UWN’s SDGs Hub
GLOBAL
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Brendan O’Malley
None of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs can be achieved without the contribution of higher education through research, teaching and community engagement. University World News has set up this SDGs Hub to share best practice and report on the impact and challenges of this work.
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Latest Stories
MEXICO
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Bertha Alicia Saldívar Barboza, Sadie Guerrero, Irving Hidrogo and Enrique Cortés
A university in Mexico has developed and deployed an educational technology ecosystem that incorporates artificial intelligence with a view to improving teaching methodologies, enhancing efficiency and integrity in student assessment, and monitoring and supporting the development of transversal and disciplinary student competencies.
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GLOBAL
Francis Kokutse
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SOUTH AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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CANADA
Nathan M Greenfield
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AFRICA
Eric Fredua-Kwarteng
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EGYPT-SUDAN
Wagdy Sawahel
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GLOBAL
Samia Chasi and Savo Heleta
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GLOBAL
Chiara Finocchietti and Jenneke Lokhoff
The Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education, which entered into force in March, represents a true milestone in the international legal framework for qualifications recognition and an important step in boosting international student mobility and helping refugees access education.
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UNITED STATES
Gerardo L Blanco
Rather than an attempt to ‘cancel’ him, exploring honestly and transparently the legacy of J William Fulbright provides an opportunity to face his ‘mixed legacy’, and also that of the field of international education or IE – along with potential contemporary complicities with racial injustice.
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LATIN AMERICA-CARIBBEAN-AFRICA
Victor del Rio and Angel Calderon
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AFRICA
Silvia Fiore
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UNITED STATES
Keith Nuthall
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Public Engagement
GLOBAL
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Nathan M Greenfield and Shadi Khan Saif
Two global university networks have joined forces to support a collection of exceptional researchers from around the world – both faculty and graduate students – who are conducting engaged research that goes beyond academic study and includes a commitment to long-term sustainable community partnerships.
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LATIN AMERICA-CARIBBEAN
Ronaldo Munck
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Research
GLOBAL
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Nic Mitchell
The Association of Commonwealth Universities has recently launched what it believes to be the first equitable partnerships toolkit, one that provides step-by-step instructions to build fairer North-South and South-South research relationships and turn good intentions about equity in research collaboration into action.
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GLOBAL
Karen MacGregor
Bias in research and its benefits, power imbalances and other inequities has long plagued scientific collaboration. Now ethics experts from around the world have published the Cape Town Statement on Fostering Research Integrity through Fairness and Equity, with 20 recommendations to guide all stakeholders in achieving more just research practice.
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AFRICA
Eric Fredua-Kwarteng
The World Bank has recommended that Africa produce as many as 100,000 PhD students in a decade. But that does not mean standard processes should be sacrificed on the altar of quantity. Africa needs quality PhDs, which takes time, effort, expertise, commitment and resources.
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Teaching and Learning
LATIN AMERICA-CARIBBEAN
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Karen MacGregor
The internationalisation and development of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean – where only 0.8% of students study abroad against 2.6% globally – have been boosted by the first meeting of UNESCO’s new regional convention on the recognition of studies and degrees, adopted by 23 countries.
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GLOBAL
Patrick Blessinger
As humanity becomes more interconnected, lifelong and lifewide learning will become more ubiquitous as people need to develop more human skills such as higher-order thinking skills, creative thinking skills and strategic metacognitive skills. Education, knowledge and learning must be treated as global common goods.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
“Higher education in South Africa is not in a good space right now, but the sector has to take responsibility for itself. We can’t wait on the government. We need to move from complaining to reforming,” said Dr Sershen Naidoo, a coordinator of the Higher Education Reform Experts – South Africa project.
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SOUTHERN AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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GLOBAL
Kalinga Seneviratne
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Climate Action
GLOBAL-AFRICA
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Afeez Bolaji
Students who are members of the Climate Students Movement have been working across country and regional borders to create awareness about climate change, in particular during April, which they observe as Sustainability Month. The movement mobilises student groups to push higher education institutions to become ‘brave climate leaders’.
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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SOUTHERN AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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SOUTHERN AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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GLOBAL
Iuna Tsyrulneva and Sulfikar Amir
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GLOBAL
Frederico Menino
The idea of creating in the Amazon a global university dedicated to saving the most consequential ecosystem of the planet seems like an unavoidable call to action. The question is not whether we should embrace the idea, but how we can make it work.
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CHINA
Shifei Duan, Qian Wu and Yue Kan
China’s universities are stepping up to the climate change challenge with an array of initiatives in research, knowledge sharing, national and global collaboration, and teaching and learning. But there are significant obstacles, and more needs to be done to address the link between theory and practice.
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Climate Change and COP27
NORWAY
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Jan Petter Myklebust
The harassment of mainly female climate scientists and other researchers who talk about their work in the media – both mainstream and social – is having a chilling effect on their willingness to communicate their findings in the public space, a recent survey has found.
