Higher education in Central European countries ...

Higher education in Central European countries – critical factors for sustainability transition Jana Dlouháa, Peter Glavičb, Andrew Bartonc a

Charles University Environment Center, José Martího 2/407, 162 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic, email: [email protected] b

University of Maribor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Smetanova 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia, e-mail: [email protected] c

Charles University Environment Center, José Martího 2/407, 162 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract Despite the progress made toward incorporating sustainability concerns into the curricula and management of higher education institutions around the world during the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005–2014, progress has been sluggish in the former socialist states of Central Europe. A question has been raised in this article about the specifics of this region where the situation in six of these countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia) was explored. To characterize sustainability changes in higher education institutions and develop a comparative overview of leading concepts, the ‘conceptual framework analysis’ qualitative method was used. A review and critical reflection of the current situation in the countries in question provided insight into commonalities or differences at national level and overall trends in the region; this information was structured, categorized, interpreted and embedded in a theoretically underpinned framework. On this basis, ‘critical transition factors’ were identified which helped to understand sustainable development policies at the higher education level, the driving forces behind institutional changes, and ongoing processes and their outcomes in the observed countries. These factors show a temporal hierarchy representing various stages of transition from environmental awareness to an understanding of the ambiguous term ‘education for sustainable development’, and more pragmatic approach where education is closely linked to green campus initiatives. The explored countries have mostly reached the lower transition stages. Constructivist, transdisciplinary approaches that underpin a focus on competences as a practical pre-requisite of democratic, sustainability oriented teaching, is greatly lacking in the region. The transition factors can be treated as concepts in the authors’ explanatory framework which is adjusted to each national context; its relevance for ESD transition processes can be generalised beyond the countries described in this article.

Key words: Higher education; Central Europe; transformation; education for sustainable development; critical factors; competences

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Abbreviations used in this article: CE Central Europe CEE Central and Eastern Europe CR Czech Republic CUEC Charles University Environment Centre DESD Decade of Education for Sustainable Development EE Environmental Education EHEA European Higher Education Area ESD Education for Sustainable Development EU European Union GDP Gross Domestic Product HE Higher Education HEIs Higher Education Institutions NGOs non-governmental organizations OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development RCE Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development SD Sustainable Development UE4SD University Educators for Sustainable Development project, http://www.ue4sd.eu/ UN United Nations UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization VCEN Values, Culture, Ethics, and Norms Highlights     

Post-socialist countries represent an under-researched area in ESD at the HE level Educational reform is associated with changes towards sustainability in this region ESD transition is traced through critical transition factors These factors are described in an evolutionary hierarchy Transdisciplinary approach is likely to be linked with democratization processes

1. Introduction The United Nation’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) was ushered in with great expectations in 2004 to ‘contribute to enabling citizens to face the challenges of the present and future, and leaders to make relevant decisions for a viable world’ (UNESCO, 2005). It aimed to do this through the acquisition of various skills ‘to take an active part and contribute to the life of society’, by becoming ‘respectful of the Earth and life in all its diversity’, and making a commitment ‘to promoting democracy in a society without exclusion and where peace prevails’ (UNESCO, 2005). Following the conclusion of the Decade in 2014, publication of evaluations of its achievements have begun, beginning with UNESCO’s own Final Report, Shaping the Future We Want (Buckler and Creech, 2014). Although progress over the course of the Decade was patchy from region to region, 2

the evaluators nevertheless highlighted a number of areas where substantial headway had been made in higher education (HE) for sustainable development. These include, inter alia: publication of nearly a dozen higher education declarations and commitments signed on to by institutions all around the world and which demonstrate that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is gradually working its way into mainstream thinking; introduction of specific courses and research centres; great advances where institutional leadership is shown; increasing student demand for sustainability-related education; greater potential of distance and online learning models; a rise in the number of professional development programs for higher education teaching staff; expanded networks of higher education institutions (HEIs) that build capacity and expand the influence of ESD; and increased interest in sustainability-related research and research into ESD itself. However, the report also highlights the areas where DESD underperformed and where the most significant challenges remain. Greater traction needs to be created, for example, in propounding a whole-of-institution approach since the incorporation of ESD into institutional practices is often piecemeal and ad hoc, e.g. disciplinary-based sustainable development courses are introduced without commensurate efforts to create an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary dialogue or reflect sustainable development in institutional policy or operations. This finding is supported by more recent research emphasizing that most HEIs that are making the effort to contribute to sustainable development (SD) do so in a compartmentalised manner without holistically implementing SD across the institution (Lozano et el., 2015) while ‘whole institution’ change of curriculum, campus operations, organizational culture, leadership and management, community relations, research and assessment was stressed by UNESCO (2012). Calls for a more holistic approach were heard through DESD (Sibbel, 2009; Sterling et al., 2013). Such integration requires leadership focusing on all aspects of teaching, training, research and operations in a coherent, collaborative and systemic way – ‘[the] stakeholders have learned that where leadership is present, significant advances can be made’ (Buckler and Creech, 2014: 118). On a more critical note, Huckle and Wals (2015) posit that DESD’s reformist approach to sustainability by encouraging modifications to values, lifestyles and policy within the reigning economic paradigm, essentially represents ‘business as usual’. In relevant research, different barriers to incorporation of sustainability practices in higher education institutions have been identified, such as resistance to change, lack of support from university administrators, or missing financial resources (Larrán et al., 2015). ESD implementation is obstructed mainly due disciplinary boundaries and the separation of subjects, while, on the other hand, it can be supported by international strategies, declarations and university commitments (Holm et al., 2015). In general, sustainable development poses particular challenges for universities as it involves different types of knowledge (Adomßent, 2013) and driving paradigms (Halbe et al., 2015). Of more immediate pertinence to this paper, however, are the challenges to greater uptake of sustainable development in higher education represented by an ongoing lack of research. The Phase II monitoring and evaluation process review of DESD outcomes published in 2011 pointed to a problem that has continued to dog evaluators and reviewers of macro level ESD accomplishments: accessibility of data on ESD processes and learning opportunities which are insufficiently documented in the literature (Tilbury, 2011). Both that review (ibid: 9) and the subsequent final review (Buckler and Creech, 2014) stated categorically that ‘ESD remains poorly researched and weakly evidenced’. Although Western Europe is doing much better in this respect as ‘much of the evidence of progress on ESD in higher education comes from [this region]’ (Buckler and Creech, 2014: 116), there continues to be a noticeable absence of research and documented evidence 3

especially in the post-socialist1 states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). After a slow start to published articles on the state of higher education and ESD in this part of Europe (Lukman et al., 2009; Piasecki and Kostrzewa, 2009), there has more recently been a perceptible upswing in publications in peer-reviewed journals and books (Adomßent and Otte, 2013; Adomßent et al., 2014; Barton and Dlouhá, 2014). Despite this sudden spurt in publishing activity it is still really only scratching the surface, and this paper is an attempt to add further meat to the bones of ESD research in the context of ongoing transition processes in this region. 1.1.

