SESSIONS

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Bridging the gap between sustainability discourse and classroom reality: How can we ensure Education for Sustainable Development reaches everyone? Developed at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) through the IKDi3 Educational Innovation framework (HBP/PIE i3lab 25-34), our project breaks down traditional barriers by integrating professional TV production with political strategy. Through simulated electoral debates, we democratize access to high-tech tools and empower students to navigate the complexities of modern democracy. It is more than a simulation; it’s a blueprint for inclusive, transformative higher education.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Listen to the experience of a research-based learning workshop that explored how universities can foster wellbeing at individual, collective, and planetary levels. Over two days at NOVA University Lisbon, participants engaged in co-creative sessions, roundtables, and participatory methods to rethink wellbeing beyond mental health. Discover how universities can embed Sustainable Wellbeing into strategies, reporting, and campus culture, linking human flourishing with social and ecological health. This activity took place in the context of the EU Higher Education Alliance EUTOPIA, led by the thematic Connected Community: Sustainable Well-being for People & Planet / Caring Communities

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: French

Education for Sustainable Development has become a major challenge for the future of higher education. But how are these issues actually integrated into Cameroonian universities? This presentation offers a concrete analysis of ESD in six public universities in Cameroon (Yaoundé I, Yaoundé II, Douala, Dschang, Ebolowa, and Bertoua). Based on a mapping of academic programs, quantitative data, and field examples, it highlights existing practices, current limitations, and realistic pathways for improvement. A space for reflection and dialogue to collectively rethink the strategic role of universities in the sustainable transition.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

In the context of place-based education, the emotional aspect of competencies is stressed and opportunities for students and teachers to develop relationships with each other are opened. The presentation introduces an in-service teacher education programme in which action research analysed the development of sustainability competencies within a local context. The roles of teachers and students changed: teachers became learning guides and students learned to participate, become independent, and take responsibility; confidence in their ability to influence their surroundings grew. The results provided evidence for the practical integration of anticipatory competence into educational objectives within curricula.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

What if mentoring were treated as institutional infrastructure for transformative ESD and not optional support for a few? In this session, we explore intergenerational mentoring as a faculty learning architecture that reshapes curriculum, assessment, and scholarly development in required learning spaces. Expect a clear conceptual model, concrete teaching artifacts, and an invitation to rethink what it means to "leave no one behind".

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

As the climate crisis intensifies, how do we reach the 90% of students who bypass environmental science in high school? This session presents "Foundations for the Future," a first-year seminar (FYS) designed to bridge this gap. Using the Ambitious Science Teaching framework and MIT/Sloan simulations, this interdisciplinary course transforms the "gateway" seminar into a high-impact climate laboratory. We share quantitative data showing significant learning gains (p<0.001) and discuss how science faculty can leverage FYS structures to bypass curricular silos, fostering agency and scientific literacy in students across all majors from their very first semester.

Topic 2: Intercultural issues in transformative ESD

Working language: English

How can engineering education for sustainable development benefit from intercultural dialogue? Drawing on multi-sited research conducted in Europe, North Africa, and Taiwan, this session offers a critical and comparative perspective on how sustainability education is shaped by cultural contexts, values, and worldviews. By crossing pedagogical traditions and epistemological frameworks, it explores how diverse approaches to human-nature relationships, collective action, and learning can enrich transformative ESD. The session invites participants to rethink dominant models and to engage in intercultural reflection in order to imagine more pluralistic, inclusive, and effective pathways for educating future engineers.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

The emotional journey of young transdisciplinary researchers.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

Emotions are important for good learning experiences and the acquisition of competencies. While one the one side climate anxiety and mental health problems are growing among students in western countries, teachers in schools and higher education institutions face on the other side more and more challenges how to create a resonant learning environment providing positive emotions for learners. We want to explore the possibilities of service-learning formats concerning their capacity to provide positive emotions in the learning process. Therefore, we rely on the resonance theory of Hartmut Rosa and analyse the aspects of listening, answering and transforming in resonant encounters.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

A cross-country policy review across Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia reveals a persistent gap between strong commitments to ESD and its implementation in teacher competences and professional development. This presentation shares key recommendations for integrating ESD into teacher education across Sub-Saharan Africa, aligning national priorities with regional and global quality education goals, and highlights the role of teacher leadership in advancing transformative, decolonized sustainability learning.

