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The review article presents an analysis of the literature on environmental literacy in sustainable development. By utilizing techniques to examine multiple documents published between 2013 and 2023, including citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, subject area analysis, and keyword analysis, this study aims to provide valuable information and insights into the research landscape surrounding environmental literacy and its contribution to promoting sustainable development. A systematic search was conducted to gather several scientific articles, conference papers, and publications from the Scopus database from 2013 to 2023. The findings of this analysis shed light on authors, influential institutions, and active research groups that contributed to the study of environmental literacy and sustainable development. This comprehensive review offers an understanding of the state of research in this field while identifying areas for further exploration and research gaps. The insights gained from this study can be highly beneficial for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to advance knowledge and take action toward promoting literacy's role in sustainable development. This analysis is a foundation for advancing our understanding of literacy's significance while emphasizing its vital role in sustainable development efforts.

Theoretical roots of higher education institutions (HEIs) and Stakeholder Analysis date back to mid-1990s and research was focussed on the role of HEIs in society and sustainable development. While various studies have been published about 'triple-helix model' - bringing government, academia, and industry closer, the concept of HEIs and Stakeholder Analysis needs a comprehensive review of the work carried out till date. Bibliometric and content analyses were performed, incorporating citations from Scopus' database during last 25 years. Thematic mapping was carried out and evolving trends were identified. Findings and analysis of this research disclosed that during the last 25 years there has been a growing interest among scholars towards Stakeholder Analysis and HEIs. It was also noted that majority of research pursuits concentrated in western countries such as USA and UK, while Africa, Asia and South America were under-represented. This work will not only lay a foundation for academics to carry out further research, but it will also give new insights to the policymakers which would enable them to device strategies aiming at enhanced participation of universities/HEIs in the local, regional, and national development.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of existing literature concerning the domains of accreditation and quality assurance in various sectors. Accreditation and quality assurance play vital roles in ensuring the credibility, transparency, and effectiveness of educational institutions, healthcare facilities, industries, and other domains. This paper synthesizes the findings of numerous studies, focusing on the conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and outcomes associated with accreditation and quality assurance processes. The review encompasses a wide range of perspectives, including historical context, best practices, challenges, and advancements in accreditation and quality assurance. Through a systematic analysis of these scholarly works, this paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of the evolving landscape of accreditation and quality assurance across diverse sectors and shed light on potential future research directions.

Sustainable leadership is a necessity to achieve the goals of sustainable development, such as addressing complex global issues, preserving environmental and social balance, ensuring the well-being of future generations, and promoting innovation. Sustainable leadership in education is important to contribute to sustainable development goals by equipping future generations with environmental, social, and economic responsibilities and integrating sustainability principles into the education system. This study aims to determine the current state of research containing the term "sustainable leadership" by conducting a bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science (WoS) database. The VOSviewer software is employed to visually represent the data obtained from the WoS database. According to the comprehensive bibliometric analysis results, research related to the theme of "sustainable leadership" began to emerge in 2002, with a total of 390 publications identified in the period from 2002 to 2023. The majority of these publications are in the form of articles, reflecting the interest and curiosity within academic circles in this field. However, considering the lower presence of other document types such as conference papers, book chapters, and review articles, there appears to be a growing need for these types of sources. The bibliometric analysis reveals that research on sustainable leadership is predominantly published in the form of articles, with a significant increase observed, particularly in publications from 2019. The VOSviewer analysis of the "sustainable leadership" field categorizes the most commonly used terms into three clusters: "sustainability", "sustainable leadership", and "leadership". In terms of the distribution of articles in the field of sustainable leadership by citing countries, the countries with the highest number of citations are Thailand, South Africa, the United States, and China, respectively. The findings of the analysis are believed to contribute as a resource for future research and benefit researchers in exploring potential topics related to the theme of sustainable leadership in the near future. Additionally, it is noted that there is limited research on sustainable leadership in Turkey, and recommendations are provided for its further development.

