UNESCO Chair Newsletter June 2024

Welcome to the June 2024 edition of the York University UNESCO Chair newsletter!

On 5 June 2024, we will celebrate World Environment Day! The day has been observed by the international community every year since 1973 and aims to create awareness and action for the environment as one of the pillars of sustainability. For this year’s celebration, we recommend to watch the global climate address by UN Secretary-General António Guterres that will broadcast live from New York on 5 June 2024 at 10 am EDT. In light of the undeniable climate crisis, he will focus on the opportunities that we all have to change course in the months ahead. In this newsletter, you will also see the many events planned for World Environment Day. For more details, please scroll down and see the events that highlight education-related themes.

In addition, our June newsletter features other events, possibilities to present, and several opportunities to get your research and/or your perspectives published. We invite you to browse through the articles in this newsletter and encourage you to share the events and opportunities with your colleagues. Thank you for your interest!

Best wishes,

Charles Hopkins & Katrin Kohl

UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability, York University Canada

On 25-26 June 2024, Albukhary International University (AIU) in Alor Setar (Malaysia) is organizing an international conference on reimagining the SDGs through the concept of the 3 Zeros (Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, Zero Net Carbon Emission).

This conference aims to provide insights and inspiration on elevating the role of social businesses for the SDGs and on creating sustainable solutions to address sustainability challenges. UNESCO Chair Charles Hopkins is invited to hold the conference keynote. He will address the role of education, training, and public awareness (= Education for Sustainable Development, ESD) in contributing to new cross-sectoral partnerships to enable social businesses to leverage complementary strengths and resources, driving collective action towards the SDGs for a better future for all.

World Environment Day is just around the corner! On 5 June 2024 at 8 am EDT / 2 pm CEST, UNESCO, the Secretariat to the Greening Education Partnership (GEP) with more than 1,300 members in 86 countries, will host a global launch event for two new guidance documents that were developed in collaboration with members: the Greening Curriculum Guidance and the Green School Quality Standard. These documents will offer technical support for those tasked with integrating climate change and other sustainability issues into the education system. With these new guidance documents and other activities, the Partnership is aiming on getting 90 % of the world’s curricula climate-ready by 2030!

Science, technology and innovation have the potential to accelerate progress towards sustainable development, in its social, economic and environmental dimensions. Digital technologies, in particular, are dramatically transforming our world. On 5 June 2024 at 8 at EDT / 2 pm CEST, this 3rd 2024 UNESCO Chairs Seminar will focus on science, technology and innovation and digital cooperation, representing key themes addressed in Chapter 3 of the draft Pact for the Future, including capacity development; the right to science; gender equality; traditional and local knowledge; and international cooperation.

To further celebrate World Environment Day, the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), UNEP, and Global Opportunities for Sustainable Development Goals (GO4SDGs) will host an online event on Integrating Sustainable Lifestyles into Higher Education Institutions’ Programmes on 5 June 2024 at 8 am EDT / 2 pm CEST.

The webinar will also mark the opening of registrations for the 2024 edition of My Sustainable Living Challenge (MSLC). MSLC takes participants into a game-based learning journey to reflect on lifestyle choices. Join the conversation and begin your own journey!

The Spirituality & Sustainability Global Network regularly hosts the Ecospirit Conversations – Dialogues about Spirituality & Sustainability. Join this next session on 11 June 2024 at 7:30 pm EDT and attend a conversation on the Earth Charter and our future, featuring Rick Clugston. How can we put the principles of the Earth Charter into action and foster a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world? Rick is a renowned advocate for sustainability and ethical development and will explore the profound impact of the Earth Charter on our global future including the roles that we can all play in our respective environment.

The BRIDGES research project on Bridging needs in teacher education and schools through interdisciplinary work is a 4-year research project (2020-2024). It has been led by staff working in teacher education at three Norwegian institutes: University of South-Eastern Norway, University of Tromsø – the Arctic University of Norway, and Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. To be held on 12 June 2024 from 7-10 am EDT / 1-4 pm CEST, the concluding digital conference aims at reviewing lessons learned during the course of this research and discussing potential ways forward. The conference is open to an international audience. If you wish to participate in the event, please register by 10 June 2024.

Are you working on a creative and innovative project with societal impact that could be scaled up to contribute to a sustainable future? Are you a changemaker that is creating a difference beyond your own community? Then you could be globally recognized by winning a UN SDG Action Award! The UN SDG Action Campaign has opened applications for the 2024 UN SDG Action Awards. This year, categories include creativity & impact of activities as well as individual changemakers. An in-person awards ceremony will be held in Rome (Italy) in October, featuring talks from SDG leaders and artist performances.

On 19 June 2024, the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a festive event to be held at the Tokyo National Museum. Congratulations to the entire UNU-IAS Community! For more than a decade, UNU-IAS has served the international community by producing evidence-based knowledge and solutions to inform policymaking and to address priority issues for the UN system, particularly the role of ESD. UNU-IAS has developed innovative approaches and research methods to challenge conventional thinking and to find creative solutions to emerging issues of global concern, among them the important global network of Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD.

