Unlocking knowledge for sustainability: Partnership-based research and education

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Key messages

• Overcoming 21^st-century threats like climate change, species extinction, infectious disease outbreaks, and inequality will demand unprecedented levels of cooperation and sharing of knowledge.
• Higher education and research for sustainable development is an ideal vehicle to bring people together towards a common purpose. It can foster urgently needed collaboration between different scientific and professional disciplines, public and private sectors, social strata, countries, and regions.
• CDE has pioneered a transformative approach to tackling shared global challenges. It emphasizes North–South partnership, transdisciplinarity, knowledge co-production, and training of change agents – i.e. the next generation of leaders, experts, bridge builders, and engaged members of civil society.
• High-income countries and donors should invest more in long-term partnership-based sustainability research and education, make published knowledge accessible to all, and help establish centres of advanced study and teaching in low-income countries.

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Borderless crises

The new decade wasted no time in reminding us of the borderless challenges we face. Indeed, fires ignited the decade before continued to rage worldwide. In January 2020, smoke from blazing landscapes in drought-afflicted Australia travelled over 4,000 km, darkening the skies above New Zealand and endangering the health of distant neighbours.¹ Travelling air pollution like this has threatened far-flung communities for years in countries like India and China – much of it owing not to fires but to dirty, climate-warming industrial production of goods for global consumers. Meanwhile, in Brazil, tropical forests that should clean and replenish the world’s air continue to be wiped out at alarming rates, driven especially by global demand for meat, soybeans, and other “commodities”. And alongside these ecological crises, a social epidemic of inequality plagues countries everywhere. It, too, is globally entwined in both its causes, like “land grabs” and exploitation of workers, and its consequences, like economic refugees and reactionary politics.

These are just a few examples of our interwoven 21^st-century sustainability challenges, none of which can be solved by individual countries in isolation.² And today, of course, we find ourselves struggling to contain a frightening pandemic – one that arguably resulted, like other major zoonotic disease outbreaks, from human mishandling of nature in our era of hyperglobalization.³ In the big picture, COVID-19 might be seen as merely the latest globe-spanning sustainability crisis that demands international cooperation and scientific innovation if we hope to solve it. The question arises: How and where will such problem-solving collaboration take place – especially in our era of rising nationalisms, ideological divisions, and misguided zero-sum thinking? And how will new generations learn to tackle such challenges more pre-emptively, rather than simply being forced to react when the worst-possible scenarios come to pass?

Universities as networked laboratories for solutions and change agents

If history is a guide, university-level research and education will be decisive in overcoming present and future disease outbreaks and dealing with other worldwide sustainability challenges.⁴ Indeed, universities have played a major role in past breakthroughs, ranging from the polio vaccine to renewable energy technology. They have also been instrumental in enhancing, systematizing, and sharing vitally important (but often less celebrated) practical and social innovations, such as techniques of sustainable land management and guidelines for governance of common-pool resources like rivers, forests, soils, and even clean air.⁵ And crucially, universities are key sites where the next generation of experts, decision-makers, and engaged citizens forms or reshapes its worldview, learns to grasp the crises we face, and strives to design appropriate responses – whether targeted interventions or holistic transformations in the way we lead our lives.

Knowledge obstacles

For university-level research and education to realize its full sustainability potential, however, universities must simultaneously critically reflect on and address some homegrown problems.⁶

• First, scientists and teachers should more explicitly consider the ethical dimensions of their work, abandoning illusions of a neat split between human values and scientific facts.⁷ Indeed, values are part and parcel of sustainable development and any science conducted in its service.
• Second, it is necessary to consciously work against trends of knowledge privatization, as evidenced by increasingly profit-oriented higher education systems, overly restrictive “intellectual property” regimes, and paywalled scientific journals run by multinational publishing companies.⁸
• Third, universities and science at large – especially in the global North – must critically examine their role in global power structures of the past (e.g. colonialism) and present (e.g. centre–periphery divides).⁹
• Fourth, they must actively strive to redress the knowledge impacts of these asymmetric power relations, above all the highly unequal global distribution of scientific resources and capacities.¹⁰ Indeed, top-ranked, high-resource universities and peer-reviewed journals remain overwhelmingly concentrated in wealthy countries of the global North¹¹ – many of them former colonial powers or beneficiaries.
• Finally, a better balance must be struck between research and teaching – the latter has been increasingly sacrificed to the pressures of “publish or perish”, much to the detriment of students, our future problem-solvers.