Field of study – the countries of Central Europe (CE)

To examine the current situation in ESD on the HE level, attention was focused on some of the Central Group of countries2: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia – which belong to Central Europe (category UNESCO, 2011) – as well as Serbia, see Figure 1. This selection is based on the relative similarity of the four Visegrad countries (another classification used to group the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland) and Slovenia which are new members of the European Union, and the possibility of comparing them with the situation in an additional one (Serbia), which was a constituent of former Yugoslavia but it is still a non-EU member state. All of these countries (with some exceptions for Slovenia) are representatives of the post-socialist bloc in some respect for particular historical reasons – they share challenges associated with the transition to a post-socialist society, such as rapid liberalisation and the ‘big bang’ transformation to a market economy. Also, systemic changes in higher education (expanding numbers of students, and other deep systemic changes as a result of the formation of the European Higher Education Area within the Bologna process) were spread over a much longer period in the West. Moreover, in spite of a long tradition in environmentally oriented efforts in CE states, all of these countries struggle with sustainable development challenges in different areas and levels of decision-making (Barton and Dlouhá, 2014) which slows down the implementation of ESD at the higher education level in comparison to the West.

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We acknowledge that ‘former socialist’ or ‘post-socialist’ is a blunt label to group all new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe under, and that no such state is identical to another. All had their own unique traits under the old regimes and all have pursued different paths of development over the last quarter century. However, alternative yet similarly short labels would potentially provoke misunderstanding among readers, e.g. ‘new EU member states’ would confuse post-socialist EU states with Malta and Cyprus. For the purposes of this article we believe that post-socialist CEE states, however imperfect, best conveys the group of countries in which our small sample of countries fits by its nature. 2

At the risk of confusing the reader, we begin to differentiate here between CEE states and the sub-grouping of postsocialist Central European (CE) states which we focused specific research attention on. See Section 2.1.

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Figure 1. Map of the Central European countries analysed in this article (dark colour) against the background of the Central and Eastern European region (light colour). Over the past few years, occasional attempts to map the ESD situation at the higher education level in CEE countries have been made. Collaborative research initiated by the Leuphana University 3 Lüneburg invited partners from other CEE states to attend a summer school dedicated to ESD in CEE countries (Adomßent and Otte, 2013). However, these efforts did not trigger systemic reflection of ESD by CEE countries themselves – it was not possible to produce a comparative study then due to terminological and other ambiguities in the reports from CEE states. 1.2.

Higher education policies for sustainable development in the CE region

The policy environment in relation to (ESD in) higher education is considered to be almost identical throughout the region in question – all the countries face difficulties in the transition of the whole higher education system with growing demands on universities in the context of a transformed economy (Kohoutek, 2009). All of them also face problems resulting from political turbulence reflected in changing priorities regarding sustainable development in particular; at the higher education level they face financial and institutional inflexibility leading to methodological and disciplinary barriers to innovation. Financial factors play a role here as pointed out by Barton and Dlouhá (2014) – with the exception of relatively generous support for education and research in Slovenia in 2009–2011, which was, however, followed by restrictions owing to the post-2008 financial and economic crises accompanied by increasing public indebtedness (cf. Figure 2). According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) education statistics, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Serbia all significantly underspend on tertiary education both as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and annual expenditure per student in comparison to the EU average and OECD average.

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The Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Lower Saxony, Germany; http://www.leuphana.de/en/

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Figure 2. Total public and private expenditure on tertiary education institutions in 2012 as a share of GDP (the data are available for OECD members and partners only; Serbia is neither a member nor a partner). Source: OECD (2015). Although some differences in the institutional framework in these countries emerged due to the diversity of transformation processes (Balázs et al., 1995: 616), their situation is similar in many respects. With regard to ESD, these countries operate within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe framework and its Strategy for ESD (UNECE, 2005), which has been transplanted into national ESD strategies; however, they differ in the extent of its implementation. All the countries are thus formally committed to adopt ESD throughout the educational system, but formal commitments often have no systemic or practical impact on higher education curricula or practice. Universities strive for quality and a high ranking for domestic funding purposes which are mainly based on research activity results and do not take into consideration the social and environmental aspects of sustainability. For all these reasons, national policy documents do not have a systemic impact on HEI institutional strategies if not combined with other (e.g. financial) incentives; hence the top-down enforcement of university commitments may also not be effective (Lukman and Glavič, 2007) and the bottom-up processes that depend on leadership in different areas of university life should be taken into account (cf. Dlouhá et al., in press); these are also more related to their specific educational and research culture (Jansen, 2003). 1.3.

Considerations regarding environmental education versus ESD

The tradition stemming from the Tbilisi conference on environmental education (1977) has been strong and lively throughout the region4, and hence environmental concern and terminology as

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The relationship of EE and ESD in the Central (and Eastern) Europe region is very difficult to trace prior to 1989; the environmental movement was then perceived as anti-regime, and information about environmental problems was usually

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outlined in the Tbilisi Declaration (cf. Locke et al., 2010) still encompass all dimensions of the sustainability debate. As a result of this tradition, there have recently been numerous programs at HEIs, often labelled environmental and to a lesser extent sustainable, and sometimes with the same meaning (cf. Dlouhá and Dlouhý, 2014). Pure ESD focusing on pedagogical competences is mostly in the initial discussion phase between academics and relevant stakeholders (UE4SD, 2014). In the past, environmentalism was often accepted as an underlying philosophy which formed the basis for understanding the human-nature interaction; the consequences of human activities were thus traditionally debated with regard to their harmful impact so that relevant protective, restorative and preventive technical and administrative measures could be taken (cf. Labodová et al., 2014). Where this ecological framework is still in place, the environment is perceived as being in opposition to the prevailing economic paradigm; this eventually leads to conflicts and the abandonment of environmental (and hence sustainability) needs, especially when an economy is recovering. Often, a pluralistic worldview based on multiple perspectives of social reality (which is highly relevant for multifaceted sustainable development issues and the context-embedded processes of learning, cf. De Kraker et al. (2014)) is at an early stage of development; hence the constructivist approach in which knowledge is built in the process of social interaction is still not a dominant paradigm in education. The transition to a more sustainability oriented view is often due to EU policy and strategies which promote sustainability in new EU member states (Koscielniak, 2013; Adomßent et al., 2014), and it is within the EU accession process in non-member states (Milutinović and Nikolić, 2013). The freedom to design innovative (e.g. transdisciplinary) SD oriented content in higher education is, however, limited by certain quality requirements (especially accreditation procedures), institutional conditions (disciplinary structure and dependence on relevant experts in the field), and financing per student combined with student interest in some of the disciplines (the number of students does not allow for a tailor-made approach). In spite of the fact that the policy environment within the CE region is lacking general support for ESD at the higher education level, there exist a number of committed individuals that play a leadership role in the transition towards sustainability. The focus of this article is, therefore, to trace the most important factors in the process of change from environmental education towards ESD, while special attention is paid to the bottom-up initiatives of these individuals or their universities. To illustrate the specifics of the situation in six of the countries in this region (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia), the ongoing sustainability processes in higher education institutions were analysed using qualitative methods. The aim was to compare sustainable development policies at the level of higher education, the driving forces behind institutional and other changes, the impact of ongoing educational reforms, and other factors that support or impede ESD processes in the examined countries. Within the context of this study, democratic tendencies in

