Prince Charles - ‘Get the students more involved’

4th February 2014

Blog post by EAUC CEO Iain Patton

"Get the students more involved"

"Those were the words HRH The Prince of Wales said to me when I was talking to him about the EAUC’s challenge to inspire and steer UK universities and colleges on a more sustainable course. He is spot on of course. We met at last week’s inaugural Prince of Wales Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards in association with EAUC Member University of Cambridge and their Programme for Sustainability leadership and Unilever at Buckingham Palace.

Later that evening in his speech he added  “thank goodness for our young entrepreneurs here this evening, who have the far sightedness and confidence in what they know is happening, to ignore the headless chicken brigade and do something practical to help”.  Prince Charles continued, “This is why I am so inspired by this evening's event. We have just seen a whole range of ingenious ways that young people are applying their imagination to move away from the ‘take, make and dispose’ economic model and towards this much more circular, sustainable approach. And they deserve our support.” See the full speech at ow.ly/t9Tfe

The sector has a golden opportunity right now to not just ‘get the students more involved’ but to turn education on its head and create a fundamentally changed staff-student partnership to drive the change we need to create “future-proof” citizens with the insight, understanding and skills to embrace the many environmental and social problems that now threaten our entire economic stability.

We are supporting our Members to maximize this opportunity by facilitating the staff-student partnership within institutions. Bringing together the skills and expertise of staff together with the power of change from students is the only way to achieve a successful sustainable institution. Find out how we are doing this at https://www.eauc.org.uk/member_pack."

Written by Iain Patton, CEO