Glasgow City Chambers and George Square in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by iStock/Susanne Neumann)
As John Goddard has observed, “There are two key questions that each university should be able to answer. The first is: ‘what are we good at?’ And the second is ‘what are we good for?’”
All universities engage with the first question by attracting the best people and giving them the space to excel. But the second question is far more difficult, not only because the role of universities in society depends on shifting social contexts and political climate, but because of how difficult it is for universities to mobilize a broad and diverse set of academic interests around a single all-encompassing and forward-looking agenda.
In February 2017, Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) became the first university to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the guiding framework for our research strategy. As the “University for the Common Good”—the headline of our institution-wide Strategy 2020, devised in 2014—our leading researchers chose the SDGs as our guiding framework because they offer the most comprehensive statement of global needs ever produced, as well as a set of practical hooks on which to hang our actions in pursuit of the Common Good.
The global COVID-19 crisis has only underscored the importance of “fostering innovation to address social challenges,” as the OECD has put it, as well as engaging the civic role of the university in building a more sustainable and equitable society. Indeed, while we were already in the throes of refreshing our university strategy—looking forward to 2030—we have taken the pandemic as an opportune moment to pause and look back to where we have come from, what we have achieved in a relatively short period of time, and how robust this trajectory may be in light of the “new normal.”
Glasgow Caledonian: The “University for the Common Good”
GCU was only afforded full university status in 1993—the smallest and youngest of the three Glasgow-based universities—but the motto “For the Common Good” has been in our DNA since the 1875 establishment of our predecessor institution, Queen’s College. For example, we have always focused considerable attention on widening access to higher education, fully subscribing to the notion of education as a route to enhanced social mobility and positive societal change. Around a quarter of GCU’s Scottish domiciled full-time, first-degree entrants are from Scotland’s most deprived communities, compared with a sector average of 15.9 percent. We have achieved this, in part, by building relationships with many of the local primary and high schools in communities around Glasgow through our Caledonian Club and Advanced Higher Hub programs. Through skills development across curriculum areas and different contexts and settings—celebrating successes along the way—we work to demystify the idea of higher education within young people and their parents, challenge any perceived barriers, and raise aspirations.
Arguably, however, our mission did not fully translate into a tangible institutional identity until the 2006 appointment of our current principal and vice-chancellor, Professor Pamela Gillies. But since the launch of Strategy 2020, it has been regularly reported that faculty, students, and administrative staff all subscribe to, and share a firm commitment to, the role of the university in creating meaningful social change. This philosophy permeates our research, teaching (including pedagogy), and how we engage with civic partners.
It was not difficult to choose the SDGs as the basis of our research strategy. In the words of the United Nations, they “provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” But we wanted to move beyond “SDG washing” and to use the SDGs to provide a new strategic architecture for forward planning. Research lies at the heart of a university’s life and its contribution to society, informing and underpinning what and how we teach; the pursuit and dissemination of such research connect (or perhaps should connect) a university locally, nationally, and internationally, and encourage meaningful conversations on some of the most pressing grand challenges that societies face today. Using the SDGs to shape and structure our research agenda has helped us turn conversations into tangible actions.
As we reflect on our journey thus far, we identify a number of organizational and educational dimensions that have helped to shape our rationale for focusing on the SDGs, which, when in alignment with our research agenda, create a virtuous cycle of social impact.
The Imperative of Leadership and Positioning
Institutional leadership has been critical to shaping GCU’s goals, but this leadership extends far beyond the principal and vice-chancellor and the university executive. In 2012 we appointed probably the world’s best-known social entrepreneur, Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus to the (ceremonial) role of chancellor. Many universities have famous names attached to them, but to make him more than a symbolic figurehead, we committed to undertake a series of flagship projects together: In Dhaka, Bangladesh, we worked with Grameen to establish the Grameen Caledonian College of Nursing, where we train local nurses from impoverished backgrounds to standards common in the global north (and which now runs as a self-sustaining social business, transferred to local ownership and leadership). Such co-produced initiatives are not approached or undertaken within a philanthropic mindset, however, but for genuine mutual benefit: As a perfect illustration of “South to North” transfer, for instance, we worked in partnership to implement and evaluate social business and microfinance initiatives in vulnerable communities on our doorstep in Glasgow. In fact, one of the reasons for establishing our Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health was to provide the research arm for such work, while partnership working with the Mary Robinson Foundation resulted in founding our Centre for Climate Justice.
When Yunus was appointed to the UN Secretary General’s SDG Advocacy Group in 2016—where he continues to advocate for GCU and our Common Good mission in his role as chancellor emeritus—we persuaded Annie Lennox to accept the role of his successor. Well-known for her humanitarian work as International Goodwill Ambassador for the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, access to her, and association with such remarkable thought leadership, has encouraged us to reimagine what might be possible, and to raise our ambitions far higher than otherwise might have been possible even a decade ago.
Aligning our research with the SDGs was also a natural consequence of institutional positioning, particularly on an international stage. Through the work of our Glasgow School for Business and Society, our university became a PRME (Principles of Responsible Management Education) signatory in 2012 and, in 2013, was the first Scottish university to join the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate responsibility network with more than 10,000 members worldwide. This Compact calls on organizations to align their purpose and activities with universal principles of human rights, fair employment, environmental sustainability, and anti-corruption, while the corresponding mission of PRME, with more than 800 participants, is for business schools to transform management education, research, and thought leadership in line with the SDGs. GCU is one of only 37 designated PRME Champion Institutions, committed to providing thought and action leadership in responsible management education in the context of the UN SDGs.