The second event in the UNESCO-UNFCCC Webinar Series on Climate Change Education for Social Transformation Season 3 – Greening teacher training and education systems’ capacities, leading up to COP 29, will take place on 25 June 2024. The conversations will focus on the challenges and concrete solutions in secondary education from the diverse perspectives of teachers, educators, young people, and policymakers. The session will address two guiding questions: What are the needs and gaps in early secondary education? How could these needs and gaps be filled? Register and join the global dialogue in advance of this year’s COP.

Register for an in-person event in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) on 3 July 2024 for the public opening of the ESD for 2030 Regional Meeting on Transforming the Futures of Education: Mainstreaming ESD in Learning Systems. Our world is confronting pressing and dramatic challenges incurred by the collective impact of humankind. The principles of ESD call on us to contain and address the environmental, social, and economic issues of our times through the transformative power of education. In the Asia-Pacific, there is an escalating need for ESD as sustainability challenges continue to intensify.

The prestigious ESD Okayama Award that recognizes outstanding ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) initiatives in Japan and beyond is open for applications until 12 July 2024! The award, launched in 2015 and one of the more recognized awards for ESD achievement, is organized by the Okayama City and the ESD Okayama Award Steering Committee. The 2024 edition of the ESD Okayama Award will continue to recognize and promote initiatives that demonstrate excellence and disseminate successful ESD practices globally.

Our colleagues Patrick Howard and Carrie Karsgaard from Cape Breton University in Canada invite interested authors to submit abstracts for an open access, edited book publication with the working title Bridging Social and Ecological Justice in Education (2025). The proposed book will explore the intersectionality of socio-ecological issues in education and address potential efforts to unite backgrounds, disciplines and research traditions to address these issues in holistic ways. If you wish to contribute, you can share your 500-word abstract by 15 July 2024 with full papers of up to 7,000 words due on 15 January 2025.

For the 2024 Student Essay Competition, the Magna Charta Observatory is calling on university students from across the globe to submit their 1,000-word essays on What would you change about your higher education experience or environment to make it more inclusive for all who have the ability to benefit from it?

Following the success of the 2023 edition, the Magna Charta Observatory has launched this new Student Essay Competition, inviting students to reflect on how access to education, with diversity and inclusivity anchored in principles of equity and fairness, can enhance opportunities and learning for all. The call is open until 5 July 2024.

The Global Education Network Europe (GENE) has launched the 5th round of the Global Education Youth Award to highlight quality initiatives in the framework of the European Declaration on Global Education to 2050. This edition of the award is the first to have a specific focus, highlighting youth-led initiatives. The award is intended to value youth-led initiatives that enable young people to reflect critically on the world and their place in it; to open their eyes, hearts and minds to the reality of the world at local and global levels; and empowers them to understand, imagine, hope and act to bring about a work of social and climate justice, peace, solidarity, equity and equality, planetary sustainability and international understanding.

During the first week of September 2024, UNESCO will hold the second Digital Learning Week at Headquarters in Paris (France). The Digital Learning Week 2024 will promote multi-stakeholder cooperation towards a human-centred and green design and use of AI in education, with a specific focus on exploring the interlinkages between digital transformation and greening education. If you wish to contribute by sharing best practices and expert knowledge on crosscutting digital green innovations in education, a call for proposals for presentations for knowledge transfer is open now until 5 June 2024. A separate call for proposals on artificial intelligence themes in education is available.

On 22-24 November 2024, the International Association of Universities (IAU) will hold their next International Conference University Values in a Changing World in partnership with Sophia University in Tokyo (Japan). This year, the values, that appear intrinsic to the very essence of universities and that are deeply embedded in diverse cultures and traditions, are at the centre of discussion. Do universities share a basic set of underlying values, applicable to all societies or are they specific to the societies in which universities operate? Are academic values, such as autonomy, academic freedom, and research integrity, at risk during uncertain times? Speakers, representing higher education institutions from all four corners of the world will have a say in the discussion. Registrations open on 14 June 2024.

A special issue of the Journal of Environmental Education will focus on curriculum and pedagogy for climate change education. This special issue will aim to go beyond disciplinary silos and encourage contributions that offer empirically based, grounded and critical contributions to effective change, going beyond the often-descriptive ideals of possible implementation. The editing team of this special issue, Snowy Evans (James Cook University, Australia), Chris Eames (University of Waikato, New Zealand), Doug Karrow (Brock University, Canada), and Ellen Field (Lakehead University, Canada), encourages submissions that tackle the limits and difficult questions related to curriculum and pedagogy for climate change education and the implications for environmental and sustainability education. Full papers with up to 6,000 words are due on 30 November 2024.