Topic 2: Intercultural issues in transformative ESD

Working language: English

How can virtual mobility transform journalism education and prepare students for sustainable, cross-border collaboration in a globalised world? This Teaching and Learning Lab presents a real ENLIGHT-based pedagogical experience connecting media students from Ireland, Spain and Slovakia. Participants will explore how virtual mobility, project-based learning and internationalisation at home can foster transformative, inclusive and practice-oriented learning. Drawing on concrete outcomes and student feedback, the session offers practical insights, challenges and recommendations for designing impactful transnational learning experiences in higher education.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

How can universities ensure that students graduate with the knowledge, values, and skills of addressing global sustainability challenges? Drawing on six years of practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, this presentation showcases how university-wide General Education can become a powerful driver of transformative sustainability education. centred on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the initiative integrates foundational learning, interdisciplinary coursework, and real-world action across the undergraduate experience. Participants will gain practical insights into institutional strategy, curriculum design, and scalable models that make sustainability education inclusive, engaging, and impactful.

Topic 2: Intercultural issues in transformative ESD

Working language: English

These scholars use testimonio to show how gender and race manifests in the lives of a Black woman and gay Japanese male academics. Their collaborative autoethnography is more than telling among colleagues because the doing and performative nature is an empowering and transformative act of resistance.

Topic 1: ESD in less industrialised contexts

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: French

This session explores how transformative learning can help decolonize education for sustainable development in the Global South. Drawing on UNESCO 2030 and the Berlin Declaration 2021, combined with case studies from African classrooms, it highlights local knowledge, learners’ experiences, and community dynamics. Participants will discover approaches that reconnect learning with action, emotions, and context, empowering students to actively shape sustainable solutions.

Topic 2: Intercultural issues in transformative ESD

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Why is sustainability so difficult to achieve? Often, the challenge lies in the invisible stories that shape our worldviews. This session introduces a narrative-based framework for higher education that invites learners to critically examine their thinking. By exploring the links between personal stories and cultural meta-narratives, students surface hidden assumptions and the inherent limits of different knowledge systems. Through reflective and collaborative narrative practices, this framework opens space for engaging with diverse worldviews and experimenting with plural ways of imagining sustainable futures. The session foregrounds epistemic humility and emotional attentiveness as essential tools for sustainability transformation.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

How can universities move beyond isolated sustainability initiatives toward truly transformative change? This session explores existing whole-of-institution approaches to sustainability education in higher education institutions, drawing on findings from a global scoping review. Participants will gain insight into what enables, or constrains, meaningful transformation across higher education institutions, and how these insights can inform future research and practice in sustainability education.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

How can STEM education move beyond awareness to real agency for sustainability? This session presents an action-research study using futures-thinking methodologies—worldbuilding, possible selves, and backcasting—to help STEM students reconnect technical knowledge with values, emotions, and responsibility. Drawing on curriculum-integrated workshops with engineering and science students, the paper shows how imagining desirable futures can foster reflection, wellbeing, and concrete proposals for curriculum and institutional transformation. Join us to explore how futures literacy can strengthen transformative Education for Sustainable Development in higher education.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

Decolonising ESD calls for more than curricular change. It requires rethinking how universities know, learn, and act. This contribution introduces a decolonial theoretical framework grounded in three paradigm shifts: plural knowledge ecologies, reflexive and experiential learning, and collective design communities. Drawing on the Whole Institution Approach, the paper discusses how higher education can become a democratic space for transformative, inclusive, and globally just Education for Sustainable Development.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

In an increasingly interconnected and fragile world, relationality has become central to how we think, learn, and act. Sustainability education is enriched by approaches that attend to our entanglement in more-than-human worlds, opening possibilities for new ways of being, doing, and knowing together. This paper introduces the metaphor of ringing the bells — an embodied call to attention — toward five key areas of focus, which will be explored in the presentation. Together, these areas form a compass for guiding relational teaching and learning in higher education, fostering deeper attunement, care, and responsibility within more-than-human pedagogical contexts.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