Purpose: This article aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between education for the labor market in the post-pandemic stage and the educational quality of universities, taking as a sample a group of Latin American countries and their main trading partners. Reference is made to the Global Competitiveness Report 2020 of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) index, which evaluates the quality of universities. Design/methodology/approach: Correlations, clusters and T-tests were generated to test for significant differences, resulting in two blocks of countries being identified with statistically significant differences in educational efforts to prepare their citizens for the labor market and the quality of their universities. Findings: It is concluded that there are examples of Latin American countries that, although they are emerging economies, are updating their educational systems at an accelerated pace to meet the needs demanded by the labor market, such as Chile and Argentina. In addition, there are some particular cases of Latin American QS universities that although they are not at a high level in their overall educational quality as a university, compared to North American and Asian universities, their graduates do show a high employability index. This means that in the graduate profile, these universities are also accelerating efforts to position them at a high level of preparedness to respond to the jobs and markets of tomorrow, just as the universities in developed economies do. Research limitations/implications: Although the sample size is a limitation of this work, since it is based on secondary information reported by the WEF (2020) and the QS World University Rankings (2021), it contributes value by analyzing specific cases. Despite its limitations, the study yields meaningful results that put the challenges of post-pandemic employment and the role that universities play in a comprehensible framework. Originality/value: These results put special attention on the work of universities as a crucial entity to prepare citizens to develop the competencies needed for the post-pandemic labor market, especially in terms of critical thinking and digital skills. Human capital formation will drive the post-pandemic recovery process of leading countries and universities.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the most prevalent initiatives undertaken by leading universities in sustainability and offer a roadmap for other institutions seeking to undertake similar actions and contribute to more effective implementation of sustainability practices. Design/methodology/approach: By using a quantitative assessment approach, the study sheds light on successful initiatives implemented by universities worldwide, spanning six categories: transportation, waste management, curriculum, food and dining, water and energy. Each category is clearly related to one or more of the 17 sustainable development goals. A cluster analysis was also applied to identify regional trends in preferred initiatives. Findings: The study underlines the importance of integrating sustainability principles into the curricula of higher education institutions (HEIs) as well as educating staff members on energy and water management. The most common and impactful initiatives in the studied six categories have been identified. Many of the initiatives mentioned in the study do not just result in reducing ecological footprint but also provide economic savings as well. Differences among regions and countries were observed in the implementation of initiatives. Cultural and habitual factors should not be disregarded during the selection process of initiatives. Originality/value: The findings of this study may help universities to take their first steps toward implementing initiatives that can effectively promote sustainable development. Results will aid other HEIs in planning for next steps while outlining the more common initiatives.

Governments around the globe have realised that meeting UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education requires meaningful changes to policy and practice. There are numerous ways localities have attempted to do so: policies aimed at intentional hiring of more diverse teachers, policies requiring professional development for current teachers, and including diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training as part of pre-service preparation programmes. In this paper we argue that each of these is necessary, but none is sufficient on its own, to move the needle towards SDG4. Policy implementation literature suggests the importance of the social dimension of those tasked with implementing new policies, which guides our argument for how policies can move from aspirational to enacted. We offer examples of policies and practices at each of these three inflexion points for change (pre-service, hiring, and in-service), with implications for teacher education in other contexts working to create truly inclusive, equitable schools.

The COVID-19 pandemic influenced academia in many ways, impacting learners and teachers. This article is authored by six sustainable urban development doctoral researchers from various backgrounds and stages of their journey, and an academic advisor. The article is an outcome of remote collaboration through a substantial period during the pandemic. We offer self-reflective and collaborative accounts of how the pandemic affected doctoral research in a domain that requires in-depth connection with a physical field or site. We explore the impact of COVID-19 on the field through the themes of resonance and credibility, ethics and rapport, and the doctoral researchers' academic experience with regard to physical disconnection and virtual connectivity. In lieu of a conclusion, the supervisor's perspective offers insights into the future of the field and links the discussions in this article to wider debates in the literature on the role of the screen in delivering, presenting, and sharing research. The key takeaway is that the field and how we approach doctoral research and teaching have changed irrevocably. While we adjust to these new realities, it is important to look outwards as much as inwards to navigate the new complexities we now face.

