Routledge Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development

"Thirty years on, the promise that higher education would serve as a fulcrum to leverage the larger culture toward the dream of a sustainable future seems greatly diminished. Yet this volume demonstrates that the important research goes on. With its breadth of theoretical perspective and research design, and its depth of inquiry and critique of research practice, this edited collection substantially advances our critically important field. The editors have assembled a who’s who and what’s what of higher education for sustainable development; the book gives me hope." –Peter Blaze Corcoran, Professor of Environmental Studies and Environmental Education, Director of the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Florida Gulf Coast University, USA

"Higher education has a crucial role to play in ensuring that students as future decision-makers are equipped to manage the complex and uncertain problems that confront our planet. As such it is essential that we research the policies and processes of higher education as they interlink with sustainability. This book includes chapters from some of the leading experts in sustainability in higher education, and provides an important contribution to this growing research area. It is a much needed update on a fast-changing field, and will be of interest both to early career researchers and experienced academics."

–Debby Cotton, Professor of Higher Education and Head of Educational Development, Plymouth University, UK

"Regarding higher education as a potential transformative social practice and the University as a social institution which plays a key role in the construction of a more sustainable future, this Handbook brings together reflections and concrete experiences from different countries and diverse higher education contexts, offering generative perspectives for the construction of a sustainable world, in which social and environmental justice is taken as a common goal."–Luiz Marcelo de Carvalho, São Paulo State University, Brazil

"The UN reaffirmed sustainability reform must be based on sound research. All realms of higher education must be engaged as society itself must change dramatically. Today’s graduates will lead this change as leaders in government, the private sector, and civil society. This book is a crucial guide assisting effective institutional change."–Charles Hopkins, UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Teacher Education, Canada

"The Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development structures this emerging field of research and practice. By offering this structure, it is a foundational contribution to HESD. It thereby contributes to engage new generations to work on the great challenges of our times."–Karel Mulder, Initiator of the Engineering for Sustainable Development network, The Netherlands

"Moving from the UN decade on education for sustainable development into the more action-oriented Global Action Programme, this Handbook is a timely and much needed contribution to the field of higher education for sustainable development. The Handbook presents a highly useful collection of reviews, descriptions and discussions of research efforts, and has contributions by many of the big names in the field."–Magdalena Svanström, Professor of Chemical Environmental Science, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden