- Email: [email protected]
Learning for sustainable development in regional networks
Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013) 1e4
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Learning for sustainable development in regional networks Jana Dlouhá a, *, Andrew Barton a, Donald Huisingh b, Maik Adomssent c a
Charles University Environment Center, José Martího 2/407, 162 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA c Leuphana University Lüneburg, Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication, Scharnhorststrasse 1, D-21335 Lüneburg, Germany b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 6 January 2013 Received in revised form 28 January 2013 Accepted 28 January 2013 Available online 8 February 2013
University outreach and especially regional cooperation among universities is the main theme of this Special Volume, the foundations of which were created as a result of cooperation among several Higher Educational Institutions and other non-academic partners, and which was developed based upon their willingness to share and extend their experiences beyond the context of their initial community in which they worked. The fourteen articles included in this Special Volume expand upon the theme from a European perspective e the specific circumstances and cases they build upon, however, are part of a much broader grouping of ‘Regional Centres of Expertise,’ (RCEs) that were established under the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development Programme of the United Nations University-IAS in 2003. This concept has received worldwide attention and has been successfully applied in more than 100 cases. The RCEs are acknowledged in different countries of the world, while there are also many other regional sustainability initiatives not included within this framework. The authors of this Special Volume sought to extrapolate generic knowledge associated with overcoming certain types of boundaries (academic, cultural, etc.) and to share their insights with the scientific community for discussion and use to support sustainability changes in academia. The focus of many of the research articles is upon the dynamics of the learning processes that occur between/among different stakeholders. These processes reflect a change in communication practices, which can have impacts upon modes and patterns of knowledge generation and can result in a more systemic transition in education towards sustainability at different levels of academia and of society. The planning team of this Special Volume anticipates that the experiences and theoretical considerations presented in these articles will trigger broader discussions on the roles of scientists and educators as catalytic facilitators in the debates about what type of future societies we are seeking to develop. Key recommendations are made of practical ways to help students, of all ages, to envision and to implement sustainable societal development in cooperative, rational and systematic ways, globally for the short and long-term future of all societies. Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Education for sustainable development ESD University outreach Regional cooperation Stakeholder communication Regional Centres of Expertise Sustainability in higher education
1. Context and design of the Special Volume Higher education (HE) and research institutions are contributing to sustainable development through investigations and/ or through development of new methods and approaches in the interdisciplinary area. The science-policy interface has also been highly productive in respect to integrating sustainability values within environmental sciences and nature conservation, technology and innovations, management, psychology and sociology, and other disciplines. The sought-after transition to Education
* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (J. Dlouhá), [email protected] (A. Barton), [email protected] (D. Huisingh), [email protected] (M. Adomssent). 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.01.041
for Sustainable Development (ESD), due to its transdisciplinary character, has triggered fundamental changes in HE institutions themselves e in their study programs, strategies and management. These institutions, while educating students in environmentally and sustainability-relevant disciplines, are also fostering ethically relevant societal practices and lifestyle changes, thus nurturing future opinion leaders who will have an impact on decision-making processes. All this has been made possible by addressing interdisciplinary challenges in science and education and fostering innovation in its many academic fields. These efforts have been explored and reflected in the literature including in more than 80 articles that have been published in the last ten years in the Journal of Cleaner Production. To build upon these results, and to provide an insight into more or less fundamental transitions in science and higher education
2
J. Dlouhá et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013) 1e4
with regards to sustainability, this Special Volume was designed to reflect upon emerging practices in knowledge generation and distribution that are often subsumed under the term learning to stress its reciprocal character. Although the papers included in this volume were developed by dedicated colleagues from many different countries and representing a large variety of academic disciplines, we have worked collaboratively to analyse and review processes, rather than educational subjects and methods, in which existing knowledge is shared or communicated within different types of learning environments among diverse target groups/stakeholders. Methodologically, we focused on information flows within networks of cooperation and existing communication practices among experts/teachers, learners/students, and involved stakeholders and interested lay people. Our reflections are focussed upon situations where knowledge acts as a ‘change agent’ in sustainable economic, social or environmental development within a learning community at the local, regional or European level with the potential to have an effect on its transformation. We consider this meta-analysis, discussion and development of knowledge-on-knowledge, to be important from a theoretical point of view in order to more effectively investigate and test how new concepts or paradigms in science or education can be useful for SD or ESD purposes, and to better understand what is actually going on in