Integrating the United Nations’ sustainable development goals into a teaching–research nexus: examples from the University of the Sunshine Coast

Sustainable development goals

Global partnership for the SDGs¹ (Fig. 1) recognises that ‘ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand in hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth’ as well as ‘tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests’.² However, Fagunwa and Olanbiwoninu note that ‘although the SDGs are well-structured to address the global challenges mankind faces, they are unrealistic unless strategies to reach the targets are defined in detail’.³ Moreover, Cash et al.⁴ highlight that ‘science and technology (S&T) must play a more central role in sustainable development, yet little systematic scholarship exists on how to create institutions that effectively harness S&T for sustainability’ (p. 8086). Their study also suggests that ‘efforts to mobilize S&T for sustainability are more likely to be effective when they manage boundaries between knowledge and action in ways that simultaneously enhance the salience, credibility, and legitimacy of the information they produce’ (p. 8086).⁴ Higher education institutions (HEIs) are the key institutions that effectively manage knowledge and action boundaries as well as defining the strategies for the timely delivery of the SDGs.⁵ Accordingly, embedding the SDGs into teaching curriculum of HEIs can speed up the process and ensure timely delivery of the goals by 2030 through development of target directed strategies and harnessing S&T for sustainability.^5,6

Fig. 1. 

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development (adapted from The 17 Goals of the United Nations Development Programme).^1,2

Microbiology discipline specific education for sustainable development goals

Microbiology is a key sub-discipline of science and addresses ‘food security, health and wellbeing, clean energy, environmental degradation and climate change’ (Fagunwa and Olanbiwoninu, p. 1³), which are covered under different SDGs.

Louis Pasteur initiated pedagogies of the discipline by promoting the value of microbiology research for the individual and the society to grow and improve in harmony with the works of nature.⁷ Pasteur also valued the quest of fundamental understanding and application,⁸ and ‘The structure and organization of Pasteurian pedagogy mirrored Pasteur’s conception of experimental science training, in which theory and practice were closely linked.’ (Opinel, p. 38⁷). Foundations in student learning thus stem from the understanding that the innovative applications are products of gained in-depth knowledge and sound understanding in the subject matter related to the field of command.⁶

UNESCO in its Education for Sustainable Development Goals publication⁹ in 2019 outlined the learning objectives that are required to generate a skilled workforce for the timely delivery of the SDGs. They are: (1) Cognitive learning objectives, (2) Socio-emotional learning objectives and (3) Behavioural Learning Objectives (Table 1). Microbiology discipline-based teaching thus must address these objectives since microbial technologies can provide ‘exceptional diversity of applications’ that can address most of the SDGs that have ‘very diverse and complex components and requirements’ (Timmis et al., p. 986¹⁰).

Global citizens

UNESCO also provided recommendations for the schools for creation of ‘global citizens’.¹¹ Timmis et al.¹² noted that ‘microbiology literacy needs to become part of the world citizen job description’ (p. 1513) and invited microbiologists, microbiological-learned societies, and microbiology-literate professionals to participate in and contribute toward creation of microbiology-literate societies for generation of required educational funds as well as ‘convincing educators, policy makers, business leaders and relevant governmental and non-governmental agencies to support and promote this initiative’ (p. 1513¹²). HEIs thus also play a catalyst role through engagement with local schools and general public for ‘Global Citizens’ education.

Think regionally, strategise locally and succeed globally

The OECD in 2007¹³ stated that to be competitive in the globalising knowledge economy, the OECD countries need to invest in their innovation systems at national and regional levels. Accordingly, meeting the regional development goals, nurturing the unique assets and circumstances of each region and developing knowledge-based industries are becoming increasingly important. HEIs are recommended to ‘focus strategically on the contribution that they can make to the development of regions where they are located’ (p. 11¹³). They ‘must do more than simply educate and research, they must engage with others in their regions, and provide opportunities for lifelong learning’ (p. 11¹³).

The University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) opened in 1996 and was the first ‘Greenfield’ university to open in Australia since 1971. The University’s mission has been to become an institution with a strong emphasis on sustainability and environmentally friendly regional development all along. It has transformed a former cane farm into a multi award winning modern and distinctive sub-tropical architectural development (www.usc.edu.au). It remains an ‘urban catalyst’ for the rapidly developing and changing region that is both a holiday destination and a biotechnology hub.¹⁴ It was also included in an OECD study as a subject for its level of engagement with the local regional community.

From its early days the UniSC has emphasised the value of a sound teaching–research nexus that has a ‘dual pathway where research shapes and informs teaching, and teaching shapes and informs research’. Again, since its foundational years, the microbiology stream has been one of the key teaching and research areas of the UniSC.^15,16 Dating back to the early 2000s, visionary approaches implemented allowed regional students to align their studies with sustainable development goals.^6,15,16 The microbiology stream utilised partnerships between the UniSC, local and state governments and regional industries.^15,16 A purposefully created stepwise approach enabled students to make connections with their surrounding-environments and be responsive to the needs of the region by utilising microbiology as a tool. Examples of student learnings included water quality, waste management, bioremediation, biological control of plant diseases replacing hazardous pesticides with environmentally friendly ones and implementation of diverse microbially mediated solutions to regional problems.^6,15–32

UniSC’s microbiology stream has also facilitated incremental building of research projects having similar problems (e.g. pollution in aquaculture, marine environments) encountered within the same region that Australia shares (e.g. Vietnam).^29–32 This approach has been in line with the UN’s South to South Co-operation involving the countries of the ‘Global South’ that aims to meet the development goals and objectives of the countries involved through sharing knowledge, skills, expertise and resources.³³ The outputs of regionally focussed projects undertaken at the UniSC by the microbiology stream students, which are aligned with the UNESCO’s Learning Objectives (cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural), are listed in the reference section.^17–32

Conclusions

For the currently well-structured SDGs to be realistic and achievable by 2030, the HEIs will play an important and catalytic role for the definition and implementation of effective strategies. UniSC microbiology stream alignment with the OECD and UNESCO’s recommendations has illustrated the value of incremental build-up of knowledge from regional to global level. The UniSC approach has also proved useful for development of partnerships in the South-East Asia Pacific region with countries sharing similar problems. The stepwise approach involves ‘regional engagement’ first, then proceeding to ‘engagement of similar regions’.⁶ Such incremental build up exemplified here can thus facilitate timely delivery of the 2030 SDG targets. In conclusion, microbially mediated technologies will undoubtedly find solutions to many of the current global problems, so microbiology education has to equip graduates with the skills and knowledge needed for the timely delivery of the SDGs.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable in this review article.

Conflicts of interest

Dr Kurtböke is the Chair of the Microbiology Australia Editorial Board but did not at any stage have editor-level access to this manuscript while in peer review, as is the standard practice when handling manuscripts submitted by an editor to this journal. Microbiology Australia encourages its editors to publish in the journal and they are kept totally separate from the decision-making processes for their manuscripts. The author has no further conflicts of interest to declare.

Declaration of funding

This article did not receive any specific funding.