Wendy Steele - The Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education: A Transformative Agenda?

How did the world get to the point of entering the multi-catastrophic Anthropocene ? How did universities get to the point of being places of intense paradox ? And how did we, as two Australian university-based academics who research the impacts and antecedents of the climate emergency from a critical social science perspective, get to the point of writing this book on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the role of higher education ?

As academics based in a public university system under enormous growth and development pressures with scaffolding flow-on effects for people, place and planet, we are highly alert to the fact that the crisis in higher education mirrors the broader climate of crisis and change. Despite the rhetoric around sustainability , impact and engagement, there is too little urgency or action within the mainstream Academy or in society on the big societal issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and deep inequalities.

Decoupling the idea of the university from the developmentalities that have led to current global conditions of unsustainability has never been more needed. And yet it has never felt so hard. The issue is that they are inextricably linkedjoined at the hipwith shared histories, trajectories and legacies that must be first recognised and understood in order to be meaningfully addressed. This inconvenient, uncomfortable truth utterly disrupts the idea that universities are above, beyond or outside the worlds they critique and serve. It exposes the notion that universities can choose to engage, or not, as a myththe question is how, not if, they affect the sustainable development challenge.

Now more than ever it is clear that we cannot neglect our global context and local connections. The SDG agenda is not perfect, but it holds radical potential relative to what many universities currently do and offers a platform and prospects for transformative action and change. Universities are at the heart of sustainability from the inside out. The SDGs are a shared witness statement to the state of the planet, one that requires humility and responsibility, but also brings with it hope that a more sustainable future is stillpossible.

We would like to acknowledge that we live and work on the unceded lands of the Wurrundjeri people of the Eastern Kulin Nations and as uninvited guests we pay our sincere respects to Ancestors and Elders past, present and emerging.

This book began with a small project that received the RMIT University Enabling Capability Platform (ECP) Big Ideas seed funding in 2018. We would like to acknowledge and thank Swee Mak and the ECP Directors for their support and engagement with the project. In particular, our thanks to Bruce Willis, Emma Shortis, Robbie Guevera, Simon Feeney, Renzo-Mori Junior, Jago Dodson, Prashanti Mayfield, Billie Giles-Corti, Ralph Horne, Joana Correria, Kim Gordon, Andrew Butt, Libby Porter and Olga Kokshagina for their constructive suggestions and encouragement. A number of key people have been supportive of the project and made time for meetings and discussion around the innovative role of the SDGs at RMIT University, including Calum Drummond, Mark McMillan, Belinda Tynan, Peter West, Katherine Johnson, Peter Kelly, Usha Iyer-Raniga, Clare Russell, Riaan Lourens, David Downes, Sherman Young, Linda Stevenson, Brian Coffee, Kylie Porter, Karyn Bosomworth, Melanie Davern, John Handmer and Darryn McEvoy. The project has been greatly enriched by the many contributions of the research associates and assistants: Oli Moraes, Mette Hotker, Anthony Richardson, Jaydon Holmes, Sarah Robertson and Tom Overton-Skinner.