LIST OF WORKSHOPS

Rationale

This workshop investigates how higher education institutions (HEIs) function as dynamic policy actors in advancing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), functioning as laboratories for institutional innovation and systematic change, not merely as sites of knowledge tranmission. ESD’s transformative potential has increasingly gained traction within HEIs, which serve as critical arenas for knowledge co-creation, civic engagement, and systemic change. Building on global frameworks like UN SDG 4.7 and national strategies such as Germany’s National Action Plan, which outlines 349 actionable recommendations for embedding ESD across all education sectors, this workshop addresses the persistent gap between high-level policy ambition and on-the-ground institutional practice.
 
Central to this transformation are evolving instruments that blur the boundaries between teaching, research, operations, and community engagement. Service learning is emerging as a powerful pedagogical approach that connects academic inquiry with real-world sustainability challenges through collaborative partnerships beyond the campus. Student-led micro-projects (agile, experimental, and often interdisciplinary) act as incubators for policy innovation and civic agency. At the institutional level, whole-institution approaches seek to embed sustainability across governance structures, campus operations, curricula, and research agendas, moving beyond siloed initiatives toward systemic change. Supporting these efforts, Green Offices for instance are increasingly serving as strategic hubs that coordinate action, translate global sustainability commitments into local practice, and advocate for institutional accountability. Yet these developments remain under-theorized in public policy scholarship, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of how education institutions function as sustainability governance actors.
 
Objectives
 
The objectives of this workshop are threefold:
 
Theoretical:

To examine conceptual frameworks linking ESD with public policy processes, especially policy design, implementation, and evaluation, in ways that account for power, equity, and multi-level governance.

Empirical:
To showcase and compare original research on ESD policy interventions across both the Global North and South contexts, identifying conditions for success, barriers, and unintended consequences.

Practical:
To co-develop actionable insights for policymakers, educators, and civil society on how to embed ESD meaningfully into education systems and other SDG-related areas.

Hypotheses:
 
We anticipate that workshop contributions will test and refine the following working hypotheses:
 
H1:
Institutional governance structures shape ESD implementation outcomes. Strategies such as whole-institution approaches that integrate sustainability across governance, operations, curricula, and research demonstrate greater systemic impact than siloed initiatives, but face distinct challenges in navigating tensions between managerial efficiency and transformative learning.

H2:
Intermediary mechanisms amplify policy translation across scales. Instruments such as Green Offices and similar coordinating structures enhance HEIs' capacity to translate international sustainability commitments (SDGs, national action plans) into campus-level practice, but their effectiveness depends on institutional positioning and resource allocation and digital literacy.

H3:
Pedagogical innovations function as policy experimentation sites. Service learning and student-led micro-projects serve as laboratories for testing sustainability interventions and building civic agency, yet their influence on institutional strategy varies by governance culture and requires critical examination of power dynamics and reciprocity and the role of EdTech in mediating community-university partnerships (e.g., virtual collaboration tools, digital storytelling, participatory mapping).

H4:
Multi-level policy coherence enhances transformative potential. ESD initiatives that explicitly connect campus practice to urban sustainability plans, national climate strategies, and international frameworks that are open facilitated by open-data platforms demonstrate greater policy influence than those confined to educational discourse alone.
 
These hypotheses will be probed through comparative case studies, institutional analysis, and mixed-methods evaluations across diverse geographical and governance contexts.

Workshop Theme

This workshop is firmly grounded in the theme of policy implementation, examining how global and national ESD commitments are translated, adapted, or contested within HEI through governance structures, intermediary mechanisms, and pedagogical practices. It addresses implementation challenges including capacity, coherence, institutional agency, and the role of technology in bridging policy ambition and practice.
 

Scientific Contributions 

Few of our own substantive contributions to the critical discourse in the field of ESD include a series of interdisciplinary investigations that problematize existing epistemological frameworks and interrogate the complex intersections between governance mechanisms, transformative pedagogical approaches as well as challenges digitalisation.
 
Hollstein, B. (2025). The Economy and Democracy as a Way of Living. How to Create Democratic Attitudes Within Economic Ethics. In M. G. Festl (Ed.), John Dewey and Contemporary Challenges to Democratic Education. Routledge
 
Hollstein, B. & Bokhari, H. (2025). Gelingensbedingungen für eine praxisorientierte BNE. Service Learning mit Unternehmen. In W. Leal (Ed.), Innovative Ansätze für die Nachhaltigkeitslehre in der Hochschulbildung. Spektrum (accepted for publication).
 
