Higher Education Leadership: Cruise or Expedition?

Higher education can create space for learning where students can work with integrated real-world issues, thereby creating value for others while building transformative leadership capabilities. It requires organisational leaders understand how to distinguish between two logics for leadership: the cruise and expedition logic, respectively. Good leadership understands the value of expeditions for the development of the entire system

Student-led sustainability transformations: employing realist evaluation to open the black box of learning in a Challenge Lab curriculum

Purpose – While sustainability-oriented education is increasingly placing importance on engaging students in inter- and transdisciplinary learning processes with societal actors and authentic challenges in the centre, little research attends to how and what students learn in such educational initiatives. This paper aims to address this by opening the ‘black box’ of learning in a Challenge Lab curriculum with transformational sustainability ambitions.Design/methodology/approach – Realist evaluation was employed as an analytical frame that takes social context into account to unpack learning mechanisms and associated learning outcomes. A socio-cultural perspective on learning was adopted, and ethnographic methods, including interviews and observations, were used.Findings – Three context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations were identified, capturing what students placed value and emphasis on when developing capabilities for leading sustainability transformations:\ua0 (1) engaging with complex ‘in-between’ sustainability challenges in society with stakeholders across sectors and perspectives; (2) navigating purposeful and transformative change via backcasting; and (3) ‘whole-person’ learning from the inside-out as an identity-shaping process, guided by personal values.Originality – This paper delineates and discusses important learning mechanisms and outcomes when students act as co-creators of knowledge in a sustainability-oriented educational initiative, working with authentic challenges together with societal actors.Practical implications – The findings of this paper can inform the design, development, evaluation, and comparison of similar educational initiatives across institutions, while leaving room for contextual negotiation and adjustment

Comparing sustainability transition labs across process, effects and impacts: Insights from Canada and Sweden

Purposeful transformative change on a level of societal systems, structures and practices is called for in response to contemporary sustainability challenges. Sustainability transition labs and arenas represent a particular set of governance innovations seeking to foster systemic change based on deliberate engagement of multiple actors around complex issues of concern. Most labs aim for long-term contributions in addressing persistent societal challenges and transitioning into sustainability, yet are seldomly evaluated on whether, how and to what extents such contributions become realised in practice. In this paper, we further an analytical framework for comparatively analysing sustainability transition labs and arenas with emphasis on their processes, effects and impacts. The framework is applied on two cases: Energy Futures Lab initiated in Alberta, Canada and the arenas for a Fossil Independent West Sweden - Climate 2030. In particular, the comparison showcases how contextual difference in terms of urgency and turbulence may influence lab activities and how ownership and governance conditions may influence the various directions outputs, effects and wider impacts took. The comparison further illuminates how backcasting and the multi-level perspective may serve as complementary frameworks and tools in lab processes, whose respective role may depend on aspiration and context. We end the paper by providing a series of key considerations in furthering the comparative analytical framework and its application in practice. They orient around the three guiding questions on the why\u27s, what\u27s, and how\u27s of doing comparative research on sustainability transition arenas and labs across their processes, effects and impacts

Substructure around M31 : Evolution and Effects

We investigate the evolution of a population of 100 dark matter satellites orbiting in the gravitational potential of a realistic model of M31. We find that after 10 Gyr, seven subhalos are completely disrupted by the tidal field of the host galaxy. The remaining satellites suffer heavy mass loss and overall, 75% of the mass initially in the subhalo system is tidally stripped. Not surprisingly, satellites with pericentric radius less than 30 kpc suffer the greatest stripping and leave a complex structure of tails and streams of debris around the host galaxy. Assuming that the most bound particles in each subhalo are kinematic tracers of stars, we find that the halo stellar population resulting from the tidal debris follows an r^{-3.5} density profile at large radii. We construct B-band photometric maps of stars coming from disrupted satellites and find conspicuous features similar both in morphology and brightness to the observed Giant Stream around Andromeda. An assumed star formation efficiency of 5-10% in the simulated satellite galaxies results in good agreement with the number of M31 satellites, the V-band surface brightness distribution, and the brightness of the Giant Stream. During the first 5 Gyr, the bombardment of the satellites heats and thickens the disk by a small amount. At about 5 Gyr, satellite interations induce the formation of a strong bar which, in turn, leads to a significant increase in the velocity dispersion of the disk.Comment: 45 pages, 18 figures. To be submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, version 2.0 : scale height value corrected, references added, and some figures have been modifie

Learning to Frame Complex Sustainability Challenges in Place: Explorations Into a Transdisciplinary “Challenge Lab” Curriculum

