There is no more powerful transformative force than education – to promote human rights and dignity, to eradicate poverty and deepen sustainability, to build a better future for all, founded on equal rights and social justice, respect for cultural diversity, and international solidarity and shared responsibility, all of which are fundamental aspects of our common humanity. This is why we must think big again and re-vision education in a changing world. –Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO
Goal and Objectives:
The co-creation workshop process for our global scholar network includes an event, network building, and knowledge mobilization (KMb) activities. The primary goal of our project is to collaborate in a community of practice to share knowledge on transformative learning and explore seeds and scenarios that have the potential to transform pathways for institutions of higher education (IHE). All who get involved can enable faculty, students, and community to embrace the ongoing challenges in our planet–– towards sustainable-asflourishing futures (SAFF).
Postsecondary education is critical to the success of the sustainable development goals (SDG) and has a moral responsibility to “embody support for the SDGs as part of their social missions and core functions” (Leal Filho, et al., 2021, p. 2). Consideringly, in this project we are co-creating a formal transdisciplinary network that works towards building awareness, and to meet the goals of the United Nation’s (UN) 2030 Agenda (specifically target goal 4.7) and better understand IHE role in promoting the UN’s Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). We will take seeds or conceptual ideas and novel methodologies and to explore the process of modelling as a tool for sense-making and theorizing transformative change processes from within the education system, and to synthesize insights from working with systemic and process- relational perspectives of social-ecological systems.
As a network, we will accomplish this through the following five objectives: (1) identify transformational openings (seeds) that disrupt and have possibilities for transformations in IHE learning; (2) explore, analyze, articulate, and model possible scenarios for transformational learning; (3) develop strategies and models to enable promising seeds and scenarios to explicitly become pathways for sustainable futures in IHE learning; (4) facilitate multidirectional flow of impact knowledge sharing among global researchers, practitioners, and learners that co-inspire and cocreate positive impact towards sustainable futures through SDG 4.7; and UNDRIP; (5) support emerging scholars through a network focused on transdisciplinary research that embraces ongoing challenges, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, food security, social injustice and inequality.
In Stein et al., 2022 they ask what kind of education could prepare people to face the impossibility of today’s world and enable a reimagining for education for the end of the world as we know it? Today’s IHE are embedded in modern-colonial habits of knowing, being, and doing, framed by racial, colonial, and ecological violence (Stein et al. 2022). The literature is clear, strongly suggesting present patterns of human behavior, or neoliberal ways of thinking and behavior need to be disrupted and revisited. The urgency of this is understated, as we face ongoing challenges
for all life on the planet. These challenges are creating dystopian views of our world, disabling emerging leaders towards helplessness and hopelessness (Ojala, 2017).
Context:
Forest fires, ongoing drought, and onrushing and increasing rates of natural disasters are becoming a sign of our time––in the suggested epoch of the Anthropocene. This period is defined by humans as a geophysical force that is wreaking havoc on the earth- human system (Haraway, 2016; Rockström et al., 2009). Our present way of life, the business- as-usual mindset, is disrupting planetary boundaries that support human development (Steffen et al., 2015). Scientific evidence seems to suggest that meeting the goal of keeping the rise in temperature below 1.5 Celsius is no longer possible. As a result, stable living conditions for humankind can no longer be guaranteed, placing humans for an uncertain and turbulent future. Also observed is an urgency by global leaders and institutions to take immediate action towards societal transformation that can embrace a changing planet through mitigation and adaptation strategies (Sachs et al., 2019).
In considering action, leadership and IHE often rely on “expert knowledge” to solve wicked social challenges described above resulting from neoliberalism, “radically excluding” knowledge on the other side of the abyss, the other(ed) ways of knowing; including Indigenous knowledge and associated practices that contain the “experiences, skills, and techniques, remembered and accumulated” of these communities (Turner et al., 2008, p. 46). It is evident the current approach to expertise and science is at a crossroads.
Scholars suggest we need to show up differently, collectively, to face the entangled and overlapping ongoing challenges (Stein et al., 2022). Considering IHE’s perspectives, traditional teacher or content-oriented learning approaches are no longer effective in preparing students to embrace the rapidly changing conditions of our complex world (Collier, Odell & Rosenbloom, 2022; O’Brien et al., 2013). Moreover, transdisciplinary approaches that are underpinned by collective thinking, engaging diversity in a relational approach to embracing challenges in an imaginative way hold promise for navigating towards more thriving futures.
Transformative changes in education that espouse holistic perspectives and embrace complex systems can play a critical role in developing understandings, capacity, and actions to address ongoing challenges. This requires a transdisciplinary approach to both education and research (O’Brien et al., 2013, p. 2). This approach is at the heart of our project.