kept secret (due to the high pollution levels which were probably present in all these countries); the principles of environmental education were often formulated in line with ideology and practical efforts rarely documented. There are more such difficulties thanks to which it is advisable to assess this heritage from the perspective of recent conditions – now the policy environment across countries is quite similar (these are mostly EU member countries or EU candidates), but this context to a certain extent still depends on historical factors (EU driven policies are not reflected in practice in a similar way) (cf. Dlouhá, Dlouhý, 2015).

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higher education that support existing seeds of ESD and contribute to an overall change of the curricular, institutional and policy environment in HE have also been considered.

2. Method As argued above, the published research from CE countries describes practical ESD experiences while the methods to analyse them are more or less intuitive – the case study method is often used to address complexities of real-world problems (Dillon & Reid, 2004; Yin, 2014) with the aim of critically reflecting on them to generate new ideas/solutions (Corcoran et al., 2004). This approach offers the possibility to perceive problems in their original context (Flyvbjerg, 2006) but is also criticized for the absence of theoretical insight to develop a conceptual framework (Corcoran et al., 2002). To minimize the lack of academic rigour in case studies (Kyburz-Graber, 2004), qualitative methods can be used to find general patterns in situations, events and processes (cf. Simmons and Gregory, 2005; Sol et al., 2013). These methods are often based on grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1999; Strauss and Corbin, 1998) which helps to observe real situations and work with emerging phenomena, concepts and theories. To be applicable in the different contexts of CE countries with their diverse cultures and different understandings of sustainability, modification of this method – conceptual framework analysis (Jabareen, 2008) – has been applied within the research for this article. This method is suitable for a multidisciplinary environment and draws on a wide range of data sources: newspaper articles, essays and case studies. Through an iterative process of collection, analysis, and comparison of different types of evidence with concepts that could explain them, this method provides an opportunity to develop a conceptual framework for understanding complex phenomena, e.g. sustainable development (Jabareen, 2009). It typically consists of seven stages, i.e. mapping, reading sources, categorizing data, identifying, deconstructing, categorizing concepts, and integrating them to synthetize (and later validate) the suitable conceptual framework (ibid.). 2.1.

Research process

Building on this method, the authors analysed data from a literature review and interpreted them in three steps to develop the conceptual framework that explained the observed phenomena in a comparative way. At the beginning of the research, available information from accessible sources that covered the theme and region comprehensively (such as Adomßent and Otte, 2013; Dlouhá et al., 2014; Adomßent et al., 2014; Mader et al., 2014) were carefully reviewed; a snapshot of the overall context and policy environment was thus formulated. Analysis of this broad picture firstly concentrated on identifying the critical factors of ESD transition. In this stage, the range of factors5 was outlined on the basis of ESD transition principles (COPERNICUS Alliance, 2013); a number of them were consequently selected that illustrated the ESD transition processes in the region concerned; these were then described in more detail (see the following step). This was a dialogical process in which a number of factors were identified, described, and continuously reconsidered as new information gathered within this study modified the overall picture. Repeated and significant 5

The factors identified first included: HE governance; Top-down versus bottom-up approach in HE policies; HE quality assurance; Financing of (ESD in) HE; Attention paid to SD in general documents; Educational documents for ESD on HE level; Understanding of EE versus SD principles; Transdisciplinarity; Individual ESD initiatives in HE; Involvement of HEIs in thematic (SD) networks; Innovative pedagogical approaches; Research; Transition problems of the country.

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phenomena (potentially useful for further comparison) were structured into a matrix where the factors were outlined on behalf of each individual country examined. The aim of this stage was to make the information brief and structured, and able to provide a comparative overview of the region (a framework to be outlined in the following step). The second step is based on deconstructing and integrating thus identified critical factors through a detailed description of these factors in the countries in question, and comparison with the concepts outlined in other sources. The documents reviewed in the first step were used again but compared against other documents, case studies and research results (UE4SD, 2014; Dlouhá et al., in press). The research team worked with these different sources to justify the results in a triangulation process. The ontological, epistemological and methodological roles of critical factors were reflected to integrate them and reduce their number. The final selection of factors was based on the perceived contribution of the factor to an understanding of the chosen phenomena (i.e. ESD transition and its ‘turning points’); availability of sound information for each of them (from the reviewed resources and previous research) also played a role here. As there appeared to be some similar trends and features throughout the explored region, a third step was undertaken to interpret the findings, and synthetize a conceptual framework. The descriptions of each factor in the observed countries were summarized – resulting in an outline of the general role of these factors in ESD processes in the region (while also specifics in some of the countries were highlighted wherever appropriate). This stage of interpretation was undertaken within a broader context (e.g. information about transition processes in higher education and ESD policies); it also built upon experience from available case studies and best practices (UE4SD, 2014; 2015) to demonstrate the common trends. As the critical factors showed different stages of ESD transition in the individual countries explored, an evolutionary perspective was developed to highlight successful stages of this process. From this perspective, the factors showed a temporal hierarchy (as presented in the Results section). In general, the qualitative methods used in this research were based on several stages of interpretation (Hay, 2000) which consisted of a continuous re-consideration of the information, its reformulation and/or rejection, and search for other resources – which was carried out by up to three researchers to ensure reliability. As it is common in qualitative research, context was considered to be important for understanding the logic of transition processes in individual countries; the contextual specifics were taken into consideration where relevant. Diverse information sources which concerned the overall policy environment, initiatives by individual countries and other circumstances were queried. Some of the obtained information which did not fit into the matrix was used in the text of this article where appropriate (mainly in the Discussion of findings – ESD trends in the CE region section). A brief description of the ESD initiatives at HE level in two case studies: from Slovenia and the Czech Republic (the countries, most familiar to the authors of this article) were used to illustrate the evolution of the ESD paradigm on the HE level that was theoretically outlined in the previous steps (see Appendix). In summary, information about the countries in question was obtained via desk-top research and processed using secondary data analysis so that the selected phenomena were described in methodologically feasible and sufficient (for our purposes) approximation. The resulting overview of ESD transition factors was summarized in a matrix (structured description of these factors in relation 9

to individual countries), interpreted within the policy context of the region and individual countries, and generalized with regards to the common character of the transition processes in the region. At this stage, no survey was implemented to justify the findings from the literature review; however, colleagues from the CE region were consulted within related cooperation and other research (UE4SD, 2014, 2015; Dlouhá et al., in press). 2.2.