This paper examines how a Whole-Institution Approach (WIA) to ESD can advance the principle of "leaving no one behind" within higher education institutions (HEIs) and beyond. Drawing on empirical evidence and case studies from the UNESCO-coordinated Transforming Futures project, which engaged educational institutions across ten countries, the paper analyses how value-guided ESD and WIA components across governance, curriculum, research, campus practices, and external engagement can foster inclusive, transformative change. In addition to reporting outcomes, the paper critically reflects on the process of conducting multi-country action research, highlighting challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned in translating global guidance tools into diverse local contexts. By sharing practical insights and empirical evidence, the paper contributes to understanding how HEIs can become inclusive agents of societal transformation through ESD.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Can micro-credentials accelerate sustainability in higher education? Drawing on student insights from Brazil and Poland, this study reveals strong demand for Education for Sustainable Development, highlights gaps between personal action and systemic change, and shows how flexible, practice-oriented micro-credentials can boost engagement, inclusion, retention, and lifelong learning across university contexts.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: French

The relationship between health and nature has become established as an emerging and transdisciplinary field in the contemporary landscape of social and health sciences, spilling over into higher education. Faced with accelerated urbanization and climate change, understanding health beyond conventional biomedical paradigms becomes urgent, demanding integrative approaches that articulate human well-being within natural and sustainable environments, minimizing climate anxiety influenced by chronic stress. This study proposes a critical reflection on the training of 140 postgraduate students in Integrative Health and Well-being in the city of São Paulo (2024 and 2025), considering Forest Bathing or shinrin-youku as immersive practices in nature in light of SDGs 3, 4, 11, 13, 14, and 15.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Traditionally, universities assemble top experts in their fields and hope that this expertise will magically rub off onto their students. But successfully transferring information and developing skills requires an understanding of how the human brain and human emotions actually function. This workshop will demonstrate how to favour knowledge retention by appealing to peripheral perception, long-term memory and the unconscious. It will focus on communicative skills to stimulate critical introspection, to bolster confidence, and to heighten perception and allow unconscious pathways to blossom. This session will offer very concrete steps to make magic happen.

Topic 2: Intercultural issues in transformative ESD

Working language: English

A new situation arose in Europe following the invasion of Ukraine: a huge migration of European students. Even experienced teachers of migrant students confronted new challenges. Two months after the invasion we began holding weekly online support sessions with Ukrainian teachers, and later also engaged teachers of migrant Ukrainian students in Poland and Sweden. We collected dozens of case studies; produced two books; and ran a pilot course for teachers. Now we explore with you the usefulness of this experience and these tools: both in higher education, and with other students who are unwilling migrants.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

Greta Thunberg says: “I want you to panic”. We don’t. How do we teach climate change without overwhelming our students? How do we transform anxiety into resilience and collective agency? This hands-on Teaching & Learning Lab explores CLARITY, an Erasmus+ project offering many practical, research-grounded tools for working with climate emotions, inner capacities, and regenerative mindsets. Through experiential exercises and dialogue, participants will engage with approaches that integrate emotional literacy and systems thinking into sustainability education. Not a lecture – a space to reflect, connect, and reimagine how we teach.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

What if sustainability could be felt before being understood? Flumia / Aqua Lux invites participants into a sensory learning environment for higher educational contexts, where energy, light, and water become perceptible through sound and movement. Instead of data and prescriptions, this lab offers an embodied experience that fosters reflection, emotional awareness, and collective agency. Through hands-on exploration and dialogue, participants will discover how invisible physical processes can become powerful tools for transformative education and sustainability literacy.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

How can higher education transform climate anxiety into collective agency? This Teaching & Learning Lab invites participants to experience Cycling to Care (C2C), an embodied, nature-based approach that works with climate emotions through movement, care, and relational learning. Drawing on intergenerational cycling experiences and reflective learning journeys, the lab explores how emotionally safe spaces can support wellbeing while fostering responsibility and action. Participants will engage with concrete practices and design principles to move from eco-distress to shared, hopeful, and action-oriented Education for Sustainable Development.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

Welcome to the Planet C – Play Again?® Teaching and Learning Lab! Are you interested in governance and participatory approaches? Would you like to discover an innovative learning tool that raises awareness of the challenges of sustainability and shared resource management? This immersive game-based workshop is designed for those concerned about growing polarisation and eager to explore pathways toward collective, win-win solutions. If you want to better understand the barriers and levers of collective action while enjoying an eye-opening experience, don’t hesitate to join us. The workshop lasts 180 minutes and is limited to 18 participants.

