Event Recap

UNICAMPUS IN MAGDEBURG BECAME A HUB FOR DISCUSSIONS ON THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION

Experts in education and sustainability research discussed approaches to transformative education in higher education and schools

In early May 2026, Magdeburg’s Unicampus became an international and interdisciplinary forum for sustainable education, bringing together over 100 experts in education and sustainability research from around the world.

The two-day conference ‘Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability’ (GROUFES) centred on the key question: How can schools, universities, and other educational institutions help to tackle major societal challenges, such as climate change, digitalisation, loss of species, migration, social inequality, the depopulation of rural areas, and growing fears about the future? The conference was organised by members of the European university alliance EUGREEN (https://eugreenalliance.eu/).

At the conference, participants discussed concrete solutions to address these challenges through innovative learning and teaching concepts. To this end, perspectives and empirical findings from research and practice were brought together in the sense of transformative education, with the aim of empowering the next generation with the concrete competencies to understand crises, shape responses and implement solutions.

Researchers, teachers, and practitioners addressed these questions in eight thematic panels. The topics ranged from sustainable higher education and the campus as a ‘living lab’, to the greening of education and new forms of storytelling, to critical thinking as a key competence in combating disinformation, issues of participation in a post-migrant and inclusive society, and intergenerational learning. The programme was completed by workshops, outdoor activities, poster presentations, and joint Future Research Forums, where international collaborations were initiated, joint research questions refined, and perspectives for future research projects developed.

In three keynote lectures, renowned academics set the thematic tone: in his lecture entitled ‘On Building a University for the Common Good’, anthropologist Timothy Ingold recalled the principles of freedom, trust, education, and community, upon which any university must be built; political scientist Prof. Dr Michael Böcher proposed that considering politics as the fourth pillar of sustainability, alongside ecology, economics, and social issues; and the expert in early childhood education, Prof. Dr Eva Ärlemalm-Hagsér, emphasised in her lecture that teacher educators and teachers at all levels in educational systems are one of the most significant agents for transformative change towards sustainability.

During the closing roundtable, the findings from the various panels of the two-day conference were summarised, milestones for further research were defined, and the Best Paper Award was bestowed upon Dr Gabriela Gliga (ATU Ireland), Dr Noor Alsayed (Ahlia University, Bahrain), Dr Ana-Maria Bores (Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania) and Dr George Onofrei (ATU Ireland) for their presentation on ‘Learning in Paradox: Student Engagement with Sustainability in Higher Education'.

Selected conference papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings in autumn 2026 by Atlantis Press/Springer Open Access (https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/series/ahsseh/upcoming-volumes).

Further information: