The integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into higher education policy is an important step towards fostering a responsible, transformative academic environment. This study focuses on a content analysis of Croatian universities' strategic documents to understand how the individual contribution of academic staff to the implementation of the SDGs is addressed. A content analysis protocol was created to code all points of the strategic documents that address the facilitation of the realization of the SDGs within the core academic activities (in research, teaching, management and community engagement). The analysis shows that while universities emphasize the importance of their own societal impact and sustainable development in general, only limited explicit references are made to individual contributions of academic staff to the SDGs. The strategic documents are generally aligned with the SDGs, such as Quality Education (SDG 4), Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9) and Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), but detailed frameworks for how academic staff can contribute to these goals are not clearly outlined. The current state of affairs will be compared with current trends in (higher) education for sustainable development and examples of best practices of European and global institutions in these areas to provide a broader context for understanding the alignment of Croatian universities' strategic documents with global sustainability efforts.

Authors:
Nena Vukelić, University of Rijeka, Croatia

About the Presenter(s)
Nena Vukelić is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Education at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka, University of Rijeka. She graduated in Psychology in 2013 and obtained her PhD in Pedagogy at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka in 2021. The focus of her scientific work is on Education for Sustainable Development. She is the leader of a scientific project in the field of Higher Education for Sustainable Development.

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