many HE and other institutions that are committed to accomplish to societal transformations towards more sustainable practices. Many of the articles in this volume reflect upon the on-going activities of universities in sustainability-oriented regional cooperation, for example within spontaneously occurring institutional frameworks such as Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs). Through focussing on extracting, generalizing and possibly analysing this experience this writing team sought to capture the catalytic potential of knowledge e with the conclusion that the ability to catalyse changes and concrete actions is the core principle of knowing if we want to know to do rather than know about. Simultaneously, the team emphasised that learning, defined as dynamic processes, which occur both within and beyond educational settings, are essential features of all sustainability-oriented transitions that exhibit a common social experience and reflection thereupon. They also underscored the challenges to expand the theoretical bases for these dynamic and essential processes designed to help societies make the transition towards ecologically, socially and economically sustainable development. Theoretical consequences are associated with the social role of knowledge, with its increased sensitivity to the needs of contemporary societies. Due to it, science has acquired a higher level of reflexivity, an ability to analyse on-going processes and consequently to enhance capacity to catalyse improvements through involvement and empowerment of stakeholders in these transition processes via innovations in different fields. Processes of knowledge generation, distribution and exchange have been changed to become more open and inclusive hence producing new communication patterns and altering authority of science itself. The changes in processes of sustainability-oriented communication in science and higher education observed in diverse contexts are outlined in the following overview of the articles included in this Special Volume. They convey the current situation in many European countries where attempts are being made to find generic and transferable principles so that communication and the sharing of experiences across different boundaries of discourse, discipline, culture are supported. The theme of regional cooperation among universities is addressed from many perspectives. The fourteen articles in this Special Volume are presented under the following themes:
1) Investigating potential contributions of universities to sustainable regional development; 2) Exploring, analysing and assessing the role and significance of regional learning and innovation networks for sustainable development; 3) Introducing case studies with a different geographical and educational scope; 4) Mapping regional settings and learning strategies for higher education.
2. Investigating potential contributions of universities to sustainable regional development Dlouhá et al. (2013b) begins by summarising the rationale and intention behind collating articles in this Special Volume on the theme of university outreach and the associated evolution of the role and practices of universities with regard to sustainability transition. The concept of scientific impact, in particular, is discussed with regard to the possibilities of changing it towards a more socially oriented impact in relation to science and education. Adombent’s (2013) paper introduces the core issue of this Special Volume, namely communication patterns between science and society. The author argues for a new participative form of communicative practice in which science plays a role in deliberative democratic processes so that trans-boundary governance can be generated in which the role of science is altered. Therefore, it becomes more involved in communication interplay and the reconciliation of conflicting and diverse viewpoints besides its traditional role in knowledge production, distribution and related control processes. Context specific knowledge and reflexive practice of this kind are relevant to innovation processes, which help to catalyse societal transformation. Cada and Ptácková (2013) demonstrate that there are limits to the changes in communication practices in science by describing the situation in one post-communist country, the Czech Republic. Analyses of the research policy framework details the sciencepolicy interface, its form, functions, conditions, and the opportunities for and barriers to cooperation among diverse stakeholders in a Czech-specific context. In a country where civil society has evolved rapidly over the past twenty years, but mechanisms of democratic dialogue have not, the science policy framework is vital for defining the role of science in society, yet it is currently not supportive of a re-orientation towards social impacts and open communication. Sol et al. (2013) argue that cooperation in regional networks where diverse stakeholders are engaged inevitably involves social learning. The authors focus on finding the most significant features of this knowledge exchange model. Their action research, which was undertaken within a network project aimed at supporting regional innovation processes, identified trust and commitment as repeated features in communication between local actors. The article concludes by highlighting the need to share values in a creditable environment to overcome differences wherein the reframing factors contribute to deeper understanding of the dynamic learning processes. 3. Exploring, analysing and assessing the role and significance of regional learning and innovation networks for sustainable development In contrast to what was stated in the foregoing paragraphs, Karatzoglou (2013) reveals that the field of university outreach has highly practical relevance in the sustainability area, but still lacks
J. Dlouhá et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013) 1e4