Complex sustainability challenges may never be fully solved, rather requiring continuous, adaptive, and reflexive responses over time. Engagement of this nature departs from well-structured problems that entail expected solutions; here, focus shifts toward ill-structured or ill-defined issues characterized by wickedness. In the context of complex challenges, inadequate or absent framing has performative implications on action. By overlooking the value of framing, eventual responses may not only fall short; they may even displace, prolong, or exacerbate situations by further entrenching unsustainability. In educational settings, we know little about how curriculum designs support challenge framing, and how students experience and learn framing processes. In this paper we explore a transdisciplinary “Challenge Lab” (C-Lab) curriculum from a perspective of challenge framing. When considering framing in higher education, we turn to the agenda in education for, as and with sustainable development to be problem-solving, solutions-seeking or challenge-driven. We introduce framing as a boundary object for transformative praxis, where sustainability is held to be complex and contextual. This study is qualitative and case-based, designed to illuminate processes of and experiences into sustainability challenge framing in a transdisciplinary learning setting. Methodologically, we draw from student reflective diaries that span the duration of a curriculum design. We structure our results with the support of three consecutive lenses for understanding “curriculum”: intended, enacted, and experienced curriculum. First, we present and describe a C-Lab approach at the level of ambition and design. Here it is positioned as a student-centered space, process, and institutional configuration, working with framing and re-framing complex sustainability challenges in context. Second, we present a particular C-Lab curriculum design that unfolded in 2020. Third, we illustrate the lived experiences and practical realities of participating in C-Lab as students and as teachers. We reflect upon dilemmas that accompany challenge framing in C-Lab and discuss the methodological implications of this study. Finally, we point toward fruitful research avenues that may extend understandings of challenge framing in higher education

Symmetrical leadership and participation for cross-learning

Co-producing knowledge for wellbeing in sustainable citie

Governing sustainability transitions: contrasting experimental arenas through the lens of Agenda 2030

In 2015, the necessity of fundamental societal change was outlined in a universal, transnational agreement with the headline of “transforming our world”. The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from ending poverty and establishing gender equality to halting climate change and sustainable cities and communities. Building on UN and scholarly debates, we put forward two key principles to guide the realization of Agenda 2030: transformation (to sustainability) and integration. Transformation refers to the understanding that fundamental change is necessary to achieve sustainability; Integration recognizes that such change is dependent upon different perspectives, such as sustainability dimensions and the SDGs themselves, and different actors. At the same time, laboratories in real world contexts have emerged from various discourses, and are portrayed as settings to host potentially transformative experimentation and innovation processes and integrate various perspectives and actors. Sustainability related labs contribute a significant share to all labs existing. Despite their proliferation across the local, regional and national levels, it remains unclear how different laboratory settings might relate to processes of integration and transformation. Labs have seldom been attached explicitly to Agenda 2030 in practice, and a systematic assessment of the suitability of labs to support agenda 2030 so far is lacking. Hence, the main aim of this work-in-progress paper is to situate existing lab approaches from real world contexts in relation to the ambitions of Agenda 2030. It is guided by the following main research question: What is the capacity of labs in real world contexts in contributing to agenda 2030 by processes of transformation and integration? The paper presents the progress of an ongoing study, which intends to employ a step-based systematic review approach. Firstly, we highlight and unpack the key principles to guide the realization of Agenda 2030: transformation (to sustainability) and integration, and propose an analytical framework related to these principles. Secondly, and currently ongoing, we investigate a breadth of lab approaches building on a systematic review to draw out their capacities to contribute to transformation and integration. Results of the first stage are presented, before the paper ends by outlining the ongoing data collection process, describes the sample and provides a brief outlook

Learning while creating value for sustainability transitions: The case of Challenge Lab at Chalmers University of Technology

To achieve a sustainable future, a variety of societal systems need to be transformed and new ways of social collaboration created. Higher education institutions play an important role in guiding these changes, through education, research, and outreach. In this paper, we study a lab-based learning environment, the Challenge Lab, where master’s degree students engage in, and create value in support of, the transition to a sustainable society. Three student cases are analyzed in-depth to understand how the Lab functions as an expansive learning process and provides space for transformative and integrative value creation. The Lab’s guiding methodology is based on backcasting from principles, combined with clarifying the students’ core values and drivers. The role of the teacher in such a learning environment is to provide the basis for the process by facilitating and guiding. Provided with the right conditions, these students have the ability to challenge underlying assumptions about how systems work and to build trust by facilitating dialogue among actors in society. The students perceived the opportunity to engage in real-world challenges as meaningful, drew valuable lessons for their future, and got to know themselves better. In this transitional period of achieving ambitious sustainability goals and targets, students’ ability to be a source of change – maybe the most important source inside higher education institutions – deserves much more attention

A Sustainability Lighthouse—Supporting Transition Leadership and Conversations on Desirable Futures

Central in leadership for sustainability transitions is the capability to create transformative momentum in a sustainable (desirable) direction, calling for meaningful conversations on sustainable futures. The aim of this study is to develop a conceptual framework to inspire and support such conversations. A qualitative literature review of sustainability conceptualizations was conducted, followed by a thematic analysis. The resulting framework consists of an overarching question and an accompanying set of categories for four sustainability dimensions: the social, the economic, the ecological, and ‘human needs and wellbeing’. Furthermore, the framework is visualized as a lighthouse for pedagogical reasons. We foresee that the lighthouse might be of value in processes guiding socio-technical transitions towards sustainability in three different ways: (1) by attempting to bridge the issue of ‘transition’ with that of ‘sustainability’; (2) as part of a backcasting process; and (3) modes of transdisciplinary research where relevant actors take part in the conversation. The study is related to over 20 years of experience from working with a backcasting approach engaging with sustainability transitions in a variety of processes. We invite further dialogue on how one may approach the concept of sustainability to inspire and support conversations on sustainable futures