The University of Strathclyde Centre for Sustainable Development supports the University’s global socially progressive vision, of which sustainable development is an integral component. They’re bringing together their long-standing research and education work on sustainable development into a single strategic approach, with the SDGs providing focus and direction across the institution.
We spoke with Tracy Morse, Head of the Centre for Sustainable Development, to discover how they are integrating the SDGs into the University’s work.
“We have a moral imperative to ensure that the work we’re doing is contributing to the world being a better place for everyone.”
With Glasgow playing host to COP26, Tracy and her team were determined to bring students into the climate conversation. This subsequently led to the creation of Strathclyde’s ‘Climate Connect’ programme, which enables Strathclyde students and staff to collaborate with their peers from universities in Canada, China, Malawi, South Africa and Sweden. Those participating in Climate Connect discuss the context of climate change and the sustainability agenda from the perspective of their respective countries. By fostering global collaboration, the programme enables participants to develop different disciplinary perspectives while also expanding their international outlook.
Creating sustainability leaders for the future
After participating in the Climate Connect programme, some students have been motivated to engage further with the SDGs. Tracy shared a story about one student involved with Climate Connect who went on to become the student executive for community and sustainability. Now entering her second year in the role, she continues to drive many of Strathclyde’s student sustainability campaigns.
Community spirit
The University’s contribution to the SDGs can also be seen through its engagement with the surrounding community. Strathclyde University sits next to Townhead, an area of Glasgow that long term residents feel has lost its sense of community due to the construction of motorways and a stream of short-term residents including students and refugees. Being so close to the University campus, a sustainability project, supported by the British Academy and SOS-UK, engaged students and residents of Townhead to see how they could support one another. The students found that people in the area wanted to rediscover the history and understand their current community. This resulted in a collaboration between creative Strathclyde Humanities and Social Science students and local residents. Together they created an exhibition showcasing the history of the area from archives and personal stories, which is just the start of the journey of joint working to help restore a sense of community in Townhead.
Education for a sustainable future
Integrating and mainstreaming sustainable development into educational offerings at the University has been a focus of the Centre for Sustainable Developments activities. As well as specific focused offerings such as Climate Connect, and their award winning Vertically Integrated Projects for Sustainable Development, the University has committed to ensuring that all programmes ensure that they are teaching the skills and competencies our future graduates will need to tackle sustainable development challenges. Key to this is the support for staff to understand how Education for Sustainable Development aligns with work that they are already doing, and opportunities where this can extended throughout the curriculum.
“We’re not always asking people to do anything differently. We want them to reflect on what they are doing now and articulate it through a sustainable development lens.”
The power of collaboration
The Centre strives to understand the needs of the people they are trying to support both in their research and their future careers, with Tracy emphasising the importance of listening for successful collaboration.
“There is no point in developing solutions for people when we haven’t actually asked users/beneficiaries what the problem is in the first place.”
For example, Climate Connect has encouraged Global North students to think differently about the urgency of the climate crisis by allowing them to understand the impact it’s already having on their peers in different contexts. Students from Malawi emphasised the reality of climate change after explaining how their country now experiences the impact of extreme weather such as cyclones annually where they were previously less frequent and severe. By fostering international collaborations, they have enabled students and staff to understand sustainability challenges from a global perspective.
“It’s important to understand that knowledge and understanding comes from lots of different places, and not just from textbooks and professors.”