The Rationale of a Holistic Framework
When problems are too big for governments to tackle alone, prioritizing the expertise of business and markets is one approach. But as critics note, using market-based initiatives to address acute health challenges may help solve that particular problem, in that context, while actually exacerbating inequalities, thus impacting adversely upon other SDGs. Research conducted at our Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health has helped us to appreciate this problem, when organizations who trade to achieve a social purpose, often termed “hybrid” organizations, have multiple goals: Acting directly on one SDG, such as poverty or good work, can result in impacts on others, such as health and well-being.
The answer is the holistic framework the SDGs provide for all sectors of society to collaborate in this great venture of our times. In our view, many of our initiatives represent areas of new thinking and evidence that academia can offer the SDGs going forward, but they require imaginative leadership and a whole-institution approach in order to maximize social impact.
Imaginative ways of ranking universities, such as we have seen emerge recently, have started to favor universities such as ours that focus attention on societal impact. The recently announced Times Higher Education Impact Rankings for 2020 recognized GCU as 43rd in the world overall, and in the Top 20 in the world in three SDGs: SDG 5 Gender Equality (12th); SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth (13th); and SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities (20th). Linked to such wider considerations, GCU’s accreditation as an AshokaU Changemaker Campus has brought us into a network of like-minded universities worldwide, committed to going beyond the curriculum to foster a university-wide culture of social innovation. Our research focus on SDGs has helped us to achieve rankings and recognition, but this, in turn, lends us credibility to be able to achieve more social impact through new educational programs, at home and internationally too.
For example: In large part due to the distinctiveness of our offer, particularly in terms of our agenda on Fair Fashion and on social innovation, Glasgow Caledonian became the first overseas university to be granted degree-awarding powers in the US, allowing the establishment of Glasgow Caledonian New York College. GCU is also a founding partner in the African Leadership College, accrediting and delivering undergraduate programs in business, computing, social sciences, and psychology; essentially training ethical leaders of the future.
Impacts and Benefits
Policy | Influencing government policy is one of the key ways to demonstrate research impact in the Research Excellence Framework, the periodic assessment of research outputs of all UK universities. Many of GCU’s areas of research strength relate to areas of policy devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and since Scotland’s National Performance Framework has also shifted towards achieving the SDGs, this helps create a clear line from our research, teaching, and civic engagement to what Scotland, as a nation, are contributing to the SDGs (and to benefits to the Scottish population assessed in SDG terms). GCU academics have been active contributors to the first UK Action Plan for the SDGs released by the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development (UKSSD) and their report “Measuring Up” report looks at each of the SDGs and 169 targets and uses both existing public policy and published data to understand the UK’s performance in relation to the Goals.
Curriculum | Active engagement with the SDGs is also stimulating innovation in the curriculum, with associated research and external engagement benefits. For example, GCU's commitment to SDG 4 (“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”) and the associated target 4.7 (“ensure that all students are educated on sustainable development and the SDGs”) has led to the adoption of three innovative SDG-related open-access platforms that are designed to increase student knowledge and understanding of the SDGs: the sustainability literacy test (Sulitest), Aim2Flourish, and Wikirate.
Engagement | GCU commitment to the SDGs has also stimulated new forms of co-working with a range of other networks with similar goals. Among these are the UN Global Compact’s UK Network; Business in the Community (BITC), the UK’s largest corporate responsibility network; Enactus, a global organization that supports young people to engage in social action and social enterprise; and the SDG Scotland Network, which GCU faculty helped to establish and grow. Active engagement and participation in such partnerships are essential to further integration of the SDGs into our education and public engagement activities. For example, a major joint initiative with the UN Global Compact was the design of a SDG Roadshow in 2017, which has now become an annual occurrence. This Roadshow raises awareness and stimulates cross-sectoral dialogue on how to integrate the SDGs into corporate strategies. This commitment also shapes the nature of our university-business engagement, from our partnership with Doble Engineering to secure safe and reliable power generation and distribution, with Lake Constance Water Supply to improve the process of water treatment, to our partnership with Transnet Freight Rail, to co-create education programs to upskill and reskill employees.
The Next Decade
As we move from Strategy 2020 to Strategy 2030, the SDGs will guide our whole-institution strategy, as well as that for research. We have reflected on a few key principles we have derived from this experience, in relation to institutional leadership and positioning, the importance of a holistic framework to guide concerted efforts, and some of the impacts and benefits we have experienced. A key challenge, of course, will be for a modern university, such as our own, to maintain and enhance our position in these respects at a time of such unparalleled uncertainty for the future of higher education.
The economic and social upheavals posed by the pandemic will undoubtedly change the world in ways we cannot yet predict. What we do know, however, is that there will be a need for a massive cross-sectoral effort to rebuild afterward; to repair, renew, and necessarily re-imagine new social and economic futures. When governments, private businesses, and civil society join forces to such ends, exactly like the concerted and cross-disciplinary efforts required to fulfill the SDGs, universities like ours thus have a vital role to play.
If modern civic universities are not good for work that requires imagination, bravery, and innovation for the Common Good, then what are they good for?
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Read more stories by Alec Wersun, Cam Donaldson & Michael J. Roy.