Purpose: The implementation and reporting of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is one of the emerging challenges for higher education institutions (HEIs), but the lack of well-defined reporting structures and topics for this sector makes it difficult to map and evaluate HEI performance in relation to 2030 Agenda. This study aims to assess…

Purpose: This study aims to diagnose the perception, knowledge, awareness and position of the bioeconomy in university education and research. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on a questionnaire survey conducted at universities in Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal (n = 464). The questionnaire consisted of open-ended,…

Sustainability action at universities is complex and requires engaging multiple competences that reside on different levels outside and inside the organisation. In addition to individual competences, social communities also possess collective resources and characteristics that do not translate into a sum of individual abilities. Based on a…

Climate change (CC) is one of the most urgent problems to solve in this century, the effects of which cover a wide range of disciplines that go beyond the environmental component, becoming a social and economic problem as well. Social educators are professionals who must ensure that the quality of life in socially vulnerable societies is improved.…

The global climate crisis is present in national and international discourse, along with other challenges the world is going through, such as the current wars in Ukraine and Gaza or the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, with the negative effects highlighted in the United Nations' sustainable development report. This paper aims to analyse and…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the mediating role of students' knowledge of sustainable development (SD) in the relationship between green campus initiatives by higher education institutions (HEIs) and student proactivity. Design/methodology/approach: The research, with a quantitative approach, was carried out with students linked to HEIs…

Purpose: This paper aims to outline the scientific production in Portuguese universities in environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). It takes doctoral theses presented in public universities as reference, assuming that, in Higher Education, the production of doctoral theses is a key beacon of the scientific…

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.…

Purpose: This paper provides a general review related to a wider project, aimed at developing a mobile game-based app on Education for Sustainable Development within a smart learning city environment. It aims to address guidelines for a new action-oriented transformative pedagogy that is essential for the development of key competencies for…

The development of vital competencies and a mindset to rethink products, production, and business models in engineering and design students is presently of great importance. These future professionals will play a key role in the development of sustainable products. Within Eco-design and Eco-efficiency curricular unit, an assignment was developed…

Purpose: The study aims to examine the vertical integration of the sustainable development goals (SGDs) in Portuguese public higher education institutions, namely, at the level of undergraduate and master's degrees, and the extent to which Portuguese higher education institutions (HEI) are preparing for the United Nations' call to promote SDGs.…

Purpose: This paper aims to understand if a project work methodology proposed to students, based on an inquiry perspective and dealing with different dimensions of sustainable development, contributed to creating an interdisciplinary solution for a problem on sustainability challenged by food production and consumption, and also to understand if…

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…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) contribute substantially to the quality of life (QoL) of the regions where they operate and to the progress and sustainable development of a country. This research intends to have an innovative approach in the study of the HEIs' impact on the QoL of regions by taking into consideration both qualitative and…

The aim of this study consisted in assessing knowledge, attitudes and behaviours concerning various aspects of sustainable development in a group of Portuguese university students and measure the influence of area of study for admission to higher education on this dimensions. The collection of data was undertaken via the completion of a…