sufficient theoretical grounding. The field is only at the exploratory stage of investigating universityecommunity relationships aimed at the sustainable development of a given region, and more ‘emancipatory’ research practices are still required. In this regard, stress is laid on reflexivity that could provide the necessary feedback, and the role of research is to extract more abstract knowledge from specific case studies. These roles of universities are also underscored in Mader’s (2013) paper where cooperation networks, the RCEs, are introduced as ‘communities of interest,’ centred on a particular vision. They crucially need to reflect upon regional sustainability-oriented processes in which they are involved, as there currently appears to be ‘.a lack of tools to assess the transformational progress and potential of sustainability’. Indicators provided by the author are context-specific and concentrate on the characteristics of the network itself; the assessment method helps to improve internal processes and to generate a co-creational work environment based on trust, which is essential for innovation and follow-up action. It was successfully applied within the RCE community to reflect and consequently, to transform its practices. A question is posed on what the most appropriate social settings and social conditions for sustainability-oriented participative processes in a region are, and how to build a framework for initiating, continuing and evaluating these processes in the article of Dlouhá et al. (2013a). These authors analyse the learning processes that occur within learning networks of sustainability-oriented regional cooperation. An indicator set is developed that re-considers educational goals as learning goals viewed from a process perspective as opposed to the outcome or output point of view - this helps to present social learning as an applicable model in higher education. As questions of the interconnectedness of social learning with a society’s social capital are raised, so the need for HE involvement in enhancing this social capital is discussed. Oldenhuizing et al. (2013) also discuss a change in evaluation patterns, from a control model to a supporting tool to promote communication across knowledge boundaries. The authors undertook a difficult task, namely to identify new principles for participatory monitoring and to apply them in practice and to also design an indicator set that would be accessible online to different social actors. The proposed approach combines systems learning, wherein a system is reflected by an indicator that is interpreted individually, and social learning where the complexity of a system is described by actors from diverse perspectives and is interpreted collectively. Within this work a close connection between learning and concrete action was established. 4. Introducing case studies with a different geographical and educational scope In a paper closely related to the preceding article, Valkering et al. (2013) present a case study highlighting experiences within a complex and diverse social environment in a regional network for sustainable urban neighbourhood development. The authors concentrate on the communication practices that occur in the decentralised environment of the learning network. They define joint learning in several steps, and characterize a set of typical learning interactions that occur across the four main knowledge boundaries (territorial, role-based, sectoral, and project boundaries). Their analytical framework is a generic tool designed to support the bottom-up communication and knowledge generation processes that can help to catalyse innovation in regional contexts. Learning networks in a sustainability-oriented academic environment that represent a different model of communication between diversity of actors are documented by Dlouhá et al. (2013c) paper. In this case, international networks that capitalize on
3
a virtual learning environment are introduced and the authors describe new teaching/learning methods that have been developed. As a framework, institutional conditions have to evolve together with educational goals, methods and practices; the network cooperation also has an impact on the education system, i.e. it supports a transition towards a more open, action-oriented and decentralised system. This has been demonstrated in the evolution of academic networks towards more inclusive, regionally involved partnerships. In a different context, Mader et al. (2013) demonstrate that the involvement of higher educational institutions in regional cooperation is manifold and includes different types of activities at various levels of participation in diverse types of networks where HEIs and regional actors cooperate. The authors document that examples of good practice, if properly analysed and communicated, can provide the necessary know-how to continue such efforts and can contribute to establishing a pool of knowledge for university outreach for the short and long-term. 5. Mapping regional settings and learning strategies for higher education De Kraker et al. (2013) present a platform that enhances communicative interactions within a learning network for sustainable development and helps to create conditions for joint learning processes in which dialogue within innovation networks and communities can be shaped by the communication environment. In the virtual environment, a user-centred approach is supported by specific tools such as groups, tags, bookmarks, interests, and contexts. Newly established links among network members have a bottom-up character and communication is characterized by its non-hierarchic structures, an open learning environment, respect for diversity and autonomy of users, as well as trust among them. The penultimate paper by Lansu et al. (2013) makes the proposition that if sustainable development is to be part of deliberative democratic processes then it implies that specific conditions are required for crossing the boundaries between stakeholder views and perspectives in a regional context. It is not only a unidirectional knowledge transfer that occurs from more knowledgeable agents but a process of mutual, networked learning among diverse actors that include higher educational institutions, and this requires, inter alia, a change of professional demands. The authors documented how this challenge is being dealt with within the process of sustainability curricula innovation by addressing socalled transboundary competence. The final paper by Rodrigo Lozano (2013) contributes to answering the challenge of achieving holistic involvement of higher education in sustainability issues by exploring the standardized method of university curricula assessment, which provides comparable results on SD-related features. The view of the assessor is external, and this perspective counterbalances the internal perspective presented in the previous article where the formative assessment of curricula is undertaken. The two complementary viewpoints form an excellent contribution to the discussion on conditions for sustainability reorientation of higher education and hence also for meeting the goals of the ‘Decade of Education for Sustainable Development,’ with regard to the contents, methods and practices applied at this level. This Special Volume also includes a review by Atiti (2013) of a book titled ‘Multi-Actor Learning for Sustainable Regional Development in Europe: A Handbook of Best Practice’, which was published as a result of cooperation by the network of European universities within the ‘Lifelong Learning Network for Sustainable Development’ project. Atiti emphasizes that this book will be of great interest to ESD practitioners in general by providing, as it does,
