Humboldtn and the Sustainable Transformation of Universities

Abstract

AbstractThe sustainable transformation of society is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Universities are central actors for knowledge generation and transfer in the sustainability field and, at the same time, are facing the question of how they can become sustainable social actors and make their activities and infrastructure sustainable. Against this background, the 16 member universities of the State Rectors’ Conference of North Rhine-Westphalia have joined forces in the Humboldtn initiative to pool their efforts in the field of sustainability and to anchor generational responsibility for sustainable action in research, teaching, administration, infrastructure, and transfer. How the joint responsibility for the questions for the future in the aforementioned complex of topics is addressed via Humboldtn and which focal points are set in the process will be presented and discussed using examples from the institutional sustainability transformation and examples from the research area from RWTH Aachen University. In this way, the implementation of transformation processes at universities and their possible blueprint effect can be illuminated.