Hollstein, B., Tziminadis, J. & Schrage, P. (2024). ‘Learning by Doing’
in Higher Education. Empirical Insights into Education for Sustainable Development. Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudos em Educação (RIAEE), Araraquara v, 19, n. esp. 1, e024063, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.21723/riaee. v19iesp.1.18414
 
Hollstein, B. (2024): Learning by Doing – Gelingende Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung mit problemorientierten und situierten Lehr-Lern-Arrangements. In V. Wesselak (Ed.), Tagungsband: 7. Regenerative Energietechnik Konferenz in Nordhausen, 08.-09. Februar 2024. (pp. 95–114). Hochschule Nordhausen.
 
Hollstein, B. (2024a). Nachhaltigkeit und Demokratie als Gegenstand der
Hochschulbildung. In K. Hafez & S. Frank & B. Hollstein & D. Kimmich & S. Tänzer, Demokratie, Transformation und Nachhaltigkeit (pp. 57-72). Berlin: Frank & Timme.
 
Ramdey, K., & Bokhari, H. (2022). Digital storytelling and ICTs for education to foster sustainable development. In Lecture notes in networks and systems (pp. 459–466). doi:10.1007/978-981-16-5987-4_46
 
Hollstein, B. & Singer-Brodowski, M. (2015). Qualitätsentwicklung von BNE in der Erfurter Bildungslandschaft. In R. Fischbach, N. Kolleck, G. de Haan (Hg.), Auf dem Weg zu nachhaltigen Bildungslandschaften. Lokale Netzwerke erforschen und gestalten (147-168). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
 
 
Expected Impact on Public Policy Research and Practice
 
Theoretical Contribution:
The workshop will advance public policy scholarship by:

- Repositioning HEIs as policy actors rather than merely policy recipients, contributing to ESD and institutional theory and multi-level governance literature.

- Examine digitalization as a dimension of sustainability governance, analyzing how ICTs shape policy learning, accountability, and participation in ESD, while interrogating risks of exclusion, and epistemic homogenization.

- Developing an implementation framework that accounts for how global sustainability commitments translate through national strategies to institutional practice, addressing the persistent gap between policy ambition and ground-level action.

- Integrating insights from sustainability transitions research, policy implementation theory, and governance studies to theorize how educational institutions function as sites of policy innovation and systemic change
Challenging technocratic assumptions by foregrounding questions of power, equity, and democratic deliberation in sustainability governance within HEIs
 
Empirical Contribution:
Participants will present original comparative research examining:

- How specific mechanisms (Green Offices, service learning partnerships, micro-projects, whole-institution frameworks) function as policy instruments in diverse institutional and national contexts.

- Implementation dynamics across North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, enabling cross-regional learning about governance models, stakeholder configurations, and contextual adaptation.

- The relationship between institutional governance structures and ESD outcomes, including tensions between efficiency mandates and transformative learning goals.

- Conditions under which campus-based innovations scale or influence broader sustainability policy ecosystems
 
Practical Impact:
Workshop findings will directly inform:

- HEI sustainability officers and administrators developing institutional strategies, governance structures, and coordinating mechanisms (e.g., selecting ethical EdTech, ensuring data privacy, avoiding “green tech-washing”, Green Offices) to operationalize sustainability commitments.

- National education ministries translating frameworks like Germany's National Action Plan (with its 349 recommendations) into actionable institutional guidance and support structures. 

- International policy networks (UNESCO's ESD for 2030, SDG 4.7 monitoring) seeking evidence-based insights on implementation pathways and effectiveness indicators for higher education contexts. 

- Policy scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of sustainability governance, education policy, and institutional change, providing conceptual tools and empirical evidence for evidence-based policy design
 
Proposed Publication Strategy:
 
Recognizing the potential scholarly impact of our collaborative research, we aspire to translate the workshop's outcomes into a significant academic publication. We aim for a peer-reviewed special issue in a scientific journal that specifically focuses on the critical nexus of digital technologies, sustainability education, and institutional transformation.

Governing Sustainability Transitions: Higher Education Institutions as Policy Actors in ESD Implementation

We invite scholars, practitioners, and policy analysts to submit paper proposals for a workshop exploring how higher education institutions (HEIs) act as dynamic policy actors in advancing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), moving beyond their traditional role as knowledge transmitters to become laboratories of innovation and systemic change. While global frameworks such as UN SDG 4.7 and national strategies like Germany’s National Action Plan set ambitious ESD goals, a persistent gap remains between policy design and on-the-ground implementation in higher education. Despite growing adoption of innovative practices, these efforts remain under-theorized in public policy literature, limiting our understanding of how HEIs function as sites of sustainability governance.

