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This paper explores the link between innovation and sustainability in the context of higher education, with the purpose of investigating the fundamental barriers for innovation and sustainable development in universities around the world. The method used involves both a quantitative and a qualitative approach, gathering the views of 301 experts from 172 universities across all continents. The results show that there are similar barriers across different geographical regions that require greater support from university administrations and management. In particular, the willingness of leaders, policy makers and decision-makers to envisage a sustainable future inside universities is often missing. Yet, without the support of senior management within a university, bottom-up sustainable initiatives seem destined to fail in the longer term due to a lack of investment and administrative support. This study also identifies that in order to yield the anticipated benefits, the challenges listed should be taken seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is transformative education aiming at developing participants’ understanding of sustainability issues and transforming their attitudes and behaviours regarding environment, society and economy. Sustainability consciousness, an expected outcome of ESD, is a complex of cognitive and affective learning. Development of sustainability consciousness requires transformative learning experiences. The study presented in this paper employed action research to enhance sustainability consciousness of the preservice teachers through inquiry based learning. The study was done in the Institute of Education, Lahore College for Women University, Pakistan. The study integrated sustainability education in an existing course entitled ‘Research Methods in Education’. The course is included in the final year of B.Ed. (Honours) programme. Outcome of the ESD-integration was measured in terms of change in the sustainability consciousness of the preservice teachers. The Action Research project engaged 27 preservice teachers in inquiry-based learning (empirical investigations and research based discussions) for a period of 11 weeks. The participants investigated sustainability issues collaboratively. To investigate the change in participants’ sustainability consciousness through inquiry based learning, researchers collected through pre- and post-tests, interviews and observation. Quantitative data were analyzed through paired t -test while qualitative data through thematic coding. The data indicate that empirical investigations into sustainability issues by the presevice teachers and research-based discussions enhanced preservice teachers’ sustainability consciousness. This highlights the transformative potential of inquiry based learning. Moreover, it indicates that sustainability education can be successfully integrated in the course of ‘research methods in education’. The findings suggest that teacher education programmes and other university programmes may employ inquiry based learning as a vehicle to enhance sustainability consciousness of the undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability issues in higher educational institutions have attracted increasing levels of attention from both the public and policy makers in recent decades. A number of previous studies have called for a more comprehensive integration of sustainable development into mainstream university operations and curricula. However, there is a lack of sufficient studies that investigate sustainable development in higher education in Spain. Therefore, the present paper has two goals: First, the study analyses the extent to which Spanish universities have implemented sustainability practices in their institutions. To accomplish this task, data were collected using a survey distributed to rectors and senior management at Spanish higher education institutions. The second goal is to examine the main factors that might explain the implementation of sustainability practices in Spanish universities. For this purpose, Pearson chi-square tests were used to analyse the data collected in the survey. Key findings show the slow rate of progress of many Spanish universities with regard to implementing sustainability practices, a fact which could indicate that there are clearly a number of obstacles to overcome. Additionally, there were no factors influencing the implementation of sustainability practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]