For scholars and IHE a transdisciplinary approach to education is needed, which connects research and practice and focuses on positively influencing the educational system we operate in. This can be achieved by supporting our students to adopt a values-based system approach to nature and human rights and to use concrete tools that assess progress towards a sustainable future. Guided by UNDRIP, the UN’s 2030 Agenda with the SDGs, and concepts like the planetary boundary framework, we collaborate and co-create/imagine for planting seeds that enable for pluriverse pathways and potential SAFF. Therefore, for this impact group, developing a transdisciplinary network of impact research and practice for enabling SAFF in higher education is critical to responding to the urgent call for transformational ways to living in the interdependent Earth system (United Nations, 2015; IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022). This transdisciplinary project has the potential to reshape current IHE curricula and overall learning approaches, positioning faculty, emerging leaders (students), and global community members to positively influence society.
Through a collective thinking approach described above, with a focus on imaginative futures perspective, this network aims to disrupt, transform, and enable SAFF on a global scale. This grant opens the door for a collective thinking approach to collaborate and participate in an impact project supporting scholars globally in conducting research and practice aimed at addressing ongoing challenges in our complex world through a transdisciplinary network approach. The transdisciplinary project aims to link its work to the research done through a European Erasmus + funded collaborative partnering project Innovating Business Education for Responsible Global Minds (IBE-ReGloMi). This project aims to embed sustainability, international dimensions, and social innovation into the curriculum among others through communities of practice as well (hhps://ibe-reglomi.eu)
Why the Network for Transformation? This network supports the development of a transdisciplinary network for enabling collective thinking to embrace ongoing challenges in our complex world and to work towards the UN’s 2030 Agenda and UNDRIP, explicitly SDG targeting 4.7. The target is
to ensure by 2030 all learners acquire the knowledge and competencies needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and nonviolence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.
According to Ansala et al. (2016), networks function as a knowledge complementary environment, promoting a platform for collaborative learning so that one of the main benefits of networks is to provide a collective learning environment through the interaction between individuals. Repetitive and lasting relationships establish a trust that facilitates the creation of new knowledge that is necessary for taking on complex ongoing challenges (Scott et al., 2016). The changes in the spaces, times, and relations in which learning takes place favor a network of learning spaces where non-formal and informal spaces of learning will interact with and complement formal educational institutions (UNESCO, 2015). Our network will promote the creation of new knowledge and learning because shared praxis is all that people do together. This network will enable pathways to meet the SDG target 4.7 for 2030.
Potential Outcomes:
This project is a direct response to the global call for action expressed as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It addresses the need to transform education systems and curriculum to ensure that “By 2030, … all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” (SDG Goal 4.7). Guided by the United Nations Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and recognizing IPCC reports and planetary boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009), this project will focus on transforming institutes of higher education (IHE’s) towards SDG Goal 4.7. The expected outcomes are strategically aligned with the following stakeholder groups: (i) higher education administrators, (ii) researchers, and (iii) impact practitioners.
1. Outcomes for Higher Education Administrators
- Forming and developing a new international transdisciplinary network of IHE’s that is dedicated to building awareness of the
UN’s 2030 Agenda and tackling the transformative institutional and curricular change necessary to meet goal 4.7. - This project will seek and provide answers to the broad question: What kind of education could prepare learners to embrace the impossibility of sustaining our contemporary modern- colonial habits of being and how can this kind of education be facilitated?
2. Outcomes for Researchers
- A two-day dedicated hybrid workshop will be organized, where: participants can present ideas (seeds) for transformative
educational approaches in higher education and challenges that need to be overcome; trusting relationships between attendees
can be developed through dialogue and tailored activities; collaborations can be formed to work on sub-projects to answer the
broad question. - The ideas initiated at this workshop will lead into scholarly articles in impact journals. These articles would have the
academic reach to activate researchers to find innovative and practical ideas to propel the transformation needed in our
institutions and curricular to meet goal 4.7. - The collaborative can build an application for further grant (e.g., SSHRC Partnership).
- Training and mentoring are provided for early scholars through opportunities for students to collaborate with those with
experience. This includes hiring research assistants to support the organization of the workshop and administration of jointly
co-creating the seed bank, network, and future grant applications.
3. Outcomes for Impact Practitioners.
- A longstanding irony and challenge faced by research impact practitioners (e.g., knowledge brokers in institutional research offices) is the limited empirical evidence that exists for how IHE can better facilitate the impacts of research.
- This project will initiate a sustained effort to close the theory-practice divide in impact research by: (1) creating a database of the ideas (seeds) through the project (e.g., multimodal depictions of the workshop dialogues; (2) designing a website to make network resources publicly available; (3) mentor and fund students who are identified as earlier researchers; (4) establish a board/steering group, communications protocols, and memoranda of understanding for impact partners; (5) support publications via open call on seeds, scenarios, & pathways through journal, Discover Sustainability (https://www.springer.com/journal/43621).