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H. Avery and B. Nordén
has been constantly repeated, since Rio and before, that the only way to break this
vicious cycle is with concerted international action and a paradigm shift (Waddell
2011; Waddock et al. 2015), but we seem no closer to this today than thirty years
ago. Economic arguments continue to prevail, and few higher education institutions
(HEIs) have chosen to orient their efforts to benefit societies (see Beynaghi et al.
2016).
This study addresses the important issue of how HEIs can achieve sustainability
transitions within their own organisations (Miller et al. 2011; Baker-Shelley et al.
2017). Although HEIs contain expertise that is crucial for sustainability, few universities today see sustainability as their main purpose. Each department typically drives
its own core mission. As long as the majority of departments and those that are best
funded have other main objectives, limited resources will be available for concerted
efforts towards sustainability. Indeed, numerous specialisations drive technologies
and education that consolidate vested interests and aggravate existing problems, thus
contributing to lock-in effects (Payo et al. 2015) and business-as-usual. For HEIs as
a whole, this typically creates a conflict between marginalised fields of research or
education that see sustainability transitions as their core mission, and all the other
sections of the HEI, which strive to maintain the status quo and their current positions
within the institutional or disciplinary hierarchies.
Both policy and the literature stress the role of collaboration for sustainability, but
relatively little attention has been paid to how we can address the structural drivers in
HE that reduce opportunities for collaboration. The present study contributes to this
discussion, where we argue that not only competition for funding, but also aspects
such as formalised communication or performance assessment have adverse effects.
We further argue that ethics and social justice cannot be peripheral considerations.
Engagement with actors outside academia has been called for, but often translates into
collaboration with large companies rather than citizens. Importantly, most resources
in HEIs are still devoted to activities that consolidate societal unsustainability. Rapid
changes in higher education are thus urgent and must be coupled with strategies to
deal with the disruption that such changes cause, both within academia and in society
at large.
What strategies are open to HEIs to create the capacity for real change globally?
How can we collectively avoid the points of no-return that our societies appear to be
racing towards? Who will be given a say in deciding our future, and which voices
are allowed to represent “society”?
HEIs today suffer from much the same paradigm of fragmentation, competition
(Shore and Wright 2000; Marginson 2006) and short-sightedness reflected in the
formulation of the SDGs, leading to lock-in effects, incrementalism, formalism and
the absence of systemic strategic vision. Radical transformation is needed to move
beyond the status quo at the speed necessary to address planetary challenges (Vogt
and Weber 2020). To achieve this, HEIs need to overcome many obstacles, including
funding structures, power imbalances, the disciplinary organisation of knowledge and
the absence of future-oriented methodologies. Nevertheless, HEIs still have options
available that can open pathways towards a collaborative paradigm (Waddell 2011),
H. Avery and B. Nordén
has been constantly repeated, since Rio and before, that the only way to break this
vicious cycle is with concerted international action and a paradigm shift (Waddell
2011; Waddock et al. 2015), but we seem no closer to this today than thirty years
ago. Economic arguments continue to prevail, and few higher education institutions
(HEIs) have chosen to orient their efforts to benefit societies (see Beynaghi et al.
2016).
This study addresses the important issue of how HEIs can achieve sustainability
transitions within their own organisations (Miller et al. 2011; Baker-Shelley et al.
2017). Although HEIs contain expertise that is crucial for sustainability, few universities today see sustainability as their main purpose. Each department typically drives
its own core mission. As long as the majority of departments and those that are best
funded have other main objectives, limited resources will be available for concerted
efforts towards sustainability. Indeed, numerous specialisations drive technologies
and education that consolidate vested interests and aggravate existing problems, thus
contributing to lock-in effects (Payo et al. 2015) and business-as-usual. For HEIs as
a whole, this typically creates a conflict between marginalised fields of research or
education that see sustainability transitions as their core mission, and all the other
sections of the HEI, which strive to maintain the status quo and their current positions
within the institutional or disciplinary hierarchies.
Both policy and the literature stress the role of collaboration for sustainability, but
relatively little attention has been paid to how we can address the structural drivers in
HE that reduce opportunities for collaboration. The present study contributes to this
discussion, where we argue that not only competition for funding, but also aspects
such as formalised communication or performance assessment have adverse effects.
We further argue that ethics and social justice cannot be peripheral considerations.
Engagement with actors outside academia has been called for, but often translates into
collaboration with large companies rather than citizens. Importantly, most resources
in HEIs are still devoted to activities that consolidate societal unsustainability. Rapid
changes in higher education are thus urgent and must be coupled with strategies to
deal with the disruption that such changes cause, both within academia and in society
at large.
What strategies are open to HEIs to create the capacity for real change globally?
How can we collectively avoid the points of no-return that our societies appear to be
racing towards? Who will be given a say in deciding our future, and which voices
are allowed to represent “society”?
HEIs today suffer from much the same paradigm of fragmentation, competition
(Shore and Wright 2000; Marginson 2006) and short-sightedness reflected in the
formulation of the SDGs, leading to lock-in effects, incrementalism, formalism and
the absence of systemic strategic vision. Radical transformation is needed to move
beyond the status quo at the speed necessary to address planetary challenges (Vogt
and Weber 2020). To achieve this, HEIs need to overcome many obstacles, including
funding structures, power imbalances, the disciplinary organisation of knowledge and
the absence of future-oriented methodologies. Nevertheless, HEIs still have options
available that can open pathways towards a collaborative paradigm (Waddell 2011),