This exploratory study examines Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) efforts of two teacher educators at Turkish and American universities who co-designed teacher education courses intending to develop intercultural and global competencies among students. Drawing from theoretical perspectives of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) (UNESCO, 2015), global competencies (Asia Society, 2008), and intercultural competencies (Barrett, 2018), the instructors virtually linked the two institutions, co-designed course syllabi and assignments, and promoted virtual exchange with teacher candidates. All students collaborated on two course assignments: 1) Comparative Intercultural Exchange -- creation and analysis of autobiographical videos communicating personal, social, and cultural identities; and 2) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Critical Inquiry -- analysis and presentation of SDG targets at local, national, and global levels. Data analysis revealed five salient themes across American and Turkish students. The findings indicate that students considered the COIL project an affirming experience in developing intercultural and global competencies.

Purpose: While sustainability experts point to interrelated social, economic and environmental goals, students may think about sustainability primarily as natural resources. To prepare students to tackle global challenges to well-being, this paper aims to show that educators need to assess and address students' shortcomings in considering socioeconomic dimensions. Design/methodology/approach: This study coded essays on the meaning and components of sustainability written by 93 undergraduate and graduate students in environmental policy, business and engineering courses at US and Austrian universities. Then, the study reviewed a teaching strategy using diverse experts, case studies and assignments. Finally, the analysis evaluated students' final projects proposing sustainability legislation with social, economic and environmental dimensions. Findings: Students usually connect sustainability with limited natural resources affecting current and future generations, but seldom think that sustainability means acting on prominent socioeconomic challenges like poverty, food insecurity, pandemics and violence. Teaching in diverse courses through multidimensional case studies and legislation broadened and deepened students' understanding and preparedness to act. Originality/value: Despite experts' attention to the interconnected Sustainable Development Goals, educators and policymakers need information on whether students associate sustainability with socioeconomic challenges. Open-response questions can reveal gaps in the respondents' sustainability beliefs. In a wide range of courses, teaching can use diverse experts and multidimensional case studies and legislative assignments.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) has increased due to its advantages for academic activities and educational quality. Hence, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have sought to develop strategies to promote curricular and extracurricular activities that favor developing disciplinary and transversal competencies such as complex thinking and its meta-competencies: critical, systemic, scientific, and innovative thinking, oriented to favor problem-solving among students and the academic community. The main objective of this study was to analyze how using OERs in virtual education can promote the development of complex thinking as a transversal competency in higher education. We analyzed the content of 65 educational projects in a webinar aimed at promoting the adoption of OERs in the professional practice of the educational community. Each project had to comply with specific requirements, from the project's identification and description to measuring and evaluating the results and its impact and added value. Once all the projects were reviewed, the responses were classified into defined categories for better presentation; the sub-competency of complex thinking promoted by each project element was identified qualitatively. The results highlight how an OER can, through concrete activities, elicit complex thinking and its sub-competencies in higher education. The present study adds new evidence to the literature regarding boosting OERs as a tool to develop competencies aligned with UNESCO recommendations and contribute to fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals in education.

Purpose: Considering the relevance of education for sustainable development (SD) to enhancing engineers' abilities to contribute towards sustainability-related issues, this study aims to help understand the global context of the insertion of SD into engineering education and to provide guidelines to further evolve research and efforts towards implementing Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD). Design/methodology/approach: This study performed a longitudinal analysis using bibliometrics and a content analysis via Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate standards. SciMAT software was used to support the bibliometric analysis. Findings: In addition to an increase in the practical aspects presented due to a change in the approaches taken to examine key topics, evidence on important concepts such as "life cycle assessment" and "digitalisation" increased in more recent years. However, it was possible to show that, despite the evolution observed throughout the years, several important opportunities exist for engineering programmes to improve and, for researchers, to fill the related gaps in the research. Originality/value: This study can be used as a guide for future research and as a source of insights for EESD implementation and improvement.

