We Can Only Do It Together: Addressing Global Sustainability …
241
enabling them to play a positive role in equitable, inclusive and sustainable societal
transformation.
2 The Role of Higher Education in Addressing Global
Challenges
Informed decision-making is an essential component in strategic capacity-building
for resilience and sustainable economies, and capacity is needed to generate and
provide access to accurate and relevant research. Equally essential is the capacity to
creatively use available information; discern causalities, risks and points of leverage;
understand complexity and dynamic principles; exercise caution, integrity, benevolence and moral judgement; integrate across disciplines and sectors; take initiative
and continuously develop and plan ahead. Foresightful policies will not produce
results unless they are combined with the capacity to develop socially and environmentally sustainable technologies, attitudes and organisational forms. New professional competences are needed for the new structures, which means also reforming
higher education structures (Avery and Nordén 2017). New practices have to be tried
out and refined, resources need to be mobilised, and collaborations and alliances
have to be established or consolidated.
These are the classical elements of governance, and by no means new. What is new
is the extent to which technology and scientific understanding play a role. Action
and access to information is mediated through multiple layers of technology, but
also multiple layers of global interaction and institutional configuration. Causes and
consequences are no longer transparent, in the sense that they cannot be evaluated
based on personal experience alone. Indeed, even collective experience and scientific
inquiry only provide partial indications of either causes or consequences, making
intelligent and strategic reflection based on dialogue increasingly difficult. Facing
such challenges, we need approaches that allow us to make wise decisions (Vogt
and Weber 2020) and adequate plans under conditions of great uncertainty, such
as working with hypothetical or future scenarios (Schwartz 1991; Gallopín 2002;
Goldstein 2009). We are also witnessing the development of other approaches to
jointly finding solutions to highly complex problems, for instance in the field of
systemic design (Sevaldson 2015).
To function well in times of major changes, the capacity to collaborate and communicate across contexts and collectively envision solutions become central issues.
Leadership and initiative, as well as access to resources, are needed to restructure
HEIs. But due to the opaqueness of existing knowledge systems (alongside the uncertainties concerning global developments), no single individual, and no single institution, is in a position to take adequate decisions on its own. Open “in-between” spaces
are thus singularly important (see Power 1997; Jary 1999; Baker-Shelley et al. 2017;
Vogt and Weber 2020), in which joint reflection, dialogue and re-negotiation of roles
can take place, independent of particular bias or power relationships. Such in-between
241
enabling them to play a positive role in equitable, inclusive and sustainable societal
transformation.
2 The Role of Higher Education in Addressing Global
Challenges
Informed decision-making is an essential component in strategic capacity-building
for resilience and sustainable economies, and capacity is needed to generate and
provide access to accurate and relevant research. Equally essential is the capacity to
creatively use available information; discern causalities, risks and points of leverage;
understand complexity and dynamic principles; exercise caution, integrity, benevolence and moral judgement; integrate across disciplines and sectors; take initiative
and continuously develop and plan ahead. Foresightful policies will not produce
results unless they are combined with the capacity to develop socially and environmentally sustainable technologies, attitudes and organisational forms. New professional competences are needed for the new structures, which means also reforming
higher education structures (Avery and Nordén 2017). New practices have to be tried
out and refined, resources need to be mobilised, and collaborations and alliances
have to be established or consolidated.
These are the classical elements of governance, and by no means new. What is new
is the extent to which technology and scientific understanding play a role. Action
and access to information is mediated through multiple layers of technology, but
also multiple layers of global interaction and institutional configuration. Causes and
consequences are no longer transparent, in the sense that they cannot be evaluated
based on personal experience alone. Indeed, even collective experience and scientific
inquiry only provide partial indications of either causes or consequences, making
intelligent and strategic reflection based on dialogue increasingly difficult. Facing
such challenges, we need approaches that allow us to make wise decisions (Vogt
and Weber 2020) and adequate plans under conditions of great uncertainty, such
as working with hypothetical or future scenarios (Schwartz 1991; Gallopín 2002;
Goldstein 2009). We are also witnessing the development of other approaches to
jointly finding solutions to highly complex problems, for instance in the field of
systemic design (Sevaldson 2015).
To function well in times of major changes, the capacity to collaborate and communicate across contexts and collectively envision solutions become central issues.
Leadership and initiative, as well as access to resources, are needed to restructure
HEIs. But due to the opaqueness of existing knowledge systems (alongside the uncertainties concerning global developments), no single individual, and no single institution, is in a position to take adequate decisions on its own. Open “in-between” spaces
are thus singularly important (see Power 1997; Jary 1999; Baker-Shelley et al. 2017;
Vogt and Weber 2020), in which joint reflection, dialogue and re-negotiation of roles
can take place, independent of particular bias or power relationships. Such in-between