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SOUTHERN AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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GLOBAL
Wagdy Sawahel
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GLOBAL
Eddie West
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AFRICA-GLOBAL
Scovian Lillian
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GLOBAL
Eve Ruwoko
An estimated 1,750 global institutional members of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, including universities and research centres, are to contribute expertise to the Global Climate Hub, Phoebe Koundouri, a professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, told delegates at COP27.
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EGYPT-AFRICA
Wagdy Sawahel
In an effort to accelerate climate adaptation across Africa, Egypt will host the Cairo Centre for Learning and Excellence on Adaptation and Resilience. Its establishment, with US$10 million to support the launch, was announced by Sameh Shoukry, the president of COP27 and Egypt’s foreign minister.
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ZIMBABWE-AFRICA
Kudzai Mashininga
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GLOBAL
Wagdy Sawahel and Eve Ruwoko
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GLOBAL
Adrienne Fusek
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GLOBAL
Nic Mitchell
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Access and Inclusion
GLOBAL
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Ola Lundemo, Whitney C Mohr and Jenny J Lee
As universities seek to educate increasingly diverse populations, any commitment to inclusiveness must include the recognition of and accommodation of all disabilities – including invisible disabilities which include chronic diseases and non-diagnosable conditions such as long COVID – and the dismantling of systemic ableism.
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EUROPE
Paul Norris, Jodie Duffy and Valentyna Krasnoshchok
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RWANDA
Jean d’Amour Mbonyinshuti
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GLOBAL
Brendan O’Malley
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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AUSTRALIA
Kalinga Seneviratne
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UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
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UNITED STATES
Lisa Ruth Brunner and Lisa Unangst
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GLOBAL
Nathan M Greenfield
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UNITED STATES
Jessica Crist
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Gender Equity
KENYA
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Scovian Lillian
Education, health and financial access are increasingly digital, and not having the skills or access will only increase gender inequity. Access to digital technologies is now a basic human right, says Professor Margee Ensign, the vice-chancellor of the private United States International University-Africa in Kenya.
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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AFRICA
Corlia Meyer, Catherine Beaudry and Heidi Prozesky
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UNITED STATES
Felecia Commodore
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GLOBAL
Andrea Pizziconi
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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AFGHANISTAN
Shadi Khan Saif
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Partnerships for the SDGs
AFRICA-EUROPE
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Desmond Thompson
Universities in Africa should make the most of their current ‘window of opportunity’ to access part of the €150 billion (US$163 billion) that the European Union agreed to invest in the areas of public health, a green transition, innovation and technology as well as capacities for science.
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AFRICA-GLOBAL
Sharon Dell
On the sidelines of the recent Reinventing Higher Education conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, two academics flesh out what upending the ‘unidirectional gaze’ that characterises existing North-South research collaborations might practically mean for universities, institutions and academics in the Global North.
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AFRICA-EUROPE
Wagdy Sawahel
To enhance the impact of Africa-Europe science, technology and innovation cooperation, it is necessary to focus on building capacities for long-term win-win partnerships that are co-founded, co-managed, co-owned and co-financed with an understanding of institutional and country contexts, along with respect for local knowledge and needs.
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AFRICA-GLOBAL
Maina Waruru
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Peace and Democracy
GLOBAL-JAPAN
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Suvendrini Kakuchi
The importance of strengthening the role of universities in fostering peace and security through engagement with governments was raised at a global meeting of more than 75 university leaders in Tokyo last week and will be conveyed to political leaders at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima.
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Biodiversity
GLOBAL-NORWAY
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Jan Petter Myklebust
The new United Nations treaty – 19 years in the making – which provides a legal framework for the establishment of vast marine protected areas represents enormous opportunities for ocean science and the building of marine-related scientific research capacity around the world, experts say.
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Employment and Industry
AFRICA
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Kudzai Mashininga
University graduates from a pan-African private higher education network have defied the odds in Africa, a continent suffering high graduate unemployment rates, by crafting partnerships involving universities as well as the private and public sectors to increase job placements, which, in some instances, are securing a 90% employment rate.
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AFRICA
Alejandro Caballero and Zukiswa Mthimunye
A group of innovative universities in Sub-Saharan Africa are working on a common problem. How can they bring economic opportunities to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population? Their solutions to upscale training in digital skills could make all the difference to the continent’s future.
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MYANMAR
Padone
The military takeover in Myanmar in 2021 has dramatically disrupted education systems, leaving many university students and prospective students with little choice but to put a hold on their studies, raising concerns from educators about the future of the country’s learners.
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Student View
EUROPE-ASIA
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Kalinga Seneviratne
After national governments, higher education institutions are the second most commonly involved organisations in addressing the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs around the world and, while they obviously face resource constraints, universities are nonetheless in a prime position to involve young people in SDG-related work.
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AFRICA-GLOBAL
Wagdy Sawahel
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GLOBAL
Eva Papanikolaki
This week sees the most significant political event for education in recent years: the United Nations Transforming Education Summit. Young people have fought hard for the inclusion of climate education and, hopefully, this will be visible in the results of the summit.