Limitations of the study

This research has several limitations. First, it outlines transition factors within a few countries, and attempts to draw broader conclusions. The countries represent a specific region with similar challenges, and yet it is assumed here that the ESD processes evolve in a similar way in different contexts (from environmental consciousness to sustainability awareness with critical insight into social, economic and other dimensions). This generalization should hence be considered as conditional. Second, this research works with different information sources, and exploits authors’ direct experiences from ongoing cooperation among the CE regional partners within the European UE4SD network focusing on educators’ competences in ESD on the HE level (UE4SD, 2014). Nonetheless, some of the information might be missing as critical reflection of these educational processes was absent in the past and is emerging only now. This dialogue aimed at clarifying the main concepts which precedes rigorous reflection of the outcomes is often held in national languages – these sources were not exploited. The English written articles often build upon concepts that are not inherent in national discourse, and do not capture the local context sufficiently and openly. It was assumed that this limitation was overcome by use of multiple perspectives from a diversity of sources and employing personal experience. Difficulties with finding and selecting suitable sources of information, combined with the fact that different researchers have different conceptions of the same phenomenon, are the inherent limitations of the conceptual framework analysis that are counter-weighted by its advantages (Jabareen, 2009). An attempt to justify the results through subsequent quantitative assessment of the factors was not successful because of the complexity of the data and information. The authors developed a scale of three levels – from strong to weak – for each of the critical transition factors. However, its application was problematic as the description of the factors in individual countries varied due in particular to differing spatial or institutional scopes, the level of formalization of ESD processes, and other issues, such as the nature of documents or other phenomena. This is also in line with the character of the conceptual framework analysis method which is not supposed to provide an analytical tool as such but offers ‘an interpretative approach to social reality’ (Jabareen, 2009). In spite of its methodological limitations this study develops several concepts that, combined, constitute the conceptual framework of ESD evolution within the particular policy context in postsocialist countries and possibly beyond. Its tentative results helped to pose further questions for subsequent research, and to draw attention to the potential and important new field to be explored across different cultures and regions – the application of ESD principles to support not only sustainability, but also democratic transition; in a practical sense, the development of educators’ competences in higher education (cf. Dlouhá et al., in press).

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3. Results Information from numerous sources was compiled in Table 1. Table 1 should be here. Table 1. Overview of ESD transition factors in selected countries of the CE region. Sources: (Adomßent and Otte, 2013; Adomßent et al., 2014; Milutinović, 2014; Nikolić et al., 2015; Koscielniak, 2013; Dlouhá, 2013; Dimitrova, 2013; Labodová et al., 2014; Dlouhá et al., 2014; Barton and Dlouhá, 2014). In Table 1, transition factors are briefly described to reveal general and possibly comparable features; this description illustrates trends in the individual countries. Some of the described phenomena could be observed in all of the countries while the others require specific conditions (framework policies and institutional conditions to implement them). This is expressed as an ‘evolutionary perspective’ in a hierarchy of factors (and its order in the matrix): from Environmental education as an initial stage, to Green campus initiatives as a more advanced one. The Individual initiatives factor covers participation of individual lecturers, research groups and students, as well as the initiatives of university institutions within the scope of sustainable development – these activities were specified by Kościelniak (2014).

Table 2. ESD transition factors summarized across the region. Transition factors/CE Countries

Interpretation of factor description for the countries in question

Environmental education (EE)

Environmental education programs have traditionally existed, based on environmental protection or the care paradigm, and discussing preventive measures but sometimes with little future strategic perspective (Serbia)

Individual initiatives

Numerous: this is one of the driving forces of ESD.

Networks

Networking is a supportive mechanism: national networks with a specific focus (Slovenia); some have limited influence (Serbia). International networking is a strong driving force for ESD project implementation. Networks with stakeholders from outside academia (NGOs, lower educational level) exist (CR, Slovakia). None of the reported networks involves local communities.

ESD - understanding

The term is not adopted (CR, Poland) or is misunderstood: in Serbia it is related to economic development, in Slovakia it covers the holistic dimension of environmental thinking. In Slovenia it is used as a label, but not discussed by policy makers at the HE level. However, dialogue between university educators and other stakeholders to clarify the term has already started (Slovakia, Poland)

ESD – policy documents

EE or ESD documents in legislation mostly exist; they often do not concern HE (with the exception of Hungary and Slovakia).

ESD - implementation

The driving force for ESD implementation are international documents (UNECE Strategy e.g. in CR); national documents (Serbia, Slovakia); universities and their initiatives (Slovenia). Sometimes, the aim is to comply with EU funding requirements (Hungary); or students’ interest (Serbia). These driving forces seem to be weak.

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Transdisciplinarity

Disciplinary orientation of university curricula is a general phenomenon (all the countries observed) which sometimes limits students’ mobility (Serbia); an interdisciplinary approach appears in the applied sciences (Hungary, Slovenia), as individual courses (Poland), or together with other innovations (CR, Hungary).

Competences (innovative approaches)

Almost no attention is paid to pedagogical aspects of HE-teaching in this region. Discussion on ESD innovations (especially competence related) is sometimes held on a theoretical level (CR, Slovakia) with little practical impact.

Green campus initiatives (whole-ofinstitution approach at HE level)

Campus operations is in general a neglected field; university management often does not consider it relevant. Initiatives in this field – where they exist – thus meet with indifference or lack of experience (CR, Hungary). The exception is Slovenia with its successful Sustainable and Socially Responsible University of Maribor example.

Research

Research on ESD at the HE level is fundamental (CR, Slovenia) or serves for policy purposes to assess implementation of strategies (Hungary, Slovakia). Some countries tend to have inherited the tradition of HE institutions as exclusively teaching ones (Poland, Serbia).

