Education for sustainable development’s global learning space

With 190 Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) on Education for Sustainable Development in more than 65 countries across the world, the Global RCE Network – headquartered at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) – could be the ultimate ‘learning organisation’ in the realm of sustainability.

As the network says on its website, the worldwide network of RCEs constitutes a “global learning space for sustainable development”. It exists to share education for sustainable development (ESD) ideas, learning and best practice.

RCEs are multi-stakeholder networks that facilitate partnerships to promote learning towards sustainability at the local level. Most are led by universities, and other key players are schools, local authorities, civil society groups, research centres, businesses, and non-formal education organisations such as museums and libraries.

“Each RCE on the ground works as a living laboratory. Each is exploring how to identify sustainability issues and work collaboratively,” says Miki Konishi, the Education and Innovation Programme coordinator at UNU-IAS that serves as the Global RCE Network Secretariat. She has worked in business, academic institutions and the local government of Okayama city, which runs RCE Okayama.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution for realising sustainable development. According to The Sustainability Development Goals Report 2024, only 17% of the SDG targets are on track. We need more progress, and continuing effort,” Konishi told University World News.

“Collaboration among local actors and with international policy and discourse creates synergy and dynamics to explore more new approaches.”

Linking international policies to local action

In line with thinking about linking international sustainability policies with local initiatives to deliver ideas and actions that advance the SDGs, in July at the UN 2024 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, Nordic countries launched a review that turns sustainability delivery attention towards local governments.

The review, as reported by University World News, found that over 95% of municipalities in Sweden and Norway actively work to localise the SDGs, 80% in Denmark, and 64% in both Finland and Iceland.

Konishi said that when the concept of Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD was created back in 2003, the United Nations University (UNU) strategically decided to focus on local involvement. Given that UNU is part of the United Nations system, this was a “unique strategic approach”.

“At that time the international discourses were there, as today, but there were not many concrete actions. RCEs were established to translate words into actions at the local level through multi-stakeholder partnerships. Engaging with RCEs and fostering collaboration between them creates rapid and dynamic synergies,” Konishi said.

The RCE state of play

The United Nations University launched the RCE initiative in 2005. That year there were seven acknowledged RCEs worldwide, including RCE Okayama. “The Global RCE Network continues to grow year by year, reaching a total of 190 RCEs now,” Konishi said. Annual calls usually attract 10 to 15 new membership applications.

The Global RCE Service Centre is based at the UNU Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability in Tokyo, as is ProSPER.Net, an alliance of universities in the Asia-Pacific that are committed to integrating sustainable development into postgraduate courses and curricula. Both are funded by the Ministry of Environment of Japan.

The Service Centre has four functions: to facilitate collaboration among RCEs; raise visibility and outreach; conduct research; and do capacity building.

For example, last year the Service Centre conducted research into action-oriented pedagogy on ESD, undertaking a literature review and interviewing RCEs to capture the essence of facilitating action-oriented pedagogy. Next year, based on the research outputs, there will be training for educators in RCEs to promote more action-oriented pedagogy and enhancing ESD projects.

“In the initial development phase of the RCE concept, the main objectives were to transfer the knowledge of higher education into practical actions and integrate it into school education,” said Konishi. “UNU-IAS saw the gap between scientific knowledge and what is taught in schools.

“Universities have played a key role in sharing scientific knowledge for sustainable development for educational settings.” Universities conduct research into and around sustainability, and have expert knowledge. “But to implement the sustainability concept, the involvement of various stakeholders is also essential,” Konishi said.

There are different types of RCEs. While some are academic or research-driven, others are focused on practices and public awareness raising. The local government-led RCE Okayama is action-oriented and engages citizens of all generations, for example.

To facilitate collaboration among RCEs, the Global RCE Network established a mechanism for regional meetings, which are generally held each year for each of the network’s four regions – Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific and Europe.

Global RCE Network conferences are currently held biannually. The last global conference was in Malaysia in 2023, hosted by RCE Greater Gombak and RCE Greater Kuala Lumpur. Community engagement was a major focus, since they promote community-based ESD that is inclusive and involves Indigenous people. The RCE movement celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2025, and has just put out a call to RCEs to host the conference.

“The Global RCE Network feels like a family. And you’re making connections,” said Betsy King, development manager for Learning for Sustainability Scotland (the regional RCE for Scotland), based at the University of Edinburgh, and the network’s regional advisor for Europe.

It is also great for leveraging support. For instance, RCEs in Europe were involved in a project with Erasmus+ funding called ESD SuperVision 4.0, with partners from eight countries, working to help implement ESD in school curricula through capacity building, school development and policy-making. “The project inspired and enabled sharing and the development of new approaches,” King told University World News.

Strategic governance and regional advisors

The Global RCE Network has an annual strategic meeting attended by advisory board members from external institutions such as UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Association of Universities, the Copernicus Alliance and the Ubuntu Alliance – an association of 14 top global education and scientific organisations committed to ESD.

