Sustainability Expertise

In line with the University of Helsinki’s strategy, sustainability must be considered in all the university activities and integrated into all the university’s educational offerings. To implement the strategy, sustainability content needs to be developed in the University’s educational programmes and, at the same time, all staff should get support and opportunities to strengthen their own sustainability expertise. 

Strengthening Sustainability Expertise -project at the University of Helsinki supports the development of sustainability knowledge and skills in a variety of ways. First steps to introduce sustainability issues to all university staff include the development of “Sustainability starts with us” online training, a brief introduction to key approaches to sustainability. The training encourages staff to discuss sustainability issues and recognize the role of the university as a facilitator of sustainability transformation. The introductory training, launched in March 2023, will be followed by another staff course that delves deeper into the sustainability topics. Staff training development work is being carried out in parallel with our research on staff sustainability perceptions and engagement. 

With the teaching staff, the aim is also to strengthen the pedagogical skills needed to deliver sustainability education, and to support cross-disciplinary networking between staff who works on development of sustainability education. Sustainability will be integrated into university pedagogy training organized by HYPE. Teachers for Sustainability (TfS) network provides opportunities for teachers within the University of Helsinki to get peer support and find partners to collaborate with and develop sustainability education​. 

Other ways to support staff in integrating sustainability into the degree programmes’ course offering include providing workshops and guidelines on how to design curricula that strengthen the academic expertise with sustainability expertise. Moreover, in 2023, seed funding was provided to faculties and degree programmes for developing sustainability teaching.  

For more information on any of the mentioned topics, you can browse all posts in this blog or go directly to posts on a specific topic from the categories menu on the homepage.