Table 1 shows different facets in the individual countries’ descriptions which, in Table 2, are compared across the explored region. The evolutionary dimension of the identified factors is summarized as follows in Figure 3. As obvious from Tables 1 and 2, the observed countries have mostly reached the first level of transition, only – outlined as environmental education, individual initiatives and networking. Some of them have started to develop an understanding of ESD through dialogue of actors relevant to HE teaching but the term itself is still not widely accepted. Due to this fact, even if the policy documents stress ESD at different educational levels, these cannot be consciously implemented and tend to become mere formalities with no practical impact. Transdisciplinarity and the development of related competences (which is relevant for constructivist approaches in education) are greatly lacking in the region. Green campus initiatives (resulting from the two previous factors due to its multi-stakeholder nature) have been demonstrated just in one case. Here the influence from abroad played a role as one of the driving forces for innovation (Slovenia case study, see Appendix A.1). Research can be considered separately – it permeates most of the other factors; it justifies and hence supports transition. As the first transition factors have been achieved in all of the countries while the others are still strived for, the factors have been structured in an evolutionary hierarchy (Figure 3). This evolution illustrates three stages of HE involvement in the transition process – interpreted as commitment, critical insight, and (multistakeholder) action – which have been reached progressively in the observed countries. Figure 3 to be here.

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Figure 3. ESD transition factors for higher education (as outlined in Table 2) in an evolutionary perspective. Three stages of HE involvement in the transition process outlined in the left column.

4. Discussion This study aimed to draw a broad picture of the situation in higher education in several European countries, their sustainability teaching incentives, and a combination of both that define the conditions for the implementation of sustainability in higher education. To provide a structured overview of the situation, the authors proposed ESD transition factors in a conceptual framework of ESD related university transformation. 4.1.

Method and results

The core principle of the conceptual framework analysis method used in this research is the critical reflection of data sources, their interpretation and continuous development of theoretical concepts upon them. Compared to the outline of this method by Jabareen (2009), the authors modified some of the research phases, because they worked with information from the six countries. Thus, they firstly developed a matrix for identifying and comparing similar phenomena in these different contexts – here, the resulting concepts (transition factors) gradually emerged from description of the situation. Only the second stage of the research focused on development of the conceptual framework, its overall logic and elements (the factors); the two sets of results (description, and concepts) mutually support the development of situational understanding. The situation in individual countries has been described and discussed in other parts of this article. The phenomena observed in this research (Environmental education, Understanding of ESD, Transdisciplinarity, Individual initiatives, Networks, Research, Competences and innovative approaches, Green campus initiatives ) were identified as critical ESD transition factors. The authors developed the conceptual framework in which these factors can be seen in an evolutionary 13

perspective, thus having the potential to map a process of the overall educational change – from environmental education to more emancipatory approaches characterized by transdisciplinarity. To illustrate this possible evolutionary interpretation of the findings, the factors were structured in the spatial-hierarchical order in Tables 1 and 2, and graphically expressed in Figure 3. This temporal hierarchy of transition factors spans from acceptance of value based environmentally related principles, with committed individuals to advocate it in theory and practice, to networks supporting each other nationally and/or internationally; this level is reached in a non-supportive environment where ESD is driven by just few committed individuals. The understanding and wider acceptance of (E)SD, embedded in policy documents, and implemented in practice, is a level where support from policy-makers and public awareness exist. The most advanced stage characterized by a transdisciplinary position with a broad dialogue among social actors is achieved in a conscious, knowledgeable environment. This stage is, on the pedagogical side, characterized by the attention paid to competences, and greatly lacking in the region probably due to historical reasons: the related constructivist approach and experiences with critically combining different perspectives (De Kraker et al, 2014) are missing. In practice, this approach is demonstrated by green campus initiatives which represent whole-of-institution approaches at HE level. Research is employed to critically reflect ESD change, and anticipate further development; hence it is one of the principles in academic discourse, sparely documented in the observed region. The resulting conceptual framework of ESD transition factors was illustrated in Figure 3 as an evolutionary hierarchy where research permeates the three stages of the transformation process. It proved its practical usefulness when it was applied to the assessment of case studies in ESD at HE level throughout Europe - it helped to select 13 good practice examples from about 100 delivered in the UE4SD project. In the resulting Leading Practice Publication, most of the practices described are at advanced levels of the evolutionary hierarchy (UE4SD, 2015; Dlouhá et al. in press). 4.2.

ESD trends in the CE region

The review of available resources on ESD in higher education within the countries under consideration resulted in a number of findings which (in spite of the limitations described above) contributed to a coherent picture of the region. The summary is presented principally in Table 1; in the following paragraphs we reflect upon these findings within the broader context of the information not used for the previous analysis. All of the countries under consideration state that Environmental Education has been traditionally incorporated into higher education. In some of the countries, the environmental approach still prevails and has been gradually developed into mainly environmental protection or technical restoration programs in a range of applied sciences. Some of the countries, however, have not progressed beyond this stage. Environmental protection itself (as a basis of ESD) is sometimes driven restrictively within a highly bureaucratic framework – by regulations, norms and control mechanisms, as is the case of Serbia. ESD in the countries in question is often driven by international policies such as the UNECE Strategy, involvement in international networks of cooperation, EU funding opportunities and participation in international conferences (so the drivers are mainly external). But sustainability practices are not easily transferable, which means that universities have to develop their own culture. As a 14

consequence, the ESD concept is sometimes accepted only at a quite formal level (Hungary) or even misunderstood (Serbia). In some countries such as Slovakia, a broad process of discussions with societal actors has already been initiated so that the term ‘ESD’ is accepted as a part of the political agenda and applied in higher education practice (although the process has not been completed). There are similar endeavours with an EE focus elsewhere – e.g. in Poland. In general, disciplinarity is a deeply rooted part of academic culture in all post-socialist CE countries, while for sustainability the transdisciplinary approach and wider involvement of stakeholders is crucially needed (Dlouhá and Dlouhý, 2014; Figueiró, Raufflet, 2015).). Environmentally oriented interdisciplinary programs in the CE countries in question do exist, but transdisciplinary programs in the field of (E)SD have only just been initiated. These processes struggle with contradictory general tendencies toward a narrowing disciplinary orientation which is congruent with the increasing demand for well-defined academic performance (outputs and efficiency) and the need to raise academic excellence according to widely accepted criteria. However, in some cases practical (action) orientation has been a driving force behind the acceptance of the need for transdisciplinarity (Hungary, Slovenia). The UNECE Strategy has identified that the countries in question suffer from an overall lack of interdepartmental and multi-stakeholder cooperation on ESD (UNECE, 2005: 12; Adomßent et al., 2014). Broad educational partnerships in the region are often part of international projects and/or are funded by European grant schemes, depending thus on external financing. In some cases, there are healthy networks of cooperation with other stakeholders in society, capitalising for example on interactions with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – this mutual interaction is then reported as a driver for ESD at the higher education level, especially in teachers’ education (Dimitrova, 2014). The benefits of university dialogue with other stakeholders on the regional level are not widely recognized. This is demonstrated by the distribution of the United Nations-backed Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) on ESD model which can be considered an indicator of regional cooperation – the CE region is almost wholly lacking in these organisations, although there are currently 138 RCEs in other parts of the world (UNU IAS, 2016). With the exception of two RCEs in the Russian Federation and two outliers in Lithuania and Albania, there are no RCEs anywhere in post-socialist Europe (cf. Dlouhá and Moldan, 2012; Barton and Dlouhá, 2014). Dialogue between academic stakeholders and businesses concerning sustainability issues is also mostly lacking. This is related to the prevailing environmental orientation of university programs (instead of a sustainability one), the lack of interdisciplinarity in these programs, and misunderstanding over the concept of (E)SD in some cases (the economic dimension is not linked to the environmental one). However, the situation in technical universities, which have potentially more opportunities to cooperate with businesses on environmentally friendly solutions, was not explored in-depth here. There are no pedagogical requirements in higher education in any part of the region, and professional development of university educators is not systemically supported. Moreover, the need for holistic, transdisciplinary and transformative education is often in conflict with dominant teaching and learning attitudes and models, and the lack of compatibility between existing programs and the concept of ESD itself is a primary obstacle to a change of approach. As a consequence, substantial innovation in educational methods and approaches required by ESD documents (UNECE, 15