Also at the annual strategic meeting are the network’s regional advisors, who have rich experience in facilitating RCEs and wide regional networks. They contributed to the Global RCE Network’s roadmap 2021-2030, and provide regional information on and analysis of RCE work.

“Each RCE is very individual and their activities are context-specific, based on local sustainability challenges. What the Global Service Centre does is provide a global focus. It’s communicating with RCEs, producing a bulletin and supporting networking. They invite new RCEs to submit applications,” said King.

RCEs in Europe hold a monthly connect session online, hosted by different RCEs. “It’s an opportunity to learn and share, and also to discuss common issues,” King told University World News. The annual regional RCE meeting for Europe was held in August in Germany.

Highly appreciated by RCEs are the Global RCE Service Centre’s awards opportunities. “RCEs are encouraged to share their projects online, and the awards are announced annually. Simply, these initiatives provide inspiration and learning for us. They help to make our achievements much more visible globally, and that helps us locally as well.”

Regional youth coordinators

More recently, RCE regional advisors were joined by regional youth coordinators, who are appointed by the UNU-IAS director for two-year terms.

The regional youth coordinators provide advisory and support functions to the regional and global RCE communities to facilitate youth-led and youth-focused initiatives, said Evance Ouya, youth coordinator for Africa and a wildlife management biologist and ecologist at Maasai Mara University in Kenya.

For example, regional youth coordinators were involved in organising an International Youth Day webinar, and last year they also ran an online session at the ECOSOC Youth Forum at which they shared their experiences and ESD insights gained as regional youth coordinators.

“Through different forums such as digital spaces and policy development platforms, we upscale, embrace, adopt and occasionally critique different ESD strategies and SDG activities that are youth-led across Africa,” Ouya told University World News.

It is important that the RCE network is spread across different continents and comprises diverse cultures and age groups. “The youth, I believe, provide a pathway to achieving progress and development of ESD, SDGs, and other global sustainability goals,” he said.

“RCE networks bring together diverse intergenerational and multidisciplinary perspectives and cultural approaches, enriching the educational content and methods used in ESD. This diversity helps create inclusive and culturally sensitive programmes, empowering youth with soft skills.

“Across different RCEs in Africa, we have embarked on targeted campaigns for youth to help advance ESD and the SDGs,” Ouya said. “Our RCEs are continually enhancing the ability of different organisations to effectively promote ESD and to advance the SDGs by leveraging collective knowledge, resources and influence.”

Oriana Silva is regional youth coordinator for the Americas, a PhD student in chemistry at the University of North Texas and editor-in-chief of The Sustainable Age – Student journal, a student-led journal focused on educating and raising awareness of the SDGs.

“I serve as a bridge communicator between youth from both continents, South and North America. I also support and promote cross-collaboration between RCE youth chapters and host activities that incentivise diversity and inclusion from both communities,” she said.

It was growing up in Venezuela that compelled Silva towards sustainability. Understanding childhood struggles around basic needs led her to realise that they were related to resource management. “This inspired me to elaborate projects that can raise awareness about sustainability and resiliency among students, like The Sustainable Age.”

As an RCE regional youth coordinator, “I see firsthand how empowering young people to take the lead in sustainability initiatives can create a ripple effect, inspiring others and driving meaningful change.” Young people “bring fresh perspectives, creativity and a sense of urgency to the sustainability discourse,” Silva told University World News.

“Additionally, through their engagement in the network’s activities, young people can build valuable skills, expand their professional networks, and contribute to the global effort to achieve a more sustainable and equitable world.”

RCE lessons learned, and challenges

Much of the work of the RCEs is featured on the Global RCE Network website, with all projects documented. So what are the main lessons learned?

“One key lesson is that fundamental societal transformation requires a whole-society approach, involving all sectors and collaboration at all levels, from both top-down and bottom-up directions,” said Konishi. The network shares information and developments with RCEs, while RCEs act to implement theories and concepts on the ground and their findings are transmitted back up to the international level.

“The RCE concept was established 10 years before the SDGs,” said Konishi. “RCEs demonstrate the transformative power of community empowerment, which is vital for accelerating SDG progress.”

Each RCE can decide what sustainability issues it works on, the institutions with which to collaborate, and what resources are available. “So these are very locally contextualised, with different priorities and issues.

“The Global RCE Network is dynamic because we value the different approaches and diversity of each RCE. It’s not a static work, and it is very organic in structure,” said Konishi.

One of the challenges for the Global RCE Service Centre is disseminating the valuable experiences of RCEs to a wider network. Because the secretariat is at UNU-IAS, said Konishi, “we want to leverage networks within UN agencies or other international networks interested in community-based ESD implementation. Expansion of outreach is needed”./universityworldnews.com