This paper provides an analysis of the literature on transnational education to identify the key challenges and success factors for the sustainable operation of transnational higher education (TNE) programmes as perceived by key stakeholders. Probing the stakeholders' perspectives and applying a systematic approach, this study analyses 227 English-written articles retrieved from the Web of Science database published from 2000 to 2021. Key challenges identified include difficulties in managing the TNE programmes, ensuring quality assurance, adapting the curricula to the local contexts, accommodating offshore students' learning styles, creating studying environments for TNE students equivalent to those in the home institutions, ensuring preparedness of the academic staff, and facilitating the knowledge transfer in the host countries. The analysis also highlights six factors for the sustainable development of TNE programmes, including the effectiveness of the operations, the internationalization of the curricula, the transnational experience of the students, the development of the transnational staff, the existence of a proper regulatory framework in the host countries, and the development of a global systematic data collection for quality assurance. In addition, the evidence collected suggests that while the transition from domestic into a foreign programme can be rewarding, it demands appropriate planning and implementation.

The Sustainable Development Goals link access to higher education, particularly for non-traditional populations, as a way to fight poverty and ensure prosperity. This article examines the experiences of several under-researched categories of non-traditional students who attend Community Colleges and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges in multiple jurisdictions worldwide. The article begins to fill in the gap with comparative data on how these institutions advance equity, diversity, and inclusion through access to higher education. The implications of Community Colleges and TVET are analyzed using the lens of Neo-Liberalism and the Capabilities Narrative. The study extends the scope of the inquiry into the contributions these institutions make to sustainable development. The article uses a comparative multi-case study approach to examine the Community Colleges and TVET Colleges in different jurisdictions worldwide.

Post-pandemic, there is a growing recognition that higher education needs to take a more proactive role in addressing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals -- the 17 goals for 2030 that aim to balance global economic development with the need to tackle climate change and protect our natural ecosystems. This change of focus has profound implications for international higher education. For universities in countries like Australia, New Zealand and the UK, internationalisation has underpinned a successful business model. Recruiting children of wealthy elites in developing countries and charging them high tuition fees allows universities to invest in research and facilities and drive themselves up global rankings tables. But recruiting students from the Global South imposes an environmental cost in terms of the carbon footprint and perpetuates structural inequality. This article explores solutions to moving beyond the current business model and adopting an internationalisation strategy that prioritises social justice and environmental sustainability.

The COVID-19 global pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to the sustainability strategies and initiatives of many nations. In many countries, education strategies and funding were negatively impacted and, consequently, especially vulnerable groups were highly affected, amongst them Indigenous communities around the world. As Indigenous communities were already amongst the most vulnerable before 2020, a strategically and well-planned recovery from this pandemic would be vital to secure their well-being. This article offers reflections on the potential of infusing "Education for Sustainable Development" (ESD) in the classroom, the school and the community as a whole, to deal with known and yet unprecedented sustainability challenges in presenting commonalities of 32 good practice reports from 21 countries collected in advance and during the global pandemic. Authors make the point of considering the pandemic and its widespread impact as yet another sustainability challenge and position "ESD" as a potential tool to achieve quality education and unleash the full potential of education for society when planning recovery efforts in hope for a better future of Indigenous communities in the long term. As the good practices were also included in a report of the "UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the 48th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council," focusing on the post-pandemic recovery efforts for Indigenous Peoples, further thoughts on both official reports and their alignment with the overall "2030 Agenda" from an "ESD" perspective are included.

In 2017, the International Bureau of Education (IBE) at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) put forth seven global competences to address accelerating technological progress and increasing levels of complexity and uncertainty affecting many facets of society (Marope, 2017). These competences were used in examining participant discourse in a global, collaborative digital makerspace environment, where students ages 12 to 17 from six countries develop and share STEM-focused media artifacts. The participants communicate synchronously through video conference calls, referred to as online global meet-ups. The meet-ups allow students to present media artifacts they have created, share ideas, exchange information, and provide feedback. In this analysis, epistemic network analysis (ENA), a technique in quantitative ethnography, is used to examine the connections made among the IBE-UNESCO global competences in a meet-up involving participants from Finland, Kenya, and the U.S. ENA network models were created initially for the three sites, then further disaggregated by time segment to analyze how participant discourse patterns may have evolved in each context. Through this approach, the paper explores more broadly the interactive role of media making, cross-cultural engagement, and collaborative learning in the development of global competences in students.