2005) is mostly not mentioned on the higher education level within the observed countries; this concerns especially competence oriented teaching. Future-oriented thinking (from future vision to practical implementation), however, has been reported from a case study in Slovenia where it has practical relevance. Development of educator competences in ESD as a prerequisite for an overall transition thus seems to be a necessity and is currently being examined by the UE4SD project (UE4SD, 2014). There are ESD experts in the region that play a prominent role in bottom-up initiatives; these are, however, often not balanced with relevant top-down strategies. Exception to this experience is the new model of a Sustainable and Socially Responsible University of Maribor that contributes to a deeper understanding of the interaction between the environmental, economic, social and ethical dimension of sustainable development and might thus inspire not only HEIs but also other public, private, governmental, non-governmental and industrial organizations. In any sustainability-oriented changes, reflection and research are important processes as they provide information for refocusing or altering accepted strategies; however, this level of change is often neglected (Stephens and Graham, 2010: 614). Within the transition process in the CE region, the mission of academic institutions has changed from an orientation geared almost exclusively toward teaching without almost any research and innovation (the initial situation – cf. Balázs et al., 1995: 616), to the recent situation where research outcomes have become one of the quality indicators of HEIs in CE, just as in the rest of Europe. In spite of this, research reflecting the ESD transition (aside from statistical data for OECD and other reports) in the countries in question is insufficient and not comparable with academic dialogue in the West (Dlouhá and Moldan, 2013). It should be mentioned here that research in particular has the potential to change the overall higher education culture and is one of the cornerstones of innovation. The reported Slovenian case can hence serve as a model of successful transition. The SD ranking of universities (Lukman et al., 2010) is being continued biannually with a selected number of universities. The authors suggest that it be extended to all CE and EU-28 countries or even globally as part of a continuation or valorisation of the UE4SD project. This extended roll-out would greatly improve awareness and the political will for sustainability and social responsibility at universities. 4.3.

General remarks

The following points are of practical relevance for higher education institutions, representatives and policy-makers. Although higher education in the field of SD is sensitive to cultural context (Tilbury, 2011) and its development depends on specific circumstances and past experiences (Balázs et al., 1995; Dimitrova, 2014), there are some general trends in the higher education field to be observed throughout the CE region (Kohoutek, 2009). These are relevant to the positive influence of EU policies on the one hand, and the difficulties of the HEI transition process on the other, which the universities had to undergo due to the necessity to overcome their historical baggage and be included in the European HE area. The transition is still not complete and all countries are experiencing its accompanying features: a lack of finance combined with a growing number of students and lower quality education. With regards to ESD, this situation has resulted in the 16

following negative factors: administrative inertia, a lack of motivation on the part of academic staff (who are often overloaded and underfinanced), and conservatism at different levels (Dimitrova, 2014). Consequently, within universities in transition educational policies are ineffective with regards to the implementation of ESD strategies at the higher education level. The impact of ESD policies on HEI activities is often not straightforward (extensive HEI autonomy plays a role here), and hence in many cases bottom-up commitment and initiatives are more important. For the success of individual activities developed by ESD leaders is important wide cooperation in networks and external support (they often rely on grant money). However, many such initiatives simply introduce sustainability-oriented themes into disciplinary programs – complex innovation is difficult to achieve. Under circumstances where universities worldwide are increasingly moving ‘beyond the old science driven model’, reconsidering their roles in society and increasing their communication and cooperation with other social players (Zilahy and Huisingh, 2009: 1058), systemic reorientation of this kind at the higher education level in CE countries still awaits a more stable economic (and sometimes political) situation (Dlouhá and Moldan, 2012). The authors suggest that students are more actively involved in the implementation of ESD strategies at universities, cities and local communities. Their time horizon spans several decades of future development while the teachers’ horizon is shorter. At the same time the horizons of university leaders, politicians, and company executives and boards are limited to their electoral mandate (usually around four or five years) only. While many countries have adopted policy documents which are, however, rather formal and with almost no practical impact, action at the education policy level is still required in others. Slovenia has called for a strategic document that would provide a formal framework for ESD in higher education and would include as many different disciplinary fields as possible (Dlouhá et al., 2014: 129–136). These efforts should be aligned with the international documents produced by the UN (UNESCO, UNECE) and EU, and cross-referenced and linked to other national documents. The Bologna Process which started in 1999 with the main objective of creating a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) that was officially launched in 2010 to ‘ensure more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe’ represents an opportunity for the region. This process has recently been aimed at consolidation of the EHEA, ‘intense internal and external communication’, and greater engagement of the national stakeholders (EHEA, 2014). This could be one of the platforms for discussions about higher education transformation and also their cooperation/compatibility with similar HE institutions across Europe. 4.4 EU policy context From the analysis of ESD transition factors conveyed in this research it is obvious that the UN Decade and especially activities coordinated by the UNECE within it have had considerable impact on the CE region. For example, the UNECE Strategy for ESD was translated into all national languages of the six explored countries, and in some cases incorporated within national legislation. Even if they are sometimes not properly understood by policy-makers and do not sufficiently inform university 17

leadership, international documents represented considerable support for ESD committed individuals in CE higher education institutions who have based their activities upon them. These individuals have created an opportunity to accept new principles for HE teaching, research and operations, and thus develop socially responsible and open institutions while struggling with a number of obstacles, especially the fact that the higher education sector is chronically underfinanced. There are more such barriers hindering prompt ESD implementation on the higher education level in CE, such as outdated institutional structures, an underdeveloped transdisciplinary framework, and new quality requirements which do not fit with the envisaged role of universities in the social and environmental field. But due to a long tradition of environmental education and, in addition, recent democratic changes in society, the sustainability concept has a good chance of being widely accepted in future – if international policies, documents and cooperation in networks with institutions from abroad continue to play their role in supporting the more or less advanced germination of ESD in the CE region. It is more than desirable that the supportive policies remain active beyond the UN DESD timeline so that processes already initiated have time to develop and bear fruit, and thus promote implementation of the Global Action Programme. Even highly autonomous higher education institutions need to develop their long term strategies in cooperation with society; and there is the danger that if no policy support exists, they will understand ESD related goals and principles as an additional burden which only adds to an already problematic situation due to numerous transition problems. 4.5.

