As a consequence and a commitment of the EAAE Dean’s Summit 2021, “Change the game – take responsibility – nurture sustainability – change the world.” (Oslo, April 22nd 23rd), the  EAAE Council has started to reflect and discuss the topic of the UN – SDGs.

The “EAAE Oslo Pledge for Climate Crisis and Sustainable Future” implicitly leads back to the contents of the SDGs and, during the discussion, the theme of how to refer to UN-SDGs in teaching and research in the architectural domain has emerged several times.

Some architecture schools are already experimenting with declining the UN-SDGs in our field (e.g., the Royal Danish Academy – Architecture, Design, Conservation). Many universities address the subject from various disciplinary sides.

At the same time, some University Rankings are adopting the SDGs as new evaluation parameters (e.g., Times Higher Education Impact Ranking, which applies the evaluation of the SDGs in the activities of Universities in the areas of research, stewardship, outreach, teaching.)

In the European Green Deal framework, the Horizon Europe program research goals, the New European Bauhaus contents, also considering the recent publication of the UN “IPCC | Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis”,  and the continuous UN updating on these issues, an increasingly vast field of reflection opens up for the Schools of Architecture.

Consequentially,  it seems necessary to set up an EAAE working group specifically dedicated to the SDGs as a horizontal and operative topic for the architecture field.

The working group will interact horizontally with the Research Academy, the Education Academy, and the Conservation Network.

The activity of the working group will start with three workshops (8/10, 5/11 and 3/12 2021) and the drafting of a summary paper to submit during the next Deans’ Summit 2022 (April 2022)

Are you a candidate to host the Deans’ Summit II in April 2022?

Send an e-mail with your motivation to the secretariat before 30/09/2021.