A transformative approach

There is no one right way for universities to effectively and reflectively tackle our shared sustainability crises. But important groundwork has been laid and lessons learned by pioneering institutions. Over the course of three decades, CDE and its collaborators have refined a productive, transformative research and education approach. It rests on several key pillars:

Partnership

If our problems are inextricably linked across borders, then we must address them together – as partners. Research projects and study programmes are an ideal means to bring actors from diverse (even conflicting) national settings together on a joint mission. CDE’s longstanding strategy has been to build teams that comprise researchers and students from the global South and North – and to strive to put them on an equal footing.¹² This and other forms of “science diplomacy” can enable urgently needed constructive alliances in even the most turbulent of times; ideally, it will be complemented by capacity building and productive exchange about scientific norms.¹³

Transdisciplinarity

The shared challenges we face are also intrinsically multidimensional – ecological, social, and economic – and require many forms of expertise to solve them. CDE studies connect people from diverse disciplinary and vocational backgrounds. Land use or mining-sector specialists in a country (e.g. Peru) where goods are extracted might work together with tax and trade experts in a country (e.g. Switzerland) where the goods are imported, refined, and resold. Soil scientists and extension workers might be brought together with farmers in various different mountain regions worldwide to exchange insights about common challenges.¹⁴

Knowledge co-production

Importantly, these researchers and non-academic experts also engage directly with affected communities (e.g. water users), local policymakers (e.g. water authorities), and other stakeholders to co-produce knowledge.¹⁵ Collaborative activities like group workshops typically emphasize production of three core forms of knowledge¹⁶: systems knowledge, for example mapping competing land uses in a given region (and identifying global drivers); target knowledge, such as articulating a consensus vision for the region that balances land uses like crop growing and nature conservation; and transformation knowledge, namely identifying ways to make that vision a reality, often with reference to practical theories of change.¹⁷ Every effort is made to ensure that resulting products – e.g. publications, websites, or raw data – are accessible to anyone who might benefit.

Training of change agents

At the heart of the approach are students and junior researchers, who are seen as the bridge builders to desirable, liveable futures. In the growing tradition of education for sustainable development, CDE’s curricula emphasize acquisition of dynamic knowledge and various other key competencies¹⁸– like systems thinking, anticipation of possible scenarios, working collaboratively across disciplines and cultures, and grappling with human values – as opposed to rote learning of facts and isolated methodologies. Further, CDE is engaged in integrating sustainable development – both topically and in day-to-day practice – into all other faculties as part of a whole university approach (see Box 1).¹⁹

Reversing ‘brain drain’ and forging global ties

Virtually all of these elements come together in the International Graduate School (IGS) North-South, a cooperative PhD-level sustainability programme coordinated by CDE, which unites the universities of Bern, Basel, Lausanne, and Zurich and around 130 students from the global North and South. It brings together students from Switzerland/Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.²⁰ In 2012 and 2017, CDE researchers surveyed and interviewed around 150 graduates of the programme,²¹ producing several valuable insights:

Boosting students from the global South

Crucially, the IGS North-South appeared to reduce education inequality in its network. Instead of “brain drain”, it arguably contributed to “brain gain” or “circulation” in the global South: About 90% of students from lower-income countries returned to live and work there after graduation. Many also experienced an immediate career boost: Those with a leading position in their field increased from 11% before the PhD to 49% after. Further, most alumni found jobs in academia, going on to train a new generation of Southern experts. Importantly, these programme participants were not simply the children of elites: two-thirds assessed themselves as lower- or lower-middle-class, and roughly half had parents with no formal education or only primary/secondary school.

Sensitizing students from the global North

The socio-economic story of alumni from the global North differed in revealing ways. Two-thirds assessed themselves as upper-middle- or upper-class, and nearly 90% had parents with advanced degrees. Yet they did not experience the same immediate career boost from obtaining their PhD. These results arguably highlight the existing concentration of wealth and expertise in Switzerland/Europe – and, among other things, the intense local (academic) job competition this produces. But Northern students ideally gain something much greater from studying tough issues of sustainable development in the field and shoulder-to-shoulder with Southern students: a shift in consciousness – and a calling for life.

