“No strategy can deny the challenge our world faces.”

The IUA President’s Forum: Professor John O’Halloran, President of University College Cork

Recently at University College Cork (UCC) we published our five year strategic roadmap. It is a strategy developed together with our community and stakeholders and at its heart is people and our planet.

No institution or organisation can deny the reality of the challenge facing our planet, and any strategic roadmap must seek to play its role in creating a sustainable future. These sustainability challenges present unique leadership, teaching and research opportunities for higher education. How can universities respond? Universities are uniquely positioned to help accelerate the transition to sustainability. Few other societal institutions have the breadth and depth of relevant expertise, the commitment to the advancement of understanding, or the potential for engaging in the long term partnerships required to identify, analyse, and solve sustainability problems. Universities can also take more risks than other organisations, acting as “living laboratories” for the societal transition to sustainability in their operations, research and teaching.

At UCC we are deeply conscious of the role we can play to help secure a sustainable future for our university, our people and our planet. It is why we have established the first dedicated sustainability and climate action office in Ireland’s higher education sector. This office is tasked to deliver on sector leading environmental targets while also ensuring research, learning, teaching, and operations lead and inspire the transition to a more sustainable future. Whilst universities often struggle to mobilise their unique capacities in ways that effectively link knowledge with action, UCC has over the last two decades built interdisciplinary centres and institutes and effective partnerships with communities, NGOs, local authorities and industry to ensure our knowledge and expertise is utilised where it is most needed.

Time is simply running out

We are internationally ranked as a leader in sustainability, and while the plaudits are nice, this is no exercise in vanity, it is a value at the heart of our institution and our student led journey which commenced over a decade ago.

History will not look kindly on our sector if we simply do not do everything we can to seek to rescue the path that we are on. Time is simply running out and just as universities were the springboard that led society to overcome past challenges, we have to urgently deploy this sector with its diverse strength to address the greatest challenge in our history.

Many debates are polarising society, widening us further and further apart at a time when we need a joint conviction to help save this beautiful world we inhabit. I live in a part of this world which is renowned for its natural beauty, but the impact is there, a cry of a bird once heard with regularity now vanished from our landscape, replaced with the ever increasing volume on our roads.  

As a university leader I can work with my colleagues to help shape future generations. We can ensure the voice of our students is heard on a subject that will impact them the most, we can take strides in our operations to lead and to inspire and we can over and over again puncture public debate with our insight. Yet at times despite our best efforts it can seem forlorn, like we are casting pieces to the wind.

In 2015, an Irish diplomat, David Donoghue, together with his Kenyan counterpart, Macharia Kamau, played a key role in the creation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A noble blueprint that deserves a far greater recognition than it has. In a remarkable commencement address at the American University in 1963 John F Kennedy stated “By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it and to move irresistibly towards it.” While Kennedy was referring to peace, these words sixty years ago underscore the role the SDGs can play.

We must realise that the focus on studying problems without emphasising solutions will not help address climate change and sustainability challenges. Most academics hope to make a difference in their research and teaching efforts and derive satisfaction of being part of something larger than themselves. This is particularly true for sustainability issues.

So what is this missive today calling for? It is calling for that urgent irresistible move towards these shared goals as outlined in the SDGs. It is calling for action. Action that brings our research and teaching strengths together on this challenge. Action that seeks to allay concerns and demonstrates how communities can work together to achieve benefits. Action that retires the point scoring and enables policies that unleashes our ingenuity to protect and rebalance the place of our planet in our future.

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We advocate for our member universities and support them to nurture the nation’s talent and to create, disseminate and apply knowledge and innovation throughout all regions of the country and to build thriving partnerships across the globe. Their unique role as partners in securing the sustainable future of our nation and society is at the heart of what we do.