Teaching

The University of Krems is a member of the Alliance of Sustainable Universities and the Climate Change Centre Austria. As a member of the Alliance of Sustainable Universities, it is an active cooperation partner of the UniNEtZ II project, whose main purpose is the realization of the options developed in the first project as well as networking and further development. Here, the University of Krems is involved in SDG 4 "Quality Education" as well as in the main field of teaching.

In the concept the University for Continuing Education Krems drafted for sustainability in 2020, the fields of action addressed include, for example, strengthening competencies in the area of sustainability as well as promoting an understanding of systems and inter- and transdisciplinary work, as well as implementing the topic of sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in university courses and expanding the range of courses and courses offered. Accordingly, it is planned to anchor sustainability more and more in teaching at various levels and it is already flowing directly and indirectly into teaching.

The curricula of some of the study programs relate explicitly to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as the Master's program "Energy Innovation", or "Facility and Property Management", or the Certified Expert completing program "Ecological Garden and Green Space Management". Furthermore is the Erasmus Mundus program "Transition, Innovation and Sustainability Environments, TISE – European Master of Excellence/Erasmus Mundus Joint Master" a relevant international, English-language teaching offer. In the field of economics, a specialization "Sustainable Management" is offered for the Professional MBA. In addition, accompanying lectures such as Business Ethics and Responsible Leadership are integrated here.

In teaching about and for sustainability, university teachers also have a role to play. "Education for Sustainable Development" has the particular goal of developing competencies among students to act. "The competence to act in the sense of sustainable development, means "Gestaltungskompetenz", is the ability to actively participate in shaping one's own life, one's own living space, and the future of societies." (De Haan, 2005). Therefore, ESD addresses first of all the university teachers, who are asked to integrate the development of competences into their lectures. To do so, workshops for internal and external university teachers are offered, as well as the certificate program "BuNE-Z", certificate for education and sustainable development, by the Alliance of Sustainable Universities.