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exemplars of best practice in the fields of regional development, multi-oriented learning approaches, multi-stakeholder involvement, empowerment, e-learning and educational research from Europe. In conclusion, it is necessary to underscore that the idea of exploring the field of academic involvement in sustainable development on the regional level evolved out of the framework of the “3-LENSUS Project: Lifelong Learning Network for Sustainable Development”. We, as the editors of this Special Volume, worked together with many other researchers and practitioners from several European countries determined to integrate several perspectives that inform regional SD oriented learning and to develop several products that include a database, indicators and web-based platforms, designed to open up an area for the emergence of new ESD activities. The editors took these results beyond the project boundaries and its rather limited timeframe to analyse the issues from a broader perspective and in a much deeper, theoretically, grounded discussion. Thus, we feel indebted to the Journal of Cleaner Production for inviting us to act as guest editors, which gave us the opportunity to provide a platform to many other champions with a passionate interest in facilitating intentional learning activities and undertaking research into the right mix of topedown and bottomeup processes for the development of supportive learning spaces, platforms and communities, which should help us to make transitions to more sustainable, regional development. By exploring the opportunity to catalyse collaboration and learning among regional partners towards a more sustainable development agenda, we feel very happy to have assisted in one of the critical challenges of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development e strengthening ESD at regional and national levels. Acknowledgements The editors of this Special Volume would like to thank the authors for their contributions and patience with the review process; we also want to express our gratitude to the reviewers that were invited and undertook responsibility for the final quality of these articles and contributed to the success of our efforts. The guest editors also wish to thank the ‘Editor-in-Chief’ of the Journal of Cleaner Production, Prof. Donald Huisingh, because the publication process would not have been possible without his continuous support, confidence in our abilities, flexibility in the face of the obstacles we encountered along the way and conviction that the sustainability transition is achievable with our support, too.
The production of this special volume was supported by the Lifelong Learning Network for Sustainable Development (3-LENSUS), funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission, the MOSUR project funded by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic, and the PRVOUK P02, environmental research program of the Charles University in Prague. References Adomßent, M., 2013. Exploring universities’ transformative potential for sustainability-bound learning in changing landscapes of knowledge communication. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 11e24. Cada, K., Ptá_cková, K., 2013. Possibilities and limits of collaboration between science and NGOs in the Czech Republic. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 25e34. De Kraker, J., Cörvers, R., Valkering, P., Hermans, M., Rikers, J., 2013. Learning for sustainable regional development: towards learning networks 2.0? Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 114e122. Dlouhá, J., Barton, A., Janou_sková, S., Dlouhý, J., 2013a. Social learning indicators in sustainability-oriented regional learning networks. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 64e73. Dlouhá, J., Huisingh, D., Barton, A., 2013b. Learning networks in higher education: universities in search of making effective regional impacts. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 5e10. Dlouhá, J., Machá_cková-Henderson, L., Dlouhý, J., 2013c. Learning networks with involvement of higher education institutions. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 95e104. Karatzoglou, B., 2013. An in-depth literature review of the evolving roles and contributions of universities to Education for sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 44e53. Lansu, A., Boon, J., Sloep, P.B., Van Dam-Mieras, R., 2013. Changing professional demands in sustainable regional development: a curriculum design process to meet transboundary competence. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 123e133. Lozano, R., 2013. Assessing sustainability in university curricula: Exploring the influence of student numbers and course credits. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 134e141. Mader, C., 2013. Sustainability process assessment on transformative potentials: The Graz Model for Integrative Development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 54e63. Mader, M., Mader, C., Zimmermann, F.M., Görsdorf-Lechevin, E., Diethart, M., 2013. Monitoring networking between higher education institutions and regional actors. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 105e113. Oldenhuizing, J., De Kraker, J., Valkering, P., 2013. Design of a quality-of-life monitor to promote learning in a multi-actor network for sustainable urban development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 74e84. Sol, J., Beers, P.J., Wals, A.E.J., 2013. Social learning in regional innovation networks: trust, commitment and reframing as emergent properties of interaction. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 35e43. Valkering, P., Beumer, C., De Kraker, J., Ruelle, C., 2013. An analysis of learning interactions in a cross-border network for sustainable urban neighbourhood development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 85e94.