Topic 2: Intercultural issues in transformative ESD

Working language: French

Show the ills of our societies through the words of sustainable development: this workshop offers an immersion in keywords clouds from high school and academics students, based on their representations of sustainable development. It continues with an invitation to a graphic creation of the words expressed by the participants of the summit, to make visible the semantic field associated with a transformative and decolonized education for sustainability.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

This is a 90-minute, hands-on workshop exploring how photography can be used to examine the interconnected relationships between human health, environmental systems, and social and political structures. Combining short conceptual inputs with practical image-making, editing, and group critique, participants will create a concise visual sequence that communicates planetary health issues. Drawing on photojournalism, Doughnut Economics, and the Sustainable Development Goals, the workshop introduces photography as both a powerful storytelling tool and an emerging research method. No prior photography experience is required; mobile phones are welcome.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

Can storytelling and technology transform how we teach sustainable finance? This interactive 90-minute lab demonstrates a research-driven framework that moves students beyond a "profitability-driven regime". Through the multimedia case study, "Ruscombe Artisan Food & Drink Ltd", participants will navigate a real-world "disorienting dilemma": balancing a £90k forest investment against SME financial constraints.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English & French

With the Global Trade Fresco, we invite you to come and decipher the mechanisms of international trade together! In this three-hour workshop, we will first take a broad look at economic growth, hidden costs, offshoring, price volatility, protectionism, food insecurity, and more. These realities will no longer hold any secrets for you. In the second part of the workshop, we will sharpen our critical thinking skills together and come up with collective solutions for fairer, greener, and more equitable global trade!

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Whose voices shape sustainability research futures? Focusing on the University of Lisbon, this study examines the participation and agency of women of non-European identities in sustainability projects. Using intersectional and decolonial perspectives, it reveals structural barriers and opportunities, offering evidence-based recommendations to foster inclusive leadership, equitable research design, and truly shared visions of sustainable futures.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Not easy to jump from the big springboard: will you help us? TREMPLIN is a collective project that rethinks engineering education in the context of socio-environmental transitions. Like a springboard, it is a space for small rebounds before the dive: short workshops, experience sharing, and pedagogical experimentation to dare teaching differently. Between hesitation, momentum, and loss of balance, we explore how to integrate sustainability, social justice, and interdisciplinarity. Participants are invited to share their successes, doubts, and challenges, helping transform these tentative rebounds into a collective leap toward more inclusive and sustainable engineering education.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

How can universities align sustainability and internationalisation strategies? This session presents insights from DG HochN’s hub series, showcasing collaborative recommendations on governance, Global Citizenship Education, fair mobility, and responsible partnerships. Join a collective intelligence exchange exploring practical tools for whole-institution transformation, inclusive participation, and decolonising curricula across diverse European and global higher education contexts.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. – Kurt Vonnegut

We think about an ‘edge pedagogy’: bringing ourselves and our students to their learning edge, their growing edge – their transformative edge. Our experimental online platform, The Learning Edge Nexus, is a product of ten partner organisations including the COPERNICUS Alliance and Legacy17. What works, what doesn’t, how can it be improved? And how can its lessons be of use to HE educators everywhere? Bring yourself, and your edge.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Since 2025, the University of Bern (UniBE) has pursued its vision of an "Engaged UniBE", creating spaces for exchange, visibility, and genuine dialogue. As part of a national consortium of four higher education institutions, UniBE is piloting the real-world experiment "Engaged Mittelstrasse" to strengthen institutional cultures of sustainability through a transdisciplinary, co-creative process. Bringing together university actors from all staff levels, "Engaged Mittelstrasse" explores everyday sustainability practices, experiments with new forms of mutual learning, and generates insights to support institutional change. Through this collective intelligence boost, we seek to learn from and exchange experiences with other practitioners navigating experimental change processes.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: French

A presentation followed by an interactive workshop based on VISA pour le Voyage, whose aim is to offer an active learning approach for young people taking part in solidarity travel programs. This approach seeks to develop their critical thinking and analytical skills before, during, and after their stay abroad, helping them better understand the intercultural, social, and solidarity-related issues connected to their travel experience.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

We introduce a new, replicable student–faculty living lab model designed to help universities transform climate anxiety and disengagement into collective agency for sustainability action. Do you have a university sustainability-related living lab or a sustainability team where students and faculty mix? If yes – we will be grateful for you to take part in our collective intelligence boost, to test the model’s triggers, motivators, and preconditions in your context. If not - please come so you get inspired. You are encouraged to take the model back to your university, adapt it so your sustainability-oriented living lab can be strengthened.