Online and virtual teaching-learning has been a panacea that most educational institutions adopted from the dire need created by COVID-19. We provide a comprehensive bibliometric study of 9523 publications on virtual laboratories in higher education covering the years 1991 to 2021. Influential bibliometrics such as publications and citations, productive countries, contributing institutions, funders, journals, authors, and bibliographic couplings were studied using the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol. A new metric to complement citations called Field Weighted Citation Impact was introduced that considers the differences in research behavior across disciplines. Findings show that 72% of the research work was published between 2011-and 2021, most likely due to digitalization, with the highest number of publications in 2020-2021 highlighting the impact of the pandemic. Top contributing institutions were from the developed economies of Spain, Germany, and the United States. The citation impact from publications with international co-authors is the highest, highlighting the importance of co-authoring papers with different countries. For the first time, Altmetrics in the context of virtual labs were studied though a very low correlation was observed between citations and Altmetrics Attention Score. Still, the overall percentage of publications with attention showed linear growth. Our work also highlights that virtual laboratory could play a significant role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG4-Quality Education, which largely remains under-addressed.

Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, "provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet" (United Nations, 2020a). The SDGs, which include gender equality, quality education, and ending poverty, are those objectives that must be met by all countries "in a global partnership" (United Nations, 2020a). With the 2030 Agenda in mind, this Virtual Exchange (VE) study reveals learners in different geographical locations who are partnered with one another via technology can benefit from the embedding of SDG content into their VE (Dooly, 2017; Forward et al., 2020). This article focuses on two parallel, but separate, Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (SCMC) six-week VEs. Teacher trainees from a university in the United States were partnered with other teacher trainees from a university in Poland and/or Colombia. In another cohort, second language (L2) learners of Spanish from a university in the United States were partnered with those from a university in Poland. In each of these groupings, participants completed SCMC sessions via Zoom and discussed the SDGs. Qualitative and quantitative data reveal that awareness of these universal objectives increased and afforded them new perspectives. By using a culturally sensitive lens, teacher trainees developed teaching strategies and L2 learners increased their intercultural competence. These results suggest that integrating SDG content into virtual exchange can support the United Nations' 2030 Agenda and can make a contribution to the field of VE.

Purpose: This paper aims to make a comparative study on the latest version of green campus evaluation standard between China and America: Green Campus Evaluation Standard (GB/T51356-2019) and the sustainability tracking, assessment and rating system (STARS 2.2). The differences of evaluation methods and contents are analyzed and their respective characteristics and advantages are sorted out, so as to promote the development of sustainable campus evaluation standards. Design/methodology/approach: The research mainly adopts the method of comparative study, which is carried out from three dimensions, namely, the related policies development of campus construction and world university sustainable rankings; the content of evaluation standards (including evaluation methods and evaluation categories and scores); the characteristics and current application of standards. Findings: There are great differences between the evaluation standards of China and America in organization and participation mode, evaluation method and content. Public engagement, energy and campus engagement are the hot spots. Buildings, energy, food and dining and investment and finance will become the focus of sustainable campus in the future. Specific optimization strategies of key points, evaluation method and content and organization and participation mode of Chinese standard are put forward. Practical implications: This paper clarifies the advantages and disadvantages of the current global sustainable campus, and provides the basis for the next stage of construction policy. At the same time, it is helpful for all countries, especially China, to formulate construction guidelines that not only meet their own actual needs but also conform to the trend of global sustainable campus development. Social implications: The connotation of sustainable campus is enriched, and the evaluation standards of sustainable campus are improved. The development of sustainable campus is promoted, so as to realize the sustainable development goals. Originality/value: This research expands the scope of the study to the whole campus, rather than just one aspect of campus buildings. It compares the evaluation standard of green campus in China with STARS in the USA, and no longer compares leadership in energy and environmental design for schools. It discusses the campus building's energy conservation while paying attention to the campus green consciousness, green management and green planning. Based on the relevant data currently used by STARS in the global evaluation, this paper analyzes the hot spots and shortcomings of the current global sustainable campus construction and puts forward some optimization suggestions for China's green campus evaluation system.