Book review Atiti, A.B., 2013. Multi-actor learning for sustainable regional development in Europe: a handbook of best practice. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 142e143.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Learning for sustainable development in regional networks Jana Dlouhá a, *, Andrew Barton a, Donald Huisingh b, Maik Adomssent c a
Charles University Environment Center, José Martího 2/407, 162 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA c Leuphana University Lüneburg, Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication, Scharnhorststrasse 1, D-21335 Lüneburg, Germany b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 6 January 2013 Received in revised form 28 January 2013 Accepted 28 January 2013 Available online 8 February 2013
University outreach and especially regional cooperation among universities is the main theme of this Special Volume, the foundations of which were created as a result of cooperation among several Higher Educational Institutions and other non-academic partners, and which was developed based upon their willingness to share and extend their experiences beyond the context of their initial community in which they worked. The fourteen articles included in this Special Volume expand upon the theme from a European perspective e the specific circumstances and cases they build upon, however, are part of a much broader grouping of ‘Regional Centres of Expertise,’ (RCEs) that were established under the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development Programme of the United Nations University-IAS in 2003. This concept has received worldwide attention and has been successfully applied in more than 100 cases. The RCEs are acknowledged in different countries of the world, while there are also many other regional sustainability initiatives not included within this framework. The authors of this Special Volume sought to extrapolate generic knowledge associated with overcoming certain types of boundaries (academic, cultural, etc.) and to share their insights with the scientific community for discussion and use to support sustainability changes in academia. The focus of many of the research articles is upon the dynamics of the learning processes that occur between/among different stakeholders. These processes reflect a change in communication practices, which can have impacts upon modes and patterns of knowledge generation and can result in a more systemic transition in education towards sustainability at different levels of academia and of society. The planning team of this Special Volume anticipates that the experiences and theoretical considerations presented in these articles will trigger broader discussions on the roles of scientists and educators as catalytic facilitators in the debates about what type of future societies we are seeking to develop. Key recommendations are made of practical ways to help students, of all ages, to envision and to implement sustainable societal development in cooperative, rational and systematic ways, globally for the short and long-term future of all societies. Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Education for sustainable development ESD University outreach Regional cooperation Stakeholder communication Regional Centres of Expertise Sustainability in higher education
1. Context and design of the Special Volume Higher education (HE) and research institutions are contributing to sustainable development through investigations and/ or through development of new methods and approaches in the interdisciplinary area. The science-policy interface has also been highly productive in respect to integrating sustainability values within environmental sciences and nature conservation, technology and innovations, management, psychology and sociology, and other disciplines. The sought-after transition to Education
* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (J. Dlouhá), [email protected] (A. Barton), [email protected] (D. Huisingh), [email protected] (M. Adomssent). 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.01.041
for Sustainable Development (ESD), due to its transdisciplinary character, has triggered fundamental changes in HE institutions themselves e in their study programs, strategies and management. These institutions, while educating students in environmentally and sustainability-relevant disciplines, are also fostering ethically relevant societal practices and lifestyle changes, thus nurturing future opinion leaders who will have an impact on decision-making processes. All this has been made possible by addressing interdisciplinary challenges in science and education and fostering innovation in its many academic fields. These efforts have been explored and reflected in the literature including in more than 80 articles that have been published in the last ten years in the Journal of Cleaner Production. To build upon these results, and to provide an insight into more or less fundamental transitions in science and higher education
2
J. Dlouhá et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013) 1e4
with regards to sustainability, this Special Volume was designed to reflect upon emerging practices in knowledge generation and distribution that are often subsumed under the term learning to stress its reciprocal character. Although the papers included in this volume were developed by dedicated colleagues from many different countries and representing a large variety of academic disciplines, we have worked collaboratively to analyse and review processes, rather than educational subjects and methods, in which existing knowledge is shared or communicated within different types of learning environments among diverse target groups/stakeholders. Methodologically, we focused on information flows within networks of cooperation and existing communication practices among experts/teachers, learners/students, and involved stakeholders and interested lay people. Our reflections are focussed upon situations where knowledge acts as a ‘change agent’ in sustainable economic, social or environmental development within a learning community at the local, regional or European level with the potential to have an effect on its transformation. We consider this meta-analysis, discussion and development of knowledge-on-knowledge, to be important from a theoretical point of view in order to more effectively investigate and test how new concepts or paradigms in science or education can be useful for SD or ESD purposes, and to better understand what is actually going on in many HE and