4. NATIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEM
4.8 TRIPLE HELIX MODEL
4.8.12 Higher Education Institutions and Sustainable Development
Glasser, Calder and Fadeeva (2005:7-8) offer a broad definition of Research higher education sustainability (HES) to refer to:
“Any research that is directed at advancing our ability to incorporate sustainability concepts and insights into higher education and its major areas of activity: policy, planning, and administration;
curriculum/teaching; research and scholarship; service to communities; student life; and physical operations/infrastructure. It also refers to research that treats higher education institutions as complex systems and focuses on the integration of sustainability across all of its activities, responsibilities, and mission. Research in HES includes six general focus areas: (i) defining and envisioning “Higher Education for Sustainability;”(ii) integrating sustainability into higher education activities and responsibilities; (iii) assessing how well academic institutions incorporate and model sustainability;(iv) improving the ability of scholars to teach about sustainability or incorporate sustainability concepts and principles into courses,
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curricula, disciplines, and research programs; (v) addressing questions—in science, technology, social science, or the humanities-that are crucial to our transition to a sustainable future; and, (vi) addressing processes for social learning, innovation diffusion, knowledge transfer, policy analysis, decision-making, and educational reform that are crucial for our transition to a sustainable future” (Glasser et al., 2005:7-8).
Glasser et al. (2005) definition demonstrates that there are many types of research along the continuum of sustainability ranging from the specific (engineering research that produces widgets for improved energy efficiency) to more philosophical (examining the premise of sustainability).
The HEIs becomes the "principal signifier of cultural capital" with HEIs producing, not simply reproducing or reflecting, social hierarchies (Scott, 1996: 47). Scholars such as Schumpeter (1934:1947), Schultz (1981), Cardoso and Faletto (1979), Webster (1984), Lall and Petrobelli (2002), Srininvas and Sutz (2008), and Bell (2007) have, over a long period, recognised education as critical to (sustainable) development. Eriksson (2006:22) notes that “practical and empathetic understanding of the existential situation of fellow human beings must be viewed as a form of knowledge in its own right. This knowledge should be a valid field of higher education and research and a challenging area for intellectual discourse and debate”. Bordt, Rosa and Boivin (2007:266) add that the integration of SD and innovation in “a sustainable growth strategy has to be endorsed on a higher institutional level, in the form of a social contract and/or long-term planning objectives that set new standards”. According to Wals (2006:108) the brightest minds on the planet should be utilised to find ways to preserve, rather than to destroy the planet. The biggest handicaps contend Ferrer-Balas et al. (2006:27), are the traditional resistance to change in HEIs and the high level of “irrationality” of the decision-making process. Globally, HEIs have been criticised for lack of response towards sustainability. As cited in Ferrer-Balas et al. (2006:28), in the UK for example, in 2003, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee noted:
We are disappointed at the dismal response shown by the Government and the majority of Further and Higher Education Institutions (FHEIs) to the Toyne Report and its review. …The Toyne recommendations have clearly not spurred the sector to embrace sustainable development. Although, they have given those who were already starting to explore sustainable development, a framework to build upon ….”
The HEIs have turned into the greatest societal welfare institution in and one that is almost impossible or hard to steer (Lundgren, 1977; Wickenberg, 2006). With regard to the slow response by the HEIs, Scott and Goug (2006:90) state that:
“…All this reflects the notional independence of … Universities from government, where a university is quite likely to say: we agree sustainable development is important, but it’s not government’s place to tell us what to do; we shall think that through for ourselves, according to our own situation. There is a fine line between offering support to the higher education sector, and steering it in a particular way….”
166 Scott and Goug (2006:94) further note that:
In discussions around sustainable development and higher education, the idea of barriers features strongly, and these are viewed as impediments to progress to be side stepped, vaulted over, hurled aside, or cast down in one way or another. This negative [barrier = obstacle] perspective is commonly found in the fields of institutional development and the management of change, as well as in wider society where all sorts of barriers are striven against through social policy: for example, the glass ceiling, poverty, illiteracy, access to education, and discrimination on grounds of age/gender/sexuality/ethnicity/…
Sterling (2005) supposes that the nature of sustainability requires a fundamental change of epistemology and, therefore, of education. Sterling (2005:6) writes:
Sustainability is not just another issue to be added to an overcrowded curriculum, but a gateway to a different view of curriculum, of pedagogy, of organisational change, of policy and particularly of ethos. At the same time, the effect of patterns of unsustainability on our current and future prospects is so pressing that the response of higher education should not be predicated only on the ‘integration of sustainability’
into higher education , because this invites a limited, adaptive, response…. We need to see the relationship the other way around—that is, the necessary transformation of higher education towards the integrative and more whole state implied by a systemic view of sustainability in education and society.
According to Lotz-Sisitka and Lupele, (2006:53) in responding to the challenges facing African HEIs, agents in African HEIs will no doubt need ‘their wits about them’ to navigate the structural and cultural factors influencing Africa’s development path and ‘own’ HEIs contexts. Burnes (1996:121) classify two basic organisation structures namely: the mechanistic structures, which are command and control based and the organic structures, which are open and less rigid.
Generally, HEIs can be categorised as being more of a mechanistic structure, reflecting the university’s traditional and classical origins, the middle ages, rather than the industrial revolution and this medieval origins continue to influence the organisation and operation of the university (Mowery & Sampat, 2007:9). Integrating SD somehow contradicts the fundamental design principles embedded in traditional organisations. Some of the significant documents identified by this research that should be used to inform South African HEIs SD efforts include the Baltic 21 (2004) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE, 2009:3). The Baltic 21 (2004), for instance, has adopted a visioning strategy to signify the importance of integrating SD into the HEIs. Using the ten year benchmark, the HEFCE (2009:3) vision states:
The higher education sector in this country will be recognised as a major contributor to society’s efforts to achieve sustainability – through the skills and knowledge that its graduates learn and put into practice, its research and exchange of knowledge through business, community and public policy engagement, and through its own strategies and operations.
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The HEFCE vision is based on the notion that HEIs have a pivotal role in enacting SD because of the core activities of teaching and research (Martin, Dawe, Jucker & 2006:61). The HEIs and individual academics have interests in relation to SD through research, consultancy, teaching, and management (Scott & Goug, 2006:89). The UNESCO (2005:11) identifies two unique opportunities for HEIs to engage in SD. First, HEIs form a link between knowledge generation and transfer of knowledge to society for their entry into the labour market. Second, HEIs actively contribute to the societal development through outreach and service to society. According to Cortese (2003:17), HEIs bear a profound, moral responsibility to increase the awareness, knowledge, skills, and values needed to create a just and sustainable future. The main objective of UNESCO ‘Decade of Education for Sustainable Development’ is to “integrate the principles, values, and practices of SD into all aspects of education and learning” (UNESCO, 2005).
Educators and researchers can contribute to securing a safer and more sustainable future against recognised threats such as climate change and global poverty.
Integrating research, education and university operations in a comprehensive strategy can be based on the model illustrated in Figure 4.8.12-1, which underlines the outputs that come from the three areas together with the flows that cross between them, which are synergetic effects that also have to be promoted. The balanced progress in the three areas provides mutual reinforcement for achieving the overall objectives of SD in the university (Ferrer-Balas et al., 2006).
Figure 4.8.12-1: Integrating HEIs operations in a comprehensive strategy Source Ferrer-Balas, Cruz and Segalàs (2006:24)