22
C. Shiel et al.
top down institutional approaches, bottom up, and sustainability as the environmental management of estates (Shiel and Smith 2017). All of these approaches have
continued to be deployed in the actions described in this case study.
In less than a year, the process of highlighting the SDGs at BU has served to
involve a wider staff base in discussion, in ways that were never achieved when
education for sustainable development was the main focus. Building wider engagement is also being reinforced by continual workshops for staff development and for
students. Staff development is critical for building capacity (Desha and Hargroves
2012) and the requirements for such should not be under-estimated. Staff development is never completed, it needs to be ongoing to support change and curriculum
development (Cebrián et al. 2012). Beyond staff development, it will be important
that collaboration with CEL leads to the development of resources that staff will find
easy to use, given the strong evidence (Scarborough and Cantarello 2018) that lack
of time is an inhibitor. CEL will also need to play a larger role in taking ownership
and leading the education agenda, so that it is no longer seen as the work of a few
committed champions, exemplifying pedagogic innovation. BU has already started
providing examples of where sustainable development and the SDGs are relevant to
the curriculum and are in fact, essential to the future career aspirations of their students (the use of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) carbon
calculator by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television for
developing media programmes, for example, requires students to understand sustainable development and carbon). Further examples of the importance of the SDGs
for graduate employability are being developed and will support further curriculum
change.
Recent progress would not have been achieved without maintaining top management support; it has been critical from the start and throughout the process. Such
high levels of continued support might have been challenging, without the success
in securing the EcoCampus Platinum award and ISO14001:2015. Placing ESD on
the risk register has also served as an important trigger to secure and legitimise initiatives for further action. In turn, strengthening engagement with leaders has also
led to a willingness to embrace the SDGs as a strategic concern. The success of
the new strategy will depend upon how key performance indicators are selected and
monitored.
To date, actions to inspire change have been prioritised over an approach that audits
the curriculum to search out reference to the SDGs, through detailed searching of
module specifications. While such an approach has been avoided, a better alternative
for benchmarking progress may not materialise; eventually, module specification
analysis, or a large-scale survey may be unavoidable, and is currently being considered. Albareda-Tiana et al. (2018) present an empirical study exploring the principles
and practices linked to the SDGs in the International University of Catalonia curriculum. Their study involved a through analysis of terms related to environmental,
social and economic sustainability found in the university curriculum and then indepth semi-structured interviews with the deans of different faculties. While this is
an exemplary approach and other universities may wish to start with a similar study,
desk-based exercises carry the risk of consuming considerable time and resources,
C. Shiel et al.
top down institutional approaches, bottom up, and sustainability as the environmental management of estates (Shiel and Smith 2017). All of these approaches have
continued to be deployed in the actions described in this case study.
In less than a year, the process of highlighting the SDGs at BU has served to
involve a wider staff base in discussion, in ways that were never achieved when
education for sustainable development was the main focus. Building wider engagement is also being reinforced by continual workshops for staff development and for
students. Staff development is critical for building capacity (Desha and Hargroves
2012) and the requirements for such should not be under-estimated. Staff development is never completed, it needs to be ongoing to support change and curriculum
development (Cebrián et al. 2012). Beyond staff development, it will be important
that collaboration with CEL leads to the development of resources that staff will find
easy to use, given the strong evidence (Scarborough and Cantarello 2018) that lack
of time is an inhibitor. CEL will also need to play a larger role in taking ownership
and leading the education agenda, so that it is no longer seen as the work of a few
committed champions, exemplifying pedagogic innovation. BU has already started
providing examples of where sustainable development and the SDGs are relevant to
the curriculum and are in fact, essential to the future career aspirations of their students (the use of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) carbon
calculator by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television for
developing media programmes, for example, requires students to understand sustainable development and carbon). Further examples of the importance of the SDGs
for graduate employability are being developed and will support further curriculum
change.
Recent progress would not have been achieved without maintaining top management support; it has been critical from the start and throughout the process. Such
high levels of continued support might have been challenging, without the success
in securing the EcoCampus Platinum award and ISO14001:2015. Placing ESD on
the risk register has also served as an important trigger to secure and legitimise initiatives for further action. In turn, strengthening engagement with leaders has also
led to a willingness to embrace the SDGs as a strategic concern. The success of
the new strategy will depend upon how key performance indicators are selected and
monitored.
To date, actions to inspire change have been prioritised over an approach that audits
the curriculum to search out reference to the SDGs, through detailed searching of
module specifications. While such an approach has been avoided, a better alternative
for benchmarking progress may not materialise; eventually, module specification
analysis, or a large-scale survey may be unavoidable, and is currently being considered. Albareda-Tiana et al. (2018) present an empirical study exploring the principles
and practices linked to the SDGs in the International University of Catalonia curriculum. Their study involved a through analysis of terms related to environmental,
social and economic sustainability found in the university curriculum and then indepth semi-structured interviews with the deans of different faculties. While this is
an exemplary approach and other universities may wish to start with a similar study,
desk-based exercises carry the risk of consuming considerable time and resources,