This workshop seeks empirically grounded and theoretically informed contributions that examine how HEIs translate sustainability commitments into action through governance innovation, pedagogical experimentation, and cross-sectoral collaboration. We welcome papers that investigate interconnected mechanisms such as:

- Service learning, which links academic inquiry with community-based sustainability action;

- Student-led micro-projects, which foster civic agency and serve as sites of policy prototyping;

- Whole-institution approaches, which embed sustainability across governance, operations, teaching, and research; and

- Green Offices, which act as strategic coordination hubs that translate global norms into local practice.

Increasingly, these initiatives are mediated by technology and EdTech platforms that enable collaboration, data transparency, and scalability, yet also raise critical questions about equity, data governance, and epistemic diversity. We encourage critical analyses of how digital infrastructures shape (or constrain) democratic, justice-oriented ESD.

We particularly welcome comparative, multi-scalar, and interdisciplinary perspectives that address tensions between managerial efficiency and transformative learning, and that examine how HEIs navigate multi-level policy environments, from campus operations to urban sustainability plans and international frameworks.

Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

- How do institutional governance models in HEIs shape the design, implementation, and evaluation of ESD policy?

- Under what policy conditions do intermediary structures (such as Green Offices or digital platforms) effectively mediate between international sustainability frameworks and local institutional practice?

- How can pedagogical innovations like service learning and micro-projects be institutionalized as legitimate policy instruments that inform university strategy and external sustainability governance?

- What mechanisms enable campus-based ESD innovations to scale beyond the university and influence municipal, national, or transnational sustainability policy agendas?

We especially encourage submissions from the Global South and early-career researchers. Accepted papers will contribute to advancing public policy theory and practice at the intersection of higher education, sustainability governance, and institutional change, offering actionable insights for university leaders, national ministries, and international organizations working to turn ESD commitments into transformative reality.

Please submit a 300-word abstract that highlights the research question(s), methodology, expected outcomes of your contribution. Please also share a short biographical note along with the abstract. 

This workshop examines how higher education institutions (HEIs) act as dynamic policy actors in advancing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), moving beyond their traditional role as knowledge transmitters to become laboratories of innovation and systemic change. While global frameworks such as UN-SDG 4.7 and national strategies like Germany’s National Action Plan set ambitious ESD goals, a persistent gap remains between policy design and implementation in higher education. The workshop addresses this gap by analyzing how HEIs operationalize ESD through interconnected mechanisms: service learning that links academic inquiry with community-based sustainability action, student-led micro-projects that foster civic agency and policy prototyping, whole-institution approaches that embed sustainability across governance, operations, teaching, and research, and Green Offices that serve as strategic coordination hubs. Increasingly, these efforts are mediated by technology and EdTech platforms that enable collaboration, data transparency, and scalability, yet also raise critical questions about equity, data governance, and epistemic diversity. Despite their growing adoption, these practices remain under-theorized in policy literature. This workshop brings together scholars, sustainability officers, and policy analysts to explore how institutional governance, intermediary structures, pedagogical innovations, and digital infrastructures shape ESD outcomes across diverse contexts. Through comparative case studies and mixed-methods research, participants will test hypotheses concerning policy coherence, multi-level governance, and the conditions under which campus-based sustainability initiatives influence broader policy ecosystems. The workshop aims to reposition HEIs as active agents in sustainability transitions, with direct relevance for university leaders, national ministries, and international organizations seeking to translate ESD commitments into transformative practice. This workshop is firmly grounded in the theme of policy implementation, examining how global and national ESD commitments are translated, adapted, or contested within HEI through governance structures, intermediary mechanisms, and pedagogical practices. It addresses implementation challenges including capacity, coherence, institutional agency, and the role of technology in bridging policy ambition and practice.

apl. Prof. Dr. Bettina Hollstein:

Prof. Hollstein is a Managing Director of the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt. She currently serves as a Principal Investigator of the project ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ within the multi-university initiative “The Climate Network for Greater Sustainability in Thuringia” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. She is a member of the University of Erfurt’s Senate as well as the Presidium Representative on questions related to Sustainability. He research focuses on pragmatist business ethics, action theory, volunteering, sustainability/education for sustainable development, corruption. Hollstein serves as a Co-Editor for the Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik (Journal for Business, Economics and Ethics) (NOMOS).
 
Dr. Hasnain Bokhari:

Dr. Bokhari serves as Head of Digital Policy and Artificial Intelligence at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt. Currently he is coordinating the multi‑university project "The Climate Network for Greater Sustainability in Thuringia" at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt. He has been a recipient of two fellowships on digitalisation and EdTech tools in higher education from Thuringian Ministry of Education in Germany. His research focuses on sustainable development, digitalisation, and digital policies, with particular attention to how ICT can enable equitable access and drive sustainable outcomes. Bokhari serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy (Emerald) and is an External Associate at the Centre for Digital Development, University of Manchester.