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The Contribution of UNESCO Chairs toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Bergman, Z; Bergman, M; Fernandes, K; Grossrieder, D; Schneider, L

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Authors

Z Bergman

M Bergman

D Grossrieder

L Schneider



Abstract

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) aims to enhance peace, security, and sustainable development by fostering international collaboration. Based on this aim, it stands to reason that the organization ought to contribute to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this research, we examined how an important program of UNESCO, the UNESCO Chairs, contributes to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Specifically, we studied the activities of 34 UNESCO Chairs from seven countries of the Northern Hemisphere (Germany, Iceland, Portugal, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) to assess the contribution of the chairs toward the UN SDGs. The data for this study are based on in-depth narrative interviews, and we used Hermeneutic Content Analysis, a mixed methods framework, for analysis. Our results show that, unsurprisingly, all chairs contribute to UN SDG 4 (Quality Education) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) based on their extensive research and teaching activities. Interestingly, their academic focal areas contribute to specific UN SDG clusters. Using Multidimensional Scaling, we analyzed the UN SDG clusters across different focal areas to reveal the implicit models of sustainability among the chairs. Our findings have implications on the limits of how UNESCO Chairs conceptualize sustainability and show how this has positive and negative consequences on their contribution toward achieving the UN SDGs

Citation

Bergman, Z., Bergman, M., Fernandes, K., Grossrieder, D., & Schneider, L. (2018). The Contribution of UNESCO Chairs toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability, 10(12), Article 4471. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124471

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 22, 2018
Online Publication Date Nov 28, 2018
Publication Date Nov 28, 2018
Deposit Date Nov 22, 2018
Publicly Available Date Jan 3, 2019
Journal Sustainability
Electronic ISSN 2071-1050
Publisher MDPI
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 10
Issue 12
Article Number 4471
DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124471
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1308799

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).






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