Proposed hypothesis and new research questions

From the evolutionary perspective, the environmental viewpoint which was (and sometimes still is) taken as a worldview to be applied in the social and economic spheres should be extended to the multiple perspectives that play a role in (E)SD. This line of thought suggests that interdisciplinary thinking (based on constructivism in education) leads to pluralistic approaches in decision-making, while more rigorous and disciplinary thinking (relevant for a cognitive approach) supports the need for a single perspective, e.g. an environmental framework which then also possesses explanatory functions (serves as theoretical underpinning). As was shown in this research, the higher levels of the evolutionary hierarchy (transdisciplinarity; competence development and whole-institution approach) which are relevant for constructivist based pedagogies (cf. De Kraker et al., 2014) are mostly missing in the region where understanding and implementation of ESD is only evolving. This can be a starting point for a subsequent exploration of the relationship between ESD and democratization processes.

5. Conclusions The aim of this article was to paint a broad picture of the ESD in CE region, which is supposed to have some similarities due to its common history. In the analysis undertaken, the authors attempted to identify the most important processes, principles and actual conditions for the HE transformation towards sustainability in the educational systems under the specific policy circumstances of the examined countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Serbia. They used a qualitative method of inquiry (conceptual framework analysis) to review and interpret very diverse 18

information sources, which finally led to an outline of ‘critical transition factors’ and their description in individual countries. This resulted in a structured analytical overview of situation in the explored countries that was used for comparison and generalization across the region. The factors of sustainability transition pointed to some common trends in the higher education environment and sustainability policies; they were consequently interpreted on a temporal scale in an evolutionary hierarchy (depicting the progress from environmental education towards implementation of ESD principles). As the higher levels of this hierarchy are associated with constructivist pedagogies, the research should contribute, if continued, not only to an understanding of the pre-requisites for ESD development, but also some other aspects of democratization processes in the CE region which represents a substantive part of Europe. In a practical sense, the outcomes will inform competence related activities on the higher education level that are recently being developed on a European scale. The article addresses two goals: it describes and critically discusses situation in CE countries, and provides theoretical reflection using the modified ‘conceptual framework analysis’ method. The transition factors were not transformed into indicators with potential to quantitatively assess progress towards sustainability. As inherent in this qualitative approach to reality, they were used as explanatory concepts to provide insight into very diverse policies and conditions in higher education and describe them in a structured way, with the aim not to assess but rather to support these processes by providing critical insight. The education systems in post-socialist CE countries have undergone a deep transformation in recent decades (political, social and economic). Transformative processes in higher education have also occurred that have liberated universities from their earlier ideological burden and included them in the European higher education space. Together with that, many positive changes promoting ESD have taken place. ‘Critical transition factors’ helped to understand progress towards ESD : starting from the acceptance of environmental principles only (in the initial stage), opening up to an SD perspective through individual initiatives often aimed at discussions with policy-makers, new transdisciplinary programs, and networking. The most promising seem to be whole-institution approaches that at the level of higher education include practical green campus initiatives. They initiate possibilities of cooperation between actors and entities within and outside academia that have taken root around them. Due to the transdiciplinary character of such initiatives, more extensive changes in teaching/learning processes and hence innovation in the content of university curricula may also occur. To reflect on ESD innovations, research activities are important at all stages of transition. As the academic dialogue and research results also provide legitimacy for many of the ESD related efforts, it is thus a high priority, and the role of universities is crucial in this respect.

6. Acknowledgements This study was supported by the project GA14-36005S of the Grant Agency CR. We would like to thank Jiří Dlouhý for his technical support, Laura Macháčková Henderson for editing the text, and the UE4SD partners from the East region for providing valuable input.

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Appendix A. Case studies To illustrate these general findings with practical examples, case studies were developed for the purpose of this article. Slovenia was identified as one of the most advanced countries, and the example of the University of Maribor is presented to show the impact of transition factors in practice. Another example from the Czech Republic was added for comparison; it shows a typical situation where bottom-up initiatives are insufficiently supported by top-down policies.

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A.1 Case study: The Sustainable and Socially Responsible University of Maribor6 The following case study illustrates research as a driving force of sustainability related changes at the university level. It describes the impact of ESD strategies, international cooperation and networking on the sustainability transformation of the University of Maribor (UM), Slovenia. On the occasion of the launch of the UN DESD in HE, an international conference ‘Committing Universities to Sustainable Development’ was held in Graz, Austria (2005). Desired changes in higher education for sustainability were outlined in two contributions from the UM Department of Chemical Engineering at this conference: extending science and engineering to a new SD paradigm, and new strategies for environmental education at universities to become sustainable ones (Glavič, 2005). According to this concept, sustainability should be integrated in all courses, and modified to encourage systems thinking, a holistic view and interdisciplinarity based on active learning. As a result, the group launched the project Sustainable University of Maribor. To develop a strategy that efficiently implements these ideas, research was important from the very beginning. It was concerned with a review of existing practices in this field: sustainability education programmes in chemical engineering and applied chemistry in small, innovative European countries and the top 100 world universities were compared (Glavič, 2006). This evidence demonstrated evolution from pollution prevention and control courses to sustainability programs of teaching; the largest number of courses was devoted to green manufacturing (green science, engineering, technology and systems). Environmental management and economics was the most important nontechnical group of subjects in sustainability education; social topics were only just emerging. More theoretically oriented research efforts concentrated on sustainability terms and their definitions (Lukman and Glavič, 2007). Finally, research and practical efforts were combined: they started with the planning of the future development of the University, where the Deming spiral was proposed as an organizational tool. The Deming Cycle (Deming, 1993) is an iterative four-step (Plan–Do–Check–Act, PDCA) management tool used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products. In the UM sustainability changes, the first step included the vision, mission, and strategy. The second step encompassed teaching and learning, research and development, etc. The third step evaluated the results achieved: university performance and success using sustainability indicators. The last step referred to possible improvements: innovation, development, cost-benefit analysis, and annual reporting. The UM developed a case study for this method while a bottom-up approach was applied (Lukman and Glavič, 2007). In 2006, a Sustainability Council was established, including representatives from nine of the thirteen UM departments. A new vision and mission were accepted, and 18 new projects were proposed. The Student Council fully supported the Sustainable University concept. Three years later 6 projects had been completed, 17 ones were ongoing, and 19 future ones were planned (Lukman et al., 2009). A questionnaire was used to determine the main stimuli for external collaboration, successful and unsuccessful projects, the perceived importance of sustainable development, and drivers for a regional transition to SD. A methodology for developing sustainability oriented collaboration

