Higher Education and Sustainable Development

'All of us promoting Education for Sustainable Development have reason to be deeply grateful for this book. By illustrative and current examples its authors show, in a highly valuable manner, that respect for academic freedom for the universities is a prerequisite for success in the pursuit to make the world more sustainable.' Carl Lindberg, member of UNESCO's High-Level Panel on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development The Key Issues in Higher Education series aims to raise both awareness and the standards of debate on the fundamental issues that lie at the very heart of higher education and intends to assist national and international debate. Higher Education and Sustainable Development examines whether it is actually possible to mandate, plan, monitor and evaluate the higher education sector's route to the production of educated, innovative, independent, self-determining, critical individuals while at the same time achieving a range of wider policy goals on the side. This book examines this question in the context of a particular international policy issue - sustainable development - which is now seen across the globe as a necessary and urgent response to a range of social and environmental issues that threaten the integrity of the biosphere and human well-being. The book concludes that the idea of sustainable development holds both opportunities and dangers for universities as they pursue their proper role in a free society. Illustrated by seven in-depth case studies, this book considers the complex inter-relationships of a free society and sustainable development in the context of higher education, and aims to make recommendations for realistic future development. It is essential reading for the international higher education research community, policy-makers, university managers, students and non-governmental organisations in the development, environment and social policy sectors. Stephen Gough is Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Education and the Environment at the University of Bath. William Scott directs the Centre for Research in Education and the Environment at the University of Bath.Gough, Stephen is the author of 'Higher Education and Sustainable Development' with ISBN 9780415416528 and ISBN 0415416523.