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ZAMBIA
Kudzai Mashininga
Florence Jedidiah Mulenga has addressed a United Nations Commission conference about supporting girls in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics space, has won numerous awards and has developed a concept to tackle asthma and hypertension. Next, the fifth-year pharmacy student wants to focus on taking innovations from Africa to a global market.
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LATIN AMERICA
Victor Leon
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ASIA
Worawalun Yarn-arpha
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World Higher Education Conference 2022
GLOBAL
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The third UNESCO World Higher Education Conference was held in Barcelona in Spain from 18 to 20 May 2022. The theme was Reinventing Higher Education for a Sustainable Future and the plan was to forge a common roadmap for higher education to 2030. University World News is the exclusive media partner for the conference.
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GLOBAL
Brendan O’Malley and Rebecca Warden
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GLOBAL
Yojana Sharma
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GLOBAL
Yojana Shama
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GLOBAL
Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit
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GLOBAL
Yojana Sharma
A groundbreaking UNESCO analysis, which shows the considerable scale of international aid flows to higher education, also reveals the magnitude of the geographical divide between the Global North and Global South and raises questions about who really benefits from such aid.
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GLOBAL
Rebecca Warden
UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay described higher education as a public good and a human right at the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022. This prompted delegates to ask what the right to higher education means in practice and which other rights are needed to deliver on this?
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GLOBAL
Nic Mitchell
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GLOBAL
Nathan M Greenfield
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GLOBAL
Wagdy Sawahel
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LATIN AMERICA
Rebecca Warden
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MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICA
Rebecca Warden
The agenda for higher education internationalisation in the Middle East and North Africa or MENA is lagging behind other regions. Some 4.5% of all students in the region were internationally mobile in 2019, but most of that mobility was one way – outward bound – the World Higher Education Conference 2022 was told.
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GLOBAL
Rebecca Warden
How to provide lifelong learning is not a new topic and it has been on the agenda for decades in regions such as Europe. But the advent of SDG 4 has given a new impetus and created a new sense of awareness among universities of their role in providing this form of learning.
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AFRICA-GLOBAL
Wagdy Sawahel
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SDGs and Agenda 2030
GLOBAL
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The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs were adopted by all 193 member states of the United Nations in September 2015. They represent an urgent call to action through global cooperation to achieve transformative changes for the world by 2030.
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Sustainability Rankings
GLOBAL
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Anete Veidemane and Frans Kaiser
Work already done towards the development of internationally comparable ‘education for sustainable development’ or ESD indicators – currently missing from all of the existing higher education sustainability rankings – suggests that universities need to select sustainability indicators mindfully, aligned with their own needs rather than latest trends.
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GLOBAL
Ellen Hazelkorn and Philip G Altbach
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GLOBAL
Nic Mitchell
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GLOBAL
Wachira Kigotho
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GLOBAL
UWN reporter
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AFRICA
Wachira Kigotho
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GLOBAL
Ellen Hazelkorn
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From our Archive: Top Stories on SDGs
GLOBAL
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Maria Elena Hurtado
Female enrolment in higher education has tripled globally between 1995 and 2018. However, recent research has provided evidence that the gender gap in higher education has declined very little in recent decades and closely matches the continued gender inequality in the labour market.
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AFRICA
Mthokozisi Emmanuel Ntuli
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GLOBAL
Yojana Sharma
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PAKISTAN
Brendan O’Malley
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GLOBAL
Brendan O’Malley
None of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs – the internationally agreed framework for tackling poverty, inequality, disease and climate change – can be achieved without the contribution of higher education through research, teaching and community engagement, networks representing 2,000 universities have told the UN.
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GLOBAL
Brendan O’Malley
Now is the time for the international community to recognise the fundamental importance of higher education to achieving all 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs and for universities to dedicate themselves to helping the world achieve them, say leaders of three global university associations.
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Sponsored Article
University of Victoria staff
Accelerating Community Energy Transformation is a University of Victoria-led collaborative initiative that brings together over 40 partners, including Indigenous knowledge keepers and community leaders, to create innovative place-based solutions for energy system transformation.
Promoted by the University of Victoria.
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Sponsored Article
Stellenbosch University staff
Africa needs to stop paying the price for the rest of the world’s recalcitrance to act fast enough in response to the irrefutable conclusions that climate change is real and that the impact of global warming could be devasting, says Professor Guy Midgley, interim director of the School for Climate Studies at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Promoted by Stellenbosch University.
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Sponsored Article
UAE University staff
Researchers from the United Arab Emirates University have shown that the potential benefits of building energy savings and a cooler indoor environment, as well as improved cooling effect on air temperature at pedestrian level, strongly indicate that a cool roof with high solar reflectance and albedo is a promising strategy for buildings in regions with hot, arid climates.
Promoted by United Arab Emirates University.
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Sponsored Article
University of Pretoria staff
In the publication of its first progress report on its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals, the University of Pretoria is navigating new territory at the same time as it is acknowledging its clear stewardship role in protecting the environment and biodiversity.
Promoted by the University of Pretoria.
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