Space for mutual risk-taking, growth, and networking

Finally, interviews with alumni also highlighted the unique space for transformation enabled by the programme, perhaps best embodied by its annual summer school. Held at a new global site each year (e.g. Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Bolivia, Nepal), the IGS summer school challenges its diverse participants to try out different roles – as students, field researchers, peer teachers, local informants, etc. – while they work on shared projects on the ground. The combination of exploring unfamiliar surroundings, exchanging perspectives with peers from different cultures and disciplines, and testing new methods provides many students with a growth-inspiring experience of liminality or “in-betweenness”.²² Students typically emerge from this and similar programme experiences with a greater understanding of the need for transdisciplinary cooperation, an increased sense of purpose, as well as strengthened competencies and new ways of learning. Finally, they acquire an expanded network of skilled colleagues and friends that enables more and better research and growth.

Going forward, CDE is working to share its offerings with greater numbers of up-and-coming researchers and students – particularly at the bachelor’s and master’s level – and with higher education institutions in the global South that wish to integrate sustainability in their curricula. We believe the more we extend the reach of our approach and collaborative networks, the more we can aid the fundamental changes needed to enable a better future.

Beyond zero-sum

In conclusion, as CDE and other mission-driven institutions continue to hunt for solutions to today’s global sustainability crises, we would do well to remember one amazing feature of knowledge: it is essentially inexhaustible – the ideal common-pool resource.²³ In fact, the more we share our knowledge, the more it grows – exponentially and synergistically – as experts, teachers, students, and laypeople alike innovate, broaden, complement, and re-share each other’s insights, techniques, and breakthroughs. The knowledge we collectively generate can be used to cure and prevent diseases, decarbonize energy, make our food systems safer, improve communication, expand creation and appreciation of the arts, and enhance access to all such public goods – if we enable it. Our universities (from universitas for “whole”) and colleges (from collegium for “partnership”) can and should be ideally positioned to realize the full potential of knowledge understood this way.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Invest in boundary-spanning sustainability research and education

To enable a future in which we all can thrive, governments and donors should further increase investment in advanced studies and teaching on and for sustainable development. Besides delivering targeted solutions, such science can foster the systemic perspective we urgently need to tackle today’s interlinked wicked problems – including climate change, species extinction, epidemics, pollution, overconsumption, armed conflict, and inequality. Crucially, it can prompt a much-needed shift towards mainstreaming hands-on cooperation and knowledge-sharing across boundaries: between academic disciplines, public and private sectors, social strata, nations, regions, and more.

Tackle science inequality by committing to equal partnerships with global South

Worldwide crises like COVID-19 and climate-warming emissions will not be overcome unless societies everywhere are equipped with the knowledge and resources needed to combat them locally. Wealthy countries, many of which have arguably hoarded talent and prestige, can do much more. First, they should fund and institutionalize long-term research and education partnerships with countries in the global South. New digital formats (e.g. virtual classrooms and conferences) can enable even greater collaboration,²⁶ complementing in-person elements (e.g. joint fieldwork, summer schools) pioneered by programmes like the IGS North-South. Second, every effort should be made to fully unlock existing and future data, transforming scientific publishing models to enable open access to everyone as fast as possible. As the pandemic has shown, sharing data can save lives if done quickly and widely. Third, more generous support should be given to establish and improve centres of advanced research and education in the global South. Students and experts who conduct transdisciplinary research and/or study and teach in low-income countries should be incentivized and rewarded, in line with improved academic metrics that emphasize experience, research quality, and societal contributions over journal impact factors.

Promote lifelong learning and holistic integration of sustainability in higher education

Finally, higher education policymakers should encourage integration of sustainability in the curricula and operations of all disciplines. This means providing space and time for transformative, lifelong learning – not only for students, but also for teachers. Teachers should be given targeted support to incorporate sustainability issues in their courses, as well as more room for collaboration, knowledge sharing, experimentation, reflection, and a better work–life balance. Indeed, to overcome current crises, sustainability must become something that is lived (e.g. sufficient lifestyles), not just theorized and debated – especially in the global North.

CITATION

Trechsel LJ, Steinböck C, Ayeri Ogalleh S, Zimmermann AB, Herweg K, Breu T, Lannen A. 2020. Unlocking Knowledge for Sustainability: Partnership-based Research and Education. CDE Policy Brief, No. 17. Bern, Switzerland: CDE.