Currently, in the field of Sustainable Development (SD), one of the most significant debates is the necessary incorporation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in education and, specifically, in higher education institutions (HEIs). In the process of truly integrating the SDGs in HEIs, it is necessary to know and identify what is already being done and evaluate the efficacy or deficiency with which universities are carrying out studies and actions to integrate the SDGs. This systematic review aims to respond to this claim by analysing the most recent scientific evidence published in the period of 2015-2020 regarding SDGs in the university context at the international level. The results of this study identify: (1) a general approach on the SDGs from a global dimension in the reviewed studies, with SDG 4 (Education) being the most frequently referenced SDG; (2) the university area from which SDGs are addressed is research, followed by education; (3) the most frequent action gathered in the reviewed studies is the integration of the SDGs in the curricular schedule, in the area of education and learning; (4) with respect to the geographic and university context in which the SDGs are developed, the review showed studies in four geographic areas (Asia and the Pacific, America, Africa and Europe), with most studies being published from European and Latin American universities.

As we work to educate our children in effective ways, supporting their efforts to make a positive difference reaps benefits for both students and society.

Increasing the supply of qualified teachers is a priority in many nations as a prerequisite to accomplishing UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" by the year 2030. Questions remain however concerning definitions and measurement of the intended global indicators. In this article, I argue that the work of the comparative research community has the potential to inform and enrich UNESCO's SDG 4 indicators agenda concerning teachers, but this would require moving from a focus on easy to measure indicators such as teacher qualifications to more meaningful and valid indicators such as teacher qualities, and the quality of their education -- a neglected area in the SDG 4 targets. Using evidence from two cross-national studies of mathematics education I propose that engagement with comparative education research may help to re-imagine a sustainable and high-quality teaching-and-teacher education project globally.

This study aims to review the scientific papers on Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) published between 2008 and 2020 and reveal changes in the area. This systematic review was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, a systematic review of papers on ECEfS was conducted according to the specified criteria, and all identified studies were evaluated descriptively. In the second stage, interventional research was evaluated, and their results were reviewed. It was seen that qualitative research methods were mostly preferred in the reviewed studies and most of them were conducted with children. It was determined that the most frequently discussed pillar is environmental. Moreover, the number of interventional research studies is limited. The research findings, it is thought that there is a need for future studies that use interventional, experimental and action research methods, holistically addressing pillars of sustainability

The authors present a new approach to show how interdisciplinary collaborations among a group of institutions can provide a unique opportunity for students to engage across the science-policy nexus using the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Through collaboration across seven higher education institutions in the United States and Australia, virtual student research teams worked together across disciplines such as economics, ecology, and other earth and social sciences to address research questions centered on sustainable development goals. The teams presented their findings in person to diplomats and delegates at the 2019 United Nations Conference of the Parties meeting in Madrid, which also had strong qualitative impacts on their perceptions of international science-policy interfaces.

It is widely recognized that education plays a key role in addressing current global challenges. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) combines local actions with global thinking. In Virtual School Garden Exchanges (VSGEs) primary and secondary students from the Global South and North interact and communicate digitally about their school gardens. This study focuses on educators' expectations regarding learning outcomes of VSGEs and possible parallels with ESD and Virtual Exchanges (VEs) in general. A qualitative content analysis of 23 semi-structured interviews with educators engaged in 18 VSGEs was conducted. Even though the VSGEs took different individual approaches, the analysis revealed many commonalities in the respondents' intentions: amongst other things, educators were aiming to promote knowledge about gardening and food, horticultural and cooperation competencies, and values such as solidarity. Nevertheless, some educators feared that VSGEs might also have some negative effects. The results show parallels with the aims of ESD and VEs.

Purpose: Higher education is uncertain which sustainability-related education targets should be sought and monitored. Accepting that something needs to be measurable to be systematically improved, the authors explored how measures relate to potential targets. This paper aims to focus on dispositions to think critically (active open-minded thinking and fair-minded thinking in appraising reasoning) as measures and explored how they related to sustainability concern as an indicative educational target. Design/methodology/approach: This research included the development and testing of research instruments (scales) that explored dispositions to critical thinking and sustainability concern. Authors researched these instruments within their own correspondence groups and tested them with university students and staff in Pakistan, the USA, Austria, India and New Zealand. The authors also asked a range of contextualising questions. Findings: Respondents' disposition to aspects of active, open-minded thinking and fair-minded thinking do predict their concern about facets of sustainability but their strength of religious belief was an important factor in these relationships and in their measurement. Practical implications: This research demonstrates the complexity of monitoring dispositions to think critically and sustainability concern in educational systems, particularly in circumstances where the roles of religious beliefs are of interest; and suggests ways to address this complexity. Originality/value: This research integrates and expands discourses on ESD and on critical thinking in diverse disciplines and cultures. It investigates measurement approaches and targets that could help higher education institutions to educate for sustainable development and to monitor their progress, in ways that are compatible with their culture and values.