Topic 1: ESD in less industrialised contexts

Working language: English

Step into the in-between: Pedagogy of Degrowth in Liminal Times invites you to explore the purpose of education beyond growth. In this interactive session, we will examine how liminal spaces – moments of ambiguity and transition – can become fertile grounds for collective learning, shared responsibility, and reimagining what education is for. Bring your questions, experiences, and curiosity. Together, we’ll experiment with ideas that challenge conventional approaches and imagine education as a transformative, relational, and post-growth practice.

Topic 4: Climate emotions in transformative ESD

Working language: English

This interactive session explores the role of climate emotions in higher education and ESD. Drawing on empirical research and the newly developed Emotion-Sensitive Sustainability Coaching (ESSC) program, participants will engage in short experiential exercises and collective reflection. The session invites educators, researchers, and practitioners to share perspectives on supporting emotional competencies, learner well-being, and institutional change, and to co-create context-sensitive strategies for addressing climate emotions in diverse higher education settings. The session also aims to further develop the ESSC programme based on participant feedback.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

From principles to practice - decolonising Education for Sustainable Development. This 90 -min session is built around a Charter for Sustainability Education and Research developed by the International Graduate School (IGS) North-South. The Charter outlines guiding principles in four focus areas: inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration and peer learning, quality PhD supervision, rethinking partnerships within academia and carbon reduction towards climate neutrality. Participants will work with selected Charter principles reflecting on what enables or hinders decolonising ESD at their own institution and collectively explore pathways for actionable change.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

At BOKU, a university grounded in natural sciences which is positioning itself as a university of sustainability, we find that decolonization is increasingly important but also difficult to convey to colleagues and students trained in positivist paradigms. Even more so in the face of narratives which downplay national colonial continuities in Austria. In a collective intelligence boost we want to discuss strategies to integrate decolonial approaches in adverse contexts.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

Education is increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, also influencing how sustainability knowledge is produced, legitimised, taught, and governed. While AI tools promise efficiency and expanded access to information, they also risk reinforcing existing power relations by privileging dominant epistemologies, languages, and data sources – often rooted in Western and Eurocentric worldviews. In this context, AI does not merely mediate learning; it actively shapes what counts as sustainability knowledge and whose perspectives are made visible or marginalised. This workshop situates inner development as a key entry point for decolonising ESD while also adressing the eurocentric origin of the IDG framework itself.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English

Decolonisation of Higher Education Institutions and Artificial Intelligence: Based on our Guide "Decolonizing Universities and Colleges – Possibilities for Reflections and Actions" we want to address the current hot topic of Artificial Intelligence and Decolonisation. The Networking Corner will be a place to discuss, share ideas and solutions as well as alternative visions to gather collective knowledge. On posters recorded results will be an additional base for expanding the Guide and providing further knowledge and reflections for Higher Education Institutions to address decolonisation within their organisation.

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

It is all about trees in ARBOREACARLO. You decide as RANGER, how wood is cultivated and tendered. It is in your hands as CUSTOMER, which wood products you preferably opt for. Your managerial success will be determined on the virtual MARKETPLACE of wood and wood based products displaying your expertise and intuition of wood cultivation and use. The app also indicates your preparedness vis à vis occurring events; that’s going to be the proof of the pudding whether you are resilient towards a couple of occurrences: Are your tree species prone to damages caused by heavy storms? Which AGENCY does provide smooth and quiet trading? Which types of wooden products are you into? According to which trade based criteria do you select them for the CONSULTANCY? The carlowitz simulation game is a turn based, interactive format that enables experiencing self efficacy for sustainability action.

Topic 5: Decolonising ESD

Working language: English & French

We want to propose an interactive 60 minutes brainstorming session on biases and blind spots in transformative sustainability education. What are the issues that are outside the scope of the mainstream in ESD? Why are certain dimensions, perspectives, obstacles or problems hardly ever explicitly addressed? What can we do to enlarge our focus and to avoid pitfalls?

Topic 3: The role of universities in "leaving no one behind"

Working language: English

Come and explore a poster showcasing a wide range of teaching and learning tools to support soil health education, all easily downloadable via links and QR codes. Drawing on almost three years of work in the Horizon Europe project LOESS, we present key findings on soil health education across Europe and a collection of resources, from teacher trainings to practical educational tools for primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational, and adult education. All materials are available in 16 languages and use barrier-free technology to ensure accessibility.