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http://www.um.si/en/quality/Pages/A-sustainable-and-socially-responsible-University-.aspx

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between the university and regional actors was created. In addition, a new system of university ranking was proposed using research, educational and environmental indicators (Lukman et al., 2010). To summarize all three dimensions of sustainability, the three sub-indices were integrated into a composite index determining the final ranking of 35 universities. The weightings of the subindices were defined by expert judgements using pair-wise comparisons: research 54 %, education 32 %, and environment 14 %. Since then, the sustainability ranking has been repeated biannually taking into account the 15 best world universities, as well as regional and national ones (e.g. Glavič et al., 2013). In May 2011, a new rector was elected to the University of Maribor. The sustainable university was a part of his agenda with the aim of creating an innovative environment and an effective organisation contributing to the balanced, sustainable and socially responsible development of the University, the city and the country through the creation and transfer of new knowledge. The existing bottom-up approach was thus supplemented by a top-down one. The Council formulated several proposals for development (Glavič et al., 2012) which included four dimensions of sustainable development (environmental, economic, social, and ethical), and all seven principles and core subjects of social responsibility: organizational management, human rights, labour practices, environment, consumer issues, fair operating practices, community involvement and development (ISO 26000, 2010). The ethical dimension incorporated modernisation and the promotion of values, culture, ethics, and norms. To practically implement all of these principles, a Committee for Sustainability and Social Responsibility was established. The Committee has elaborated its programme and official action plan for 2013–2020, and is closely monitoring its fulfilment. A questionnaire addressed to university students and employees enabled a survey of the state-of-the-art to be conducted, and raised awareness on sustainability and social responsibility. The new rectorship has confirmed its commitment to the sustainable and socially responsible university of Maribor, adding total quality management to it based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long term success through stakeholder satisfaction with benefits for all members of the University and society. A.2 Case study from the Czech Republic The burden of history (see introductory chapters) posed numerous challenges in implementing/disseminating sustainability in higher education in the Czech Republic, for example: there is widespread scepticism about the SD concept itself (perceived by some decision makers as an unnecessary burden on the national budget); also the term ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ is considered to be vague, in contrast to the term ‘environmental education’ which is well established. ESD is not generally adopted within institutions of formal education at all levels, and there is especially an institutional confusion related to the concept of competences within this framework. In the academic environment, ESD principles do not receive support as they supposedly contradict the achievement of academic excellence (UNECE, 2010). Although there is a tradition of interdisciplinary studies particularly in the applied environmental sciences, they do not attain a sustainability dimension on a broad scale: for example, out of 636 accredited study programs in Czech tertiary education (January 2016), 24 have an environmental dimension and only 3 are explicitly oriented toward sustainable development (MSMT, 2016).

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In spite of the radical transformation of the academic system after 1989, there is a strong institutional tradition that is reflected in the structure of universities. Higher education institutions are organized in disciplinary-oriented faculties and departments, and the design of study programmes and accreditation procedures follow disciplinary principles. Development of the academic system is currently closely tied to new quality criteria, and disciplinary excellence is inherent in the perception of the quality of the study process and its outcomes. Even though there is a tendency to converge with the EU model, the structure of universities is different (social sciences are underdeveloped), and sustainability as a subject is marginalised as excessive attention is paid to economic themes and neoclassical paradigms within them. Open spaces for innovation seem to be important seeds for change wherever an institution provides adequate conditions for development of new ideas. Such enclaves exist but they are usually small, need protection and remain isolated – the capacity to spread these innovations and inspire other institutions and departments is limited. The ‘survival factors’ of these enclaves include individual leadership, interest among students and good research. Yet the latter usually leads to a further narrowing of a disciplinary field, and hence compliance with the overall rather rigid disciplinary structure. The Charles University Environment Centre in Prague (CUEC) established in 1992 was released from this rigid structure in order to support interdisciplinary relationships. It is now an independent institute of Charles University with approximately 20 employees which develops its own policy towards sustainable development in the field of economics, the environment and education, pursuing cooperation within the university and beyond. It is financed mostly from research and educational projects, which also determines the scope of its activities. In spite of this limitation, numerous initiatives in the field of ESD pedagogy have been undertaken: a handbook for Innovation of Higher Education in Environmental Disciplines based on national best practices in ESD teaching was produced as early as 2002; it was concerned with an educational response to interdisciplinary environmental challenges (Dlouhá ed., 2002). This was followed by the establishment of national and international networks of cooperation, often with a regional dimension to support local social actors; development of innovative study courses within these networks; production of online study materials (EnviWiki, VCSEwiki7) to be used as an interdisciplinary knowledge base; the establishment of relevant communication media, including a peer reviewed journal Envigogika8; and lastly, strong involvement in the government-led process of ESD strategy discussion and formulation. Students’ initiatives such as campus greening were also supported. These efforts thus explored all possibilities for transformation which covered almost all areas of university life. In spite of these, only research quality is acknowledged by the institute and university leadership; other contributions to the educational system and society are not recognised. Based on this experience, the most successful strategy for change was to draw on other, widely accepted vehicles for innovation – for example elearning methods which gained a degree of attention in HE innovation policies, and were implemented at a practical level within an international network of cooperation. We can conclude that progress in the area of ESD at the HE level in the Czech Republic greatly depends on motivated individuals that take up initiatives and are in most cases able to overcome

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http://www.enviwiki.cz/ in Czech, http://vcsewiki.czp.cuni.cz/ in English http://envigogika.cuni.cz/

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various barriers: methodological (justify and advocate for the necessity of a particular innovation), financial (apply for grants), and institutional (start new forms of cooperation within universities and their disciplinary structures), among others. What is missing here is a top-down approach, the lack of which seriously undermines the potential success of such efforts. Top-down and bottom-up approaches should be considered as complimentary, and communication between the relevant parties is essential (Jansen, 2003). Bottom-up approaches contribute to an invisible and incremental but more fundamental transition (Stephens, Graham, 2010: 612) while a top-down approach sets trends in the management and governance of academic institutions and influences the technological, cultural and structural elements of sustainability transformation, some of which might be assessed externally (Ferrer-Balas et al., 2008: 295–296, 298). However, the top-down efforts (and hence national and institutional policies) currently lack an appropriate framework as university ranking based on sustainability criteria is not applied (Lukman et al., 2010). Other case studies have been developed recently under the framework of the UE4SD project9 but are not subject of this analysis – they map already existing educators’ competences (UE4SD, 2014), and identify best practices in this field (UE4SD, 2015), while this article concentrates mainly on the pre-requisites for their development.

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http://www.ue4sd.eu/

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