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Impact is also of growing importance across sectors. This can be seen in the development of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals from the Millenium Development Goals. For those who are unfamiliar and to quote the UN SDG website, “On September 25th 2015, countries adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda, building on the Millenium Development Goals. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and people like you.”On the first of January 2016, these 17 Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) officially came into force and for each of the SDGs targets the UN has created indicators for each country to report to track the progress against the goals each year. This provides us with a useful starting point and framework to consider, as the SDGs are globally recognized and approved by governments around the world as being key for growth of the global economy and sustainability of the world we live in.Higher education institutions are explicitly recognized in a number of the SDGs but HEIs’ contributions are needed much more broadly to achieve all of the SDGs. As the SDGs cover a wide range of social, economic and environmental challenges, the functions and expertise of HEIs are critical for overcoming them. These include knowledge, learning, demonstration, impact and collaboration. First, addressing the challenges of the SDGs will require new knowledge, new ways of doing things. Universities can lead the societal and environmental progress through research and knowledge creation where they can help their communities to understand the challenges and opportunities, develop and implement policies and solutions and transform pathways; Second, ‘learning’ refers to universities needing to ensure that they are equipping current and future leaders of the world with knowledge, skills and motivation to achieve the SDGs; Third, demonstration is about universities needing to lead by example in engaging with external stakeholders to create an impact at the global and local levels; Fourth, other than research and knowledge creation and exchange, at universities, staff, students, campuses and supply chain also have a significant impact on the local and global wellbeing. Universities thus should look into how their governance, operations and culture can contribute to the SDGs targets; And lastly, collaboration. As universities hold a position of trust with stakeholders within society, we have the responsibility to guide and lead local, national and regional communities to response to SDGs through cross-sectoral dialogues and partnerships. We have a role to educate the public and other sectors on the importance of the SDGs. Currently, there are many universities around the world working on solving environmental and societal challenges through a variety of approaches. For example, Harvard University has been addressing their societal and environmental impacts through their governance, culture and operations for many years. More on this in the upcoming ‘impact reporting’ lesson. Universities can map their faculties and various areas of operations against the SDGs to underline the relevance of their activities. Mapping is an essential exercise for universities to start the discussions around contributions to the SDGs, as well as to engage and build capacity of faculties and students for this purpose. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Australia/Pacific’s document on ‘Getting Started with the SDGs in Universities’ provides a good starting point for universities looking to do such a mapping exercise. In the document, the organization suggests 3 main approaches to mapping: desktop assessment; self-identification - which means getting faculties to self-identify which SDGs their activities align with; and keyword searches - which means using SDG-specific keyword, like child poverty, sustainable tourism, gender equality, to search through large sets of research or other activities related data. In recent developments, the Times Higher Education has also developed a new global university impact ranking that aims to measure institutions’ success in contributing towards the United Nations’ SDGs. This new ranking will be another fantastic opportunity to celebrate and showcase the excellent work universities undertake and the range of ways in which they contribute to local, national and global societies and economies. ................
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