Networking and collaborating: the role of partnerships across sectors to achieve educational goals in sustainability

How can partnerships for sustainable development enhance educational outcomes for students and lifelong learners? The higher education arena has changed dramatically in the past five years in response to global challenges including geopolitical and economic instability, the COVID-19 pandemic, Artificial Intelligence, and the escalating climate crisis. A generation of students face major disruptions as educational systems struggle to keep pace with emerging and established challenges. At the same time, students’ views and expectations of education have shifted. Students are rightfully demanding an education that enables them to develop solutions through real-world collaborations with society. Students understand that, in a globalized and digital world, knowledge and capability are no longer held by individuals but by collaborative networks of actors and knowledge repositories [1, 2]. They see collaboration as the foundation to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and crucial in today’s networked knowledge economy [3]. Given this - How can Higher Education deliver contemporary programs that are responsive to a changing world through using networked knowledge systems to prepare future leaders to approach the complex socio-ecological and geopolitical issues associated with sustainable development?