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G. Sonetti and P. Lombardi
The Green Team is therefore the unit of connection between the university community and the general management board for ensuring the implementation of the
SDGs in different processes transformations already in place. It is organized by vertical lines of action on six themes: Energy and buildings, Mobility and transport,
Urban outreach, Food, water and waste, Green procurement and Communication.
These vertical actions are then flanked by transversal and multidisciplinary “engagement” actions, coordinated and supported by administrative members, researchers
and student representatives attentive to the wider impacts that fall into the “third
mission”, in the campaigns of inclusion of sustainability in research and teaching,
in internal and external dissemination, to the wider community of the city and in the
networks of universities with similar goals in Italy and in the world.
The vision of development underlying the new Green Team program document
1 is
already offering clear and transparent decision-making criteria for the enhancement
of multidisciplinary heritage in the planning of new training initiatives and in the
policies for encouraging research on SDGs, but there is still no clear threshold to
understand the starting point and the status quo of SDG integration into current and
future activities. In order to aligning the Green Team vision on decision-making
criteria by the administrative board a sustainable development objectives, PoliTO
wanted to start a re-reading of its teaching, research and third mission activities
according to the 17 objectives and sub-objectives, proposed in the UN Agenda 2030.
For this reason, the Green Team is conducting a three folded initiative as follows:
(i) One is an in-depth analysis to define the criteria for evaluating the correspondence
between current activities and SDGs. In collaboration with special projects office and
IT departments, an Artificial Intelligence device is being trained to suggest which
SDG is most likely related to a research product as found in the last five years in the
PoliTO scientific products repository. The papers/book chapters/proceedings mapped
via the algorithm have to be validated by the corresponding authors. This is first of all
to take ownership of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations,
and then to inform the government action of the new rector for a shared vision
towards a more sustainable society. (ii) The same mapping detail action has been
undertaken at the level of teaching course with reference to the current education
portfolio opportunities offered to students. This activity has been just started and
will be concluded by end of June. (iii) An initial activity undertaken by the Green
Team has been to link existing and forthcoming lines of actions toward a sustainable
campus with the 17 SDGs to demonstrate university impact, capture demand for
SDG-related education, build new partnerships, access new funding streams, and
ri-define the strategic plan of a university that is responsible and globally aware.
Given the amount of publications to be analyzed (over 13,000 for the last 3 years)
for the (i) initiative, it has been tried to perform a classification test using a semisupervised classification tool. This was the “Watson”, a question-answering computer
system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM’s
DeepQA project (Ferrucci et al. 2013).
1 http://www.campus-sostenibile.polito.it/output_and_publications.
G. Sonetti and P. Lombardi
The Green Team is therefore the unit of connection between the university community and the general management board for ensuring the implementation of the
SDGs in different processes transformations already in place. It is organized by vertical lines of action on six themes: Energy and buildings, Mobility and transport,
Urban outreach, Food, water and waste, Green procurement and Communication.
These vertical actions are then flanked by transversal and multidisciplinary “engagement” actions, coordinated and supported by administrative members, researchers
and student representatives attentive to the wider impacts that fall into the “third
mission”, in the campaigns of inclusion of sustainability in research and teaching,
in internal and external dissemination, to the wider community of the city and in the
networks of universities with similar goals in Italy and in the world.
The vision of development underlying the new Green Team program document
1 is
already offering clear and transparent decision-making criteria for the enhancement
of multidisciplinary heritage in the planning of new training initiatives and in the
policies for encouraging research on SDGs, but there is still no clear threshold to
understand the starting point and the status quo of SDG integration into current and
future activities. In order to aligning the Green Team vision on decision-making
criteria by the administrative board a sustainable development objectives, PoliTO
wanted to start a re-reading of its teaching, research and third mission activities
according to the 17 objectives and sub-objectives, proposed in the UN Agenda 2030.
For this reason, the Green Team is conducting a three folded initiative as follows:
(i) One is an in-depth analysis to define the criteria for evaluating the correspondence
between current activities and SDGs. In collaboration with special projects office and
IT departments, an Artificial Intelligence device is being trained to suggest which
SDG is most likely related to a research product as found in the last five years in the
PoliTO scientific products repository. The papers/book chapters/proceedings mapped
via the algorithm have to be validated by the corresponding authors. This is first of all
to take ownership of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations,
and then to inform the government action of the new rector for a shared vision
towards a more sustainable society. (ii) The same mapping detail action has been
undertaken at the level of teaching course with reference to the current education
portfolio opportunities offered to students. This activity has been just started and
will be concluded by end of June. (iii) An initial activity undertaken by the Green
Team has been to link existing and forthcoming lines of actions toward a sustainable
campus with the 17 SDGs to demonstrate university impact, capture demand for
SDG-related education, build new partnerships, access new funding streams, and
ri-define the strategic plan of a university that is responsible and globally aware.
Given the amount of publications to be analyzed (over 13,000 for the last 3 years)
for the (i) initiative, it has been tried to perform a classification test using a semisupervised classification tool. This was the “Watson”, a question-answering computer
system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM’s
DeepQA project (Ferrucci et al. 2013).
1 http://www.campus-sostenibile.polito.it/output_and_publications.