other institutions that are committed to accomplish to societal transformations towards more sustainable practices. Many of the articles in this volume reflect upon the on-going activities of universities in sustainability-oriented regional cooperation, for example within spontaneously occurring institutional frameworks such as Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs). Through focussing on extracting, generalizing and possibly analysing this experience this writing team sought to capture the catalytic potential of knowledge e with the conclusion that the ability to catalyse changes and concrete actions is the core principle of knowing if we want to know to do rather than know about. Simultaneously, the team emphasised that learning, defined as dynamic processes, which occur both within and beyond educational settings, are essential features of all sustainability-oriented transitions that exhibit a common social experience and reflection thereupon. They also underscored the challenges to expand the theoretical bases for these dynamic and essential processes designed to help societies make the transition towards ecologically, socially and economically sustainable development. Theoretical consequences are associated with the social role of knowledge, with its increased sensitivity to the needs of contemporary societies. Due to it, science has acquired a higher level of reflexivity, an ability to analyse on-going processes and consequently to enhance capacity to catalyse improvements through involvement and empowerment of stakeholders in these transition processes via innovations in different fields. Processes of knowledge generation, distribution and exchange have been changed to become more open and inclusive hence producing new communication patterns and altering authority of science itself. The changes in processes of sustainability-oriented communication in science and higher education observed in diverse contexts are outlined in the following overview of the articles included in this Special Volume. They convey the current situation in many European countries where attempts are being made to find generic and transferable principles so that communication and the sharing of experiences across different boundaries of discourse, discipline, culture are supported. The theme of regional cooperation among universities is addressed from many perspectives. The fourteen articles in this Special Volume are presented under the following themes:
1) Investigating potential contributions of universities to sustainable regional development; 2) Exploring, analysing and assessing the role and significance of regional learning and innovation networks for sustainable development; 3) Introducing case studies with a different geographical and educational scope; 4) Mapping regional settings and learning strategies for higher education.
2. Investigating potential contributions of universities to sustainable regional development Dlouhá et al. (2013b) begins by summarising the rationale and intention behind collating articles in this Special Volume on the theme of university outreach and the associated evolution of the role and practices of universities with regard to sustainability transition. The concept of scientific impact, in particular, is discussed with regard to the possibilities of changing it towards a more socially oriented impact in relation to science and education. Adombent’s (2013) paper introduces the core issue of this Special Volume, namely communication patterns between science and society. The author argues for a new participative form of communicative practice in which science plays a role in deliberative democratic processes so that trans-boundary governance can be generated in which the role of science is altered. Therefore, it becomes more involved in communication interplay and the reconciliation of conflicting and diverse viewpoints besides its traditional role in knowledge production, distribution and related control processes. Context specific knowledge and reflexive practice of this kind are relevant to innovation processes, which help to catalyse societal transformation. Cada and Ptácková (2013) demonstrate that there are limits to the changes in communication practices in science by describing the situation in one post-communist country, the Czech Republic. Analyses of the research policy framework details the sciencepolicy interface, its form, functions, conditions, and the opportunities for and barriers to cooperation among diverse stakeholders in a Czech-specific context. In a country where civil society has evolved rapidly over the past twenty years, but mechanisms of democratic dialogue have not, the science policy framework is vital for defining the role of science in society, yet it is currently not supportive of a re-orientation towards social impacts and open communication. Sol et al. (2013) argue that cooperation in regional networks where diverse stakeholders are engaged inevitably involves social learning. The authors focus on finding the most significant features of this knowledge exchange model. Their action research, which was undertaken within a network project aimed at supporting regional innovation processes, identified trust and commitment as repeated features in communication between local actors. The article concludes by highlighting the need to share values in a creditable environment to overcome differences wherein the reframing factors contribute to deeper understanding of the dynamic learning processes. 3. Exploring, analysing and assessing the role and significance of regional learning and innovation networks for sustainable development In contrast to what was stated in the foregoing paragraphs, Karatzoglou (2013) reveals that the field of university outreach has highly practical relevance in the sustainability area, but still lacks
J. Dlouhá et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013) 1e4
