Green Gown Awards 2017 - University of Gloucestershire - Finalist

Without transformative educators, the path remains unclear towards global sustainability, but there are major capacity gaps in providing the type of professional development that equips academics for applying sustainability education approaches. University Educators for Sustainable Development project (UE4SD) is a unique European collaboration project that focused on the professional development process to empower academic staff to bring sustainability education principles into the higher education curriculum.

UE4SD involved 53 partners in 33 countries, as well as policy makers and influencers at European and international levels, through its activities, results and scholarship. Together the partnership identified current best practices and developed new approaches, resulting in an online resource, best practice handbook, scholarly articles, policy reports and training academy process. These tools, publications and trainings can be used to guide academic practice across the globe.

Top 3 learnings:

1. We found that professional development in sustainability education works best peer-to-peer and by crossing expertise boundaries.

2. Efs needs more focus on pedagogy and the process of professional development, grounded in real experiences of work with academics.

3. Networks have the power to bring change and catalyse learning across borders.

Videos

• University of Gloucestershire and University Educators for Sustainable Development (click to hide)