the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Higher education institutions (HEIs) bear particular responsibility for sustainability-aware designers able to implement specific measures in this field. This paper presents a typology of design solutions for urban contexts intended to implement Sustainable Development Goal 11, which refers to making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, which can be included in university curricula. The study presents a comprehensive source base of possible interpretations of sustainability guidelines in architectural, landscape, and transport solution design and can be used to guide and assess projects in these fields. Solutions identified and analyzed were grouped into four dimensions related to sustainability aspects (accessibility, ecology, functionality, and identity). The framework proposed was developed based on the teaching experience of thesis design projects and practice-based workshop course projects featured in the curricula of first and second cycle Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Transport programs taught at the Cracow University of Technology, Poland. The projects were prepared as a part of workshop-based public consultations for a real-world project—the construction of a transport hub in Hrubieszów, Poland. The most complex implementation of various individual sustainable design solutions was linked to the interdisciplinarity of the design team and the broadest public participation spectrum. Full article

Sustainability is a difficult topic, and education systems are generally complicated, including multiple levels as well as diverse organizations and actors. This dual complexity, which affects both sustainability and higher education systems, poses great challenges for research. Although there has been a growing interest in adopting sustainable practices within HEIs, few studies have focused on the integration of sustainability concerns into curricula through a process-centric lens, and the majority of studies in this area are mainly input-oriented. Therefore, in this study, we seek to address the need for a comprehensive understanding to solve local problems through process-centric views and tested methodologies, offering new possibilities for teaching sustainability. We focus on education as a system (i.e., comprising inputs, outputs, and processes) and develop a conceptual design of the deployed teaching processes for a real-world project scenario aimed at mainstreaming sustainability into the curriculum, in the case of business engineering. The research process consisted of (i) the application of a functional decomposition technique at institutional and project levels for integration of the project into current academic practices; (ii) the application of the SIPOC (Supplier, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customer) method in conjunction with a flowcharting technique to capture the flow of interactions between project processes and the surrounding structure. The added value derives from a better understanding of the relationships between upstream and downstream processes, enabling sustained improvement and strengthening the teaching practices related to sustainability. Full article

Blended Mobility formats such as joint international blended courses have the potential to enable more students at universities and other HEIs to gain international experiences in the course of their studies. They enhance transnational cooperation in the European Higher Education Area by building bridges at the crossroads of education, research, innovation, serving society and economy. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences in the conception, planning, organisation and implementation of a joint international blended course between Freie Universität Berlin and Universidad Complutense de Madrid in the field of sustainable development in the summer semester of 2022. The course was offered within the framework of the Erasmus+ KA3 project “Online Pedagogical Resources for European Universities” (OpenU project). Full article

The global community has faced significant challenges in the twenty-first century, such as COVID-19, which have led to uncertainty about the survival of current and future generations. Educating the next generation of employers and leaders is the primary goal of educational institutions, particularly in higher education. Education promotes sustainable development (SD) when learners acquire ethics, abilities, and skills that assist them in affecting positive changes in themselves and their communities. Policies, projects, and investments that benefit society today while protecting the environment, human health, and social well-being in the future are considered SD. This study aimed to develop our understanding of how to promote SD in Pakistani higher education institutions (HEIs) by finding out students’ perceptions about their institutions’ commitment to SDGs and SD. The data for this quantitative-descriptive study were gathered through an online survey. The study involved 1109 students from ten Pakistani HEIs. The study results show that SD has become an essential issue in the present era. In students’ perceptions, HEIs should give more training on sustainable development goals. Furthermore, students’ self-declared statements indicated that most have sustainable habits and behaviors. Students of different genders had different sustainability behaviors and habits. Students are less likely to participate in environmental or higher education organizations supporting sustainable development. HEIs and stakeholders in Pakistan and worldwide are still needed to participate actively and engage in improving education for SD. Full article

This work proposes a framework with which to analyse Higher Education Institution (HEI) students’ knowledge and understanding of circular economy (CE) concepts and the potential of the CE to promote sustainability, using a contest. The framework integrates CE principles and business models with sustainable indicators, and it was applied to the accepted projects by the contest jury. The contest was launched in 2021 by the CE Working Group of the Portuguese Sustainable Campus Network to encourage creativity and the development of CE projects at HEIs. HEIs can play an essential role in promoting environmental education and creating partners with new visions for society and the economy concerning sustainability, developing knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviours regarding the CE. The projects were mostly based on the recovery of secondary raw materials/by-products, the CE business model, and the CE principle of value optimisation. In addition, a strong relationship with environmental indicators was observed, but social and economic indicators of the CE were only marginally considered by the students. Therefore, students considered the CE as mostly mainly being related to product recovery/optimisation; thus, the CE concepts and principles and their relationship to sustainability implementation require reinforcement and transversal approaches to increase this knowledge and its dissemination. Full article

Universities are today seen as living labs for the creation of knowledge with the aim of transferring it to society. The integration of sustainability is a critical point in this context, as solutions for problems experienced in society can be experimented with regarding physical aspects, such as Solid Waste Management (SWM), and efficiency in energy and water use, but also social aspects such as accessibility, equality, and inclusion. This paper explores the implementation of similar SWM projects in two European universities, Milan-Bicocca University and Instituto Superior Técnico from Lisbon University. Milan-Bicocca was the pioneer project that followed an ambitious model that demanded the removal of all isolated waste bins from inside the offices and rooms, replacing them with waste collection islands in the public spaces. This meant a very coordinated procedure and communication plan, and inspired the pilot project in Instituto Superior Técnico, currently in the expansion phase. This paper describes the implementation of each model and their specificities, and a roadmap is proposed that resulted from the interactions, meetings, and discussions between the two teams, Italian and Portuguese. Full article

Universities play a strategic role towards a sustainable future, as they address the complex scientific research on green transition and enable students from diverse backgrounds to acquire different skills, integrate multiple perspectives, and handle the sustainability of the ongoing and future renewable energy sector. In this paper, we describe a collaborative project between multiple HEIs (European and African) and local institutions, which promotes an interdisciplinary approach to address climate change and green energy transitions in the curricula of universities, used in the context of the ERASMUS+ program (DALILA-Development of new Academic curricuLa on sustaInabLe energies and green economy in Africa). The project recognizes and values different kinds of knowledge in renewable energy and green economy to address the energy transition in higher education in African countries as a prerequisite for climate change mitigation and sustainable development. Full article