sufficient theoretical grounding. The field is only at the exploratory stage of investigating universityecommunity relationships aimed at the sustainable development of a given region, and more ‘emancipatory’ research practices are still required. In this regard, stress is laid on reflexivity that could provide the necessary feedback, and the role of research is to extract more abstract knowledge from specific case studies. These roles of universities are also underscored in Mader’s (2013) paper where cooperation networks, the RCEs, are introduced as ‘communities of interest,’ centred on a particular vision. They crucially need to reflect upon regional sustainability-oriented processes in which they are involved, as there currently appears to be ‘.a lack of tools to assess the transformational progress and potential of sustainability’. Indicators provided by the author are context-specific and concentrate on the characteristics of the network itself; the assessment method helps to improve internal processes and to generate a co-creational work environment based on trust, which is essential for innovation and follow-up action. It was successfully applied within the RCE community to reflect and consequently, to transform its practices. A question is posed on what the most appropriate social settings and social conditions for sustainability-oriented participative processes in a region are, and how to build a framework for initiating, continuing and evaluating these processes in the article of Dlouhá et al. (2013a). These authors analyse the learning processes that occur within learning networks of sustainability-oriented regional cooperation. An indicator set is developed that re-considers educational goals as learning goals viewed from a process perspective as opposed to the outcome or output point of view - this helps to present social learning as an applicable model in higher education. As questions of the interconnectedness of social learning with a society’s social capital are raised, so the need for HE involvement in enhancing this social capital is discussed. Oldenhuizing et al. (2013) also discuss a change in evaluation patterns, from a control model to a supporting tool to promote communication across knowledge boundaries. The authors undertook a difficult task, namely to identify new principles for participatory monitoring and to apply them in practice and to also design an indicator set that would be accessible online to different social actors. The proposed approach combines systems learning, wherein a system is reflected by an indicator that is interpreted individually, and social learning where the complexity of a system is described by actors from diverse perspectives and is interpreted collectively. Within this work a close connection between learning and concrete action was established. 4. Introducing case studies with a different geographical and educational scope In a paper closely related to the preceding article, Valkering et al. (2013) present a case study highlighting experiences within a complex and diverse social environment in a regional network for sustainable urban neighbourhood development. The authors concentrate on the communication practices that occur in the decentralised environment of the learning network. They define joint learning in several steps, and characterize a set of typical learning interactions that occur across the four main knowledge boundaries (territorial, role-based, sectoral, and project boundaries). Their analytical framework is a generic tool designed to support the bottom-up communication and knowledge generation processes that can help to catalyse innovation in regional contexts. Learning networks in a sustainability-oriented academic environment that represent a different model of communication between diversity of actors are documented by Dlouhá et al. (2013c) paper. In this case, international networks that capitalize on
3
a virtual learning environment are introduced and the authors describe new teaching/learning methods that have been developed. As a framework, institutional conditions have to evolve together with educational goals, methods and practices; the network cooperation also has an impact on the education system, i.e. it supports a transition towards a more open, action-oriented and decentralised system. This has been demonstrated in the evolution of academic networks towards more inclusive, regionally involved partnerships. In a different context, Mader et al. (2013) demonstrate that the involvement of higher educational institutions in regional cooperation is manifold and includes different types of activities at various levels of participation in diverse types of networks where HEIs and regional actors cooperate. The authors document that examples of good practice, if properly analysed and communicated, can provide the necessary know-how to continue such efforts and can contribute to establishing a pool of knowledge for university outreach for the short and long-term. 5. Mapping regional settings and learning strategies for higher education De Kraker et al. (2013) present a platform that enhances communicative interactions within a learning network for sustainable development and helps to create conditions for joint learning processes in which dialogue within innovation networks and communities can be shaped by the communication environment. In the virtual environment, a user-centred approach is supported by specific tools such as groups, tags, bookmarks, interests, and contexts. Newly established links among network members have a bottom-up character and communication is characterized by its non-hierarchic structures, an open learning environment, respect for diversity and autonomy of users, as well as trust among them. The penultimate paper by Lansu et al. (2013) makes the proposition that if sustainable development is to be part of deliberative democratic processes then it implies that specific conditions are required for crossing the boundaries between stakeholder views and perspectives in a regional context. It is not only a unidirectional knowledge transfer that occurs from more knowledgeable agents but a process of mutual, networked learning among diverse actors that include higher educational institutions, and this requires, inter alia, a change of professional demands. The authors documented how this challenge is being dealt with within the process of sustainability curricula innovation by addressing socalled transboundary competence. The final paper by Rodrigo Lozano (2013) contributes to answering the challenge of achieving holistic involvement of higher education in sustainability issues by exploring the standardized method of university curricula assessment, which provides comparable results on SD-related features. The view of the assessor is external, and this perspective counterbalances the internal perspective presented in the previous article where the formative assessment of curricula is undertaken. The two complementary viewpoints form an excellent contribution to the discussion on conditions for sustainability reorientation of higher education and hence also for meeting the goals of the ‘Decade of Education for Sustainable Development,’ with regard to the contents, methods and practices applied at this level. This Special Volume also includes a review by Atiti (2013) of a book titled ‘Multi-Actor Learning for Sustainable Regional Development in Europe: A Handbook of Best Practice’, which was published as a result of cooperation by the network of European universities within the ‘Lifelong Learning Network for Sustainable Development’ project. Atiti emphasizes that this book will be of great interest to ESD practitioners in general by providing, as it does,
