http://hdl.handle.net/2117/1063 Fri, 24 May 2013 04:34:23 GMT 2013-05-24T04:34:23Z webmaster.bupc@upc.edu Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Servei de Biblioteques i Documentació no http://hdl.handle.net/2117/2263 Title: Participatory processes and institutional debate activities as key complementary aspects for embedding sustainability in higher education Authors: Esteban, F.; Ferrer Balas, Dídac; Barceló García, Miquel Abstract: Introducing sustainable development into educational programs of universities tend to be approached under two complementary strategies: “top-down” and “bottom-up”. Top-down strategies promote the adaptation of the institutional framework to the new challenges that sustainable development generates into technical expertise areas. Bottom-up strategies focus on institutional activities oriented to convincing or supporting lecturers in integrating sustainable development in their different courses and projects. However, these actions are not enough for the actual challenge if sustainable development is seen as a transformative social learning process in which the role of academia regarding sustainable development “is not on integration but rather one of innovation and systemic change within our institutions that will allow for more transformative learning to take place”. Thus, there are other strategies “in-between” that complement these to approaches, because they help to accelerate the institutional culture shift and therefore facilitate the concrete changes needed. The aim of this paper is to describe the UPC experience on the development of two complementary aspects developed under its UPC Sustainable 2015 institutional strategy: participatory processes and institutional debate activities. Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:43:56 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2117/2263 2008-10-02T14:43:56Z Esteban, F.; Ferrer Balas, Dídac; Barceló García, Miquel no sustainability, particiatory, higher education, organization Introducing sustainable development into educational programs of universities tend to be approached under two complementary strategies: “top-down” and “bottom-up”. Top-down strategies promote the adaptation of the institutional framework to the new challenges that sustainable development generates into technical expertise areas. Bottom-up strategies focus on institutional activities oriented to convincing or supporting lecturers in integrating sustainable development in their different courses and projects. However, these actions are not enough for the actual challenge if sustainable development is seen as a transformative social learning process in which the role of academia regarding sustainable development “is not on integration but rather one of innovation and systemic change within our institutions that will allow for more transformative learning to take place”. Thus, there are other strategies “in-between” that complement these to approaches, because they help to accelerate the institutional culture shift and therefore facilitate the concrete changes needed. The aim of this paper is to describe the UPC experience on the development of two complementary aspects developed under its UPC Sustainable 2015 institutional strategy: participatory processes and institutional debate activities.