Purpose: This paper aims to systematically review the university social responsibility (USR) implementation from the empirical studies, which published during the period from 2004 to 2020. Design/methodology/approach: The bibliometric method has been employed to review prior empirical research on higher education social responsibility topics. Findings: These synthesis results confirmed that USR initiatives as an excellent tool to attain sustainability and enhance university performance worldwide. Universities in developed nations underline paying more attention to the core values in the long-term; meanwhile, their counterparts in transitional countries to pay more attention to short-term activities by focusing on stakeholders. Research limitations/implications: The notable limitation is that in terms of the number of empirical papers employed as the data to analyze in this manuscript. Practical implications: This paper's findings have described the USR implementations and how well to define USR adoption from the empirical studies globally. Thus, it has theoretical implications in enriching the USR knowledge and providing useful guidance for universities, then recommend new research directions in the future for other scholars. Originality/value: This research is an initial attempt to systematize studies on USR implementation in universities between developed countries and developing nations.

Purpose: This paper aims to learn how sustainability and the circular economy were being integrated into the curriculum of a Dutch university and to transfer that knowledge back to a US university business school curriculum. Given the resistance toward integrating sustainability into the US business school curriculum, the Dutch university served as a role model for education for sustainable development. Design/methodology/approach: This case study used ethnographic methods of participant observation over a four-month residency at the Dutch university. Findings: Themes observed are as follows: success in the current context relied upon sustainability being integrated into the culture and lifestyle, legislative enforcement, a focus on urban sustainability, use of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and collaboration as a key to success. The course proposal shifted to a class on the SDGs which is broader, more inclusive, and interdisciplinary. The proposal to integrate circular economy into the US business school curriculum shifted to a class on the SDGs. It was determined that the SDGs presented a more amenable approach to introduce sustainability into the business school curriculum and meet the objectives of education for sustainable development. Research limitations/implications: This case study is based upon the author's experience at one university in the Netherlands. Limitations include the generalizability of the findings to another university as well as the question of transferability across cultures. Practical implications: This case study offers one suggestion for integrating sustainability into the business school curriculum. Social implications: Integrating sustainability into the business school curriculum through the SDGs might help overcome resistance. Originality/value: The findings offer an alternative approach for integrating sustainability into the business school curriculum that is aligned with AACSB standards and which might face less resistance.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

This article explores the major aspects of putting together effective national systems of education oriented toward providing academic instruction to the population and preparing future human resources for work within the economy in specific alignment with the concept of environmental responsibility (or that of "green economy"). The major conclusions drawn by the authors are: (1) this period in the development of modern civilization, characterized by our aggressive and wasteful exploitation of the Earth's natural resources, nearing its end, the major condition for our civilization to be able to physically go on is the shift to a "green economy", a new global concept that implies being oriented toward ensuring social equality and the availability of resources and education on the basis that our anthropogenic and technogenic impact on the environment will not be aggressive; (2) national education and human resource preparation systems serve as a strategic basis that determines the specificity of national social-economic development. They ought to be transformed and enhanced, while working to forestall whatever catastrophic scenarios for the development of society and the economy there may be; (3) the global shift from resource-wasting to resource-effective development, predicated on knowledge and its creative utilization, will be possible via the harmonization of national systems of education and their transformation, involving a shift in the focus of learning from anthropocentrism to biocentrism and ecocentrism.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) largely emerged from Environmental Education (EE) models to teach how actions for 'development' positively and negatively affects our societies and the rest of nature, to then determine how such actions can be 'sustainable' without causing current or future socio-environmental oppressions. However, the 'development' has been increasingly taught as adhering to normalized neoliberal ideologies. This article provides a critical analysis of reinventing environmental pedagogies to center the 'reading' of development framings through the following questions: 'What is development?', 'Who is it for?', and 'What are the politics behind it?' Emergent from two research projects, centering the teaching of critical literacies (i.e. ecopedagogical literacies) to read 'development' and 'sustainability' was found essential in higher education. Rooted in critical theories and Freirean popular education movements in Latin American, ecopedagogy is transformative teaching in which educators dialectically problem-pose the politics of socio-environmental connections through local, global, and planetary lenses.