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exemplars of best practice in the fields of regional development, multi-oriented learning approaches, multi-stakeholder involvement, empowerment, e-learning and educational research from Europe. In conclusion, it is necessary to underscore that the idea of exploring the field of academic involvement in sustainable development on the regional level evolved out of the framework of the “3-LENSUS Project: Lifelong Learning Network for Sustainable Development”. We, as the editors of this Special Volume, worked together with many other researchers and practitioners from several European countries determined to integrate several perspectives that inform regional SD oriented learning and to develop several products that include a database, indicators and web-based platforms, designed to open up an area for the emergence of new ESD activities. The editors took these results beyond the project boundaries and its rather limited timeframe to analyse the issues from a broader perspective and in a much deeper, theoretically, grounded discussion. Thus, we feel indebted to the Journal of Cleaner Production for inviting us to act as guest editors, which gave us the opportunity to provide a platform to many other champions with a passionate interest in facilitating intentional learning activities and undertaking research into the right mix of topedown and bottomeup processes for the development of supportive learning spaces, platforms and communities, which should help us to make transitions to more sustainable, regional development. By exploring the opportunity to catalyse collaboration and learning among regional partners towards a more sustainable development agenda, we feel very happy to have assisted in one of the critical challenges of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development e strengthening ESD at regional and national levels. Acknowledgements The editors of this Special Volume would like to thank the authors for their contributions and patience with the review process; we also want to express our gratitude to the reviewers that were invited and undertook responsibility for the final quality of these articles and contributed to the success of our efforts. The guest editors also wish to thank the ‘Editor-in-Chief’ of the Journal of Cleaner Production, Prof. Donald Huisingh, because the publication process would not have been possible without his continuous support, confidence in our abilities, flexibility in the face of the obstacles we encountered along the way and conviction that the sustainability transition is achievable with our support, too.
The production of this special volume was supported by the Lifelong Learning Network for Sustainable Development (3-LENSUS), funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission, the MOSUR project funded by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic, and the PRVOUK P02, environmental research program of the Charles University in Prague. References Adomßent, M., 2013. Exploring universities’ transformative potential for sustainability-bound learning in changing landscapes of knowledge communication. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 11e24. Cada, K., Ptá_cková, K., 2013. Possibilities and limits of collaboration between science and NGOs in the Czech Republic. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 25e34. De Kraker, J., Cörvers, R., Valkering, P., Hermans, M., Rikers, J., 2013. Learning for sustainable regional development: towards learning networks 2.0? Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 114e122. Dlouhá, J., Barton, A., Janou_sková, S., Dlouhý, J., 2013a. Social learning indicators in sustainability-oriented regional learning networks. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 64e73. Dlouhá, J., Huisingh, D., Barton, A., 2013b. Learning networks in higher education: universities in search of making effective regional impacts. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 5e10. Dlouhá, J., Machá_cková-Henderson, L., Dlouhý, J., 2013c. Learning networks with involvement of higher education institutions. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 95e104. Karatzoglou, B., 2013. An in-depth literature review of the evolving roles and contributions of universities to Education for sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 44e53. Lansu, A., Boon, J., Sloep, P.B., Van Dam-Mieras, R., 2013. Changing professional demands in sustainable regional development: a curriculum design process to meet transboundary competence. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 123e133. Lozano, R., 2013. Assessing sustainability in university curricula: Exploring the influence of student numbers and course credits. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 134e141. Mader, C., 2013. Sustainability process assessment on transformative potentials: The Graz Model for Integrative Development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 54e63. Mader, M., Mader, C., Zimmermann, F.M., Görsdorf-Lechevin, E., Diethart, M., 2013. Monitoring networking between higher education institutions and regional actors. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 105e113. Oldenhuizing, J., De Kraker, J., Valkering, P., 2013. Design of a quality-of-life monitor to promote learning in a multi-actor network for sustainable urban development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 74e84. Sol, J., Beers, P.J., Wals, A.E.J., 2013. Social learning in regional innovation networks: trust, commitment and reframing as emergent properties of interaction. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 35e43. Valkering, P., Beumer, C., De Kraker, J., Ruelle, C., 2013. An analysis of learning interactions in a cross-border network for sustainable urban neighbourhood development. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 85e94.
Book review Atiti, A.B., 2013. Multi-actor learning for sustainable regional development in Europe: a handbook of best practice. Journal of Cleaner Production 49, 142e143.