Brief Summary
Global sustainability action is changing, with solutions borne from rapidly evolving cross-sector global Sustainable Development Goals in particular the Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17). To ensure sustainability learning remains relevant and responsive to a changing world, industry, academia, non-government organizations and environmental education must share knowledge and engage youth in sustainability goals and metrics. This is a collection published in Sustainable Earth Reviews.
Objective
Incorporating sustainability concepts as part of curriculum and learning tools at the interface of industry, governments, NGOs, and higher education will build capacity within tomorrow’s workforce, and develop future leaders who can straddle partnerships that promote innovation and learning needed to address the global climate crisis. Three golden points for learning sustainability are 1) preparing a future workforce for future industries (which are unknown), 2) creating industry/student/academic collaborations that creates space for an agile curriculum that can remain responsive to a rapidly changing world and work environment, 3) the complexity of future challenges and the type of education that suits and 4) recognizing that workforce needs and issues are ever changing and have not yet been determined by industry (thus we cannot build a static curriculum to respond to it).
The objectives of Learning Sustainability: Partnerships for the Goals are to:
- Share visions from perspectives of youth, academia, industry and non-governmental organizations from different regions of the world for preparing the future workforce for global challenges and environmental sustainability
- Outline mechanisms for collaborations among the academy, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and industry to ensure curricula is relevant and agile to a rapidly changing world
- Promote youth action and engagement as informed participants in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and similar UN environmental fora
- Promote dynamic and transdisciplinary collaborations that are global and provide a diverse and ethical perspective for future leaders on environmental negotiations through training and curriculum.
Learning Sustainability: Partnerships for the Goals focuses on the incorporation of the sustainable development goals into curriculum through the lens of cross-sector partnerships whether inside an established academic setting, or through informal learning opportunities. The collection welcomes non-standard research articles, commentaries, reviews on a variety of topics including but not limited to:
- What partnerships for the goals mean for authentic education
- Sustainability Action - Youth voices and visions of the future of for-purpose work
- Views from the industry and academia on sustainability learning
- Mechanisms for promoting future focused curricula
- Partnerships for the Goals: Co-developed sustainability curriculum
- Global education for environmental sustainability: Partnerships and perspectives for a just transition and global equity
Types of contributors and papers of interest
Editorials, commentaries, debates, frontiers papers and reviews are sought with an emphasis on solution-oriented papers with focus on curriculum that is informed by partnerships with industry, NPOs, government organizations and UN agencies. Papers which explore the integration of global perspectives and partnerships in sustainability learning are also of strong interest. Please see author guidelines. Interested contributors may submit a title and short synopsis of the proposed contribution and type via the google form by June 30, 2023. Figures, tables, and other supplementary information are welcome and the publisher, Springer Nature will be waiving open access fees for this collection for pieces submitted within the timeframe below:
Schedule for publication
June: call for contributions—submission of titles and short prospectus with article type.
September-October: full submissions submitted for peer review process.
Spring 2024: publication. Note we are also seeking photographs for consideration as collection covers or supplementary materials.
Inquiries may be directed to Susie and Gillian at any time. Content submissions should be entered in the link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7-C4WNKgs0mFPScWApm6IDvS2hl12rOVdnJnVh5We_PAgLQ/viewform. Decisions on submissions will be by the lead editors and will be swift, full submissions will go out for peer review in the fall.
Guest Editors:
Gillian Bowser, Colorado State University, United States of America
Susie Ho, Monash University, Australia
Submission Guidelines
Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system. During the submission process, under the section additional information, you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Learning Sustainability: Partnerships for the Goals" from the dropdown menu.
Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies including those pertaining to Collections. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.
The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.