Educational institutions have been among the most active social organisations responding to and facilitating processes associated with globalisation. This has primarily been undertaken through the attempts of schools and universities to 'internationalise' their student intake, staffing, curricula, research, and assessment systems. Amongst the many benefits associated with the promotion of 'internationalisation' is that it will provide students with attributes such as global citizenship, skills or competencies that will contribute to improving tolerance, respect and harmony between nations and cultures. Various nations and global agencies actively promote such goals and global citizenship is included in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Positioned as a response to the Sustainable Development Goals, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has developed a metric to compare the 'global competency' of 15-year-old pupils, which was incorporated into the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018. We analyse the rationales for this decision, the conception of 'global competence' adopted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and how these have changed since its inception in 2013. We also explore how it will be measured and how the organisation deals with what it describes as 'the most salient challenge affecting PISA'. We argue: (i) the official conception of 'global competence' finally adopted was strongly influenced by the organisation's quest to position itself as the agency responsible for monitoring progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, and then amended to match what could be easily measured; and (ii) although the organisation presents its global competencies using a humanitarian discourse, it is framed by its economic mission.

There has been a long tradition of demonstrating formal education's direct relationship with many dimensions of development, including increased productivity, health, reduced mortality, population control etc. There has also been a literature looking particularly at the 'democratic dividend' from education, both through the lens of global citizenship as well as more generally through education's influence on political participation. The successful securing of global citizenship education (GCE) within the ambitions of Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 in September 2015 was a further milestone in connecting social development with 'democracy, good governance and the rule of law'. Accordingly, there are many telling examples of how GCE can be rolled out in school curricula, through many different school subjects, across the world. Arguably, however, the formal school system is far from being the only location where messages about citizenship, whether global, national or local, can be found. During the period, 2016-2019 in the USA and UK, with the huge rise in smart-phone usage world-wide, it has become apparent that there can be massive micro-targeting, through global platforms, of selected populations with multiple messages about citizenship, national identity, job security, migration threats, potential terrorism and a great deal else. Unlike the citizenship curricula and textbooks of formal schools which are easily accessible, a great deal of this new social media messaging is relatively inaccessible, using procedures that are a long way from traditional electioneering. They are also much less financially accountable, but it is clear that vast sums are now being spent on social media advertising, presenting an existential threat to democracy. The role and level of education in reacting critically to social media campaigning will need to be revisited in this new world of campaigning around global and national citizenship. It is no longer a discussion about education's positive relationship with increased political participation, but whether current education levels are actually capable of dealing with the current threats to citizenship, at global, national and local levels.

This article reviews Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the secondary sector across a range of countries. Drawing on journal articles, book chapters and official reports, it identifies some of the more successful approaches to implementing EfS within the secondary sector. The authors first discuss the importance of educating for sustainability at the secondary level and then explore barriers to effective EfS in secondary schools. They go on to share their insights into contextual factors that influence EfS practices which are reported in the case studies. In particular, they discuss the influence of (a) politics and curriculum renewal, (b) alignment of curriculum, resources and teaching, (c) the perceived state of EfS and (d) teachers' professional development as determinants of EfS implementation and success.

The Montana State University student chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA is a student-managed partnership with the people of Khwisero, Kenya. The primary mission, to bring potable water and clean sanitation facilities to 61 primary schools and the surrounding communities of Khwisero, necessitates a long-term commitment to collaboration and cultural exchange. Engineers Without Borders has helped transform views regarding engaged scholarship at Montana State University. Students and faculty members are collectively advancing interdisciplinary, service-learning, and global action initiatives across the campus. This article describes the growth, organizational principles, and goals of Engineers Without Borders at Montana State University. (Contains 2 figures.)