We Can Only Do It Together: Addressing Global Sustainability Challenges Through a Collaborative Paradigm

• Urgent structural change is required in higher education to allow collaboration both within and acrossuniversities so that achieving a rapid sustainability transition can become the overarching and mainpurpose of education, research and work in society. A review of the literature reveals that fragmentation,caused by traditional hierarchical faculty and disciplinary organisation, is a major obstacle to such goals.Additionally, universities today operate under a competitive paradigm that prevents the transfer andapplication of available knowledge, thereby blocking the development of new knowledge and coherentfuture-oriented approaches. Fragmentation and competition prevent universities from pooling resources,understanding major challenges holistically and using systemic approaches to address them. Politicalagendas, funding priorities and existing mechanisms of dissemination and evaluation of academic activitycontribute to inertia. Rather than applying fragmented sustainability goals within rigid silo structures,action for sustainability needs to be coordinated among academic actors both horizontally and diagonally.This requires spaces for strategic thinking, concertation, open discussion and knowledge sharing. Theinsights achieved in strong sustainability research environments need to direct efforts towards achieving arapid sustainability transition, and priority must be given to structures, networks and research that alreadyenable concertation and collaboration

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Etik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Ethics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Higher education for sustainable development

systemic change

transdisciplinarity

collaboration

ethics

resilience

capacity building

global challenges

Ethics

Sustainable studies

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