Global-SDG-Campus Network

By addressing global challenges, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide the framework for a better and more sustainable future for all. International cooperation between higher education institutions is an essential component in achieving these goals. The Global-SDG-Campus network aims to support higher education and research in forestry at TU Dresden and their partners in the Global South in anchoring sustainability topics more firmly in teaching, research and transfer.

The project partners

The project seeks to develop a dynamic university network within which the forest-related master’s programmes of the collaborating partner universities will sharpen their profiles in terms of the SDGs. Additionally, a standard Global Campus Mobility procedure will be established to facilitate exchange of students and scientist to enhance joined learning and collaborative research among the partner universities.

The project partners and their specific thematic profiles are:

Technische Universität Dresden, Germany: Actors and Forest Governance
University of Bamenda, Cameroon: NTFP-Domestication in Agroforestry Systems
Kasetsart University, Thailand: Tropical Plantation Forestry
Khulna University, Bangladesh: Mangrove Forest Management
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina: Subtropical Forest Ecosystems

The background

Forests play a vital role in human well-being worldwide and are key to achieving many of the SDGs, such as Climate Action (SDG 13), Life on Earth (SDG 15) and Clean Water (SDG 6). While forestry-related challenges are increasingly recognized as global issues, forestry education is internationally fragmented due to a lack of routine academic and administrative teaching cooperation across higher education organisations.

By bringing together universities from four continents, the Global-SDG-Campus will strategically expand existing collaborations between the partners into a dynamic university network that will facilitate international postgraduate education and student mobility among the partner universities. Scientists will jointly address forest-related SDG topics in global contexts and integrate them into curricula, learning structures and the development of a joint module on SDG contributions from forestry and forest landscapes.

Spheres and objectives

The project aims to align existing teaching contents more closely with the SDGs using the forest landscape approach. Drawing on knowledge transfer and joined research in fields like locally appropriate tree-based production systems, forest ecosystem management and valuation or forest governance, many SDGs are addressed directly and indirectly. Thus, many ecosystem services from forests are addressed, resulting in questions regarding water retention and regulation, carbon sequestration, soil improvement, energy supply, diversified food supply and additional income.

The project consists of three different components that complement each other in an integrated way. Collaborative research and teaching development towards SDG relevance runs parallel with joined efforts in improving university management and administrative procedures across the partners. Beyond that, non-university stakeholders are consulted to ensure the relevance and appropriateness of project outcomes regarding current developments and needs on the ground.

Project setup — The project setup of the Global-SDG-Campus network

The intended impact

Achieving the SDGs is an integrated process that requires substantial changes in values, belief systems and management paradigms – all of which will need change agents on site. After graduation, many of the partner universities’ students work in important positions in ministries, civil society organisations, research institutions, supra-national organisations and the private sector. These positions give access to established governance structures and policy processes at different levels, enabling them to stimulate pro-SDG developments.