As a consequence and a commitment of the EAAE Deans’ 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 seemed 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 interacted horizontally with the Research Academy, the Education Academy, and the Conservation Network during a series of joint SDGs Workshops.

Moreover, the EAAE opened an inquiry to its members, through a questionnaire, on the actions that universities are taking regarding the SDGs in teaching, research, their institutional policies, organization, campus life and spaces, and including  a review of samples and best practices in the domain of architectural education and research. This systematic survey, together with the synthesis of the topics covered in the four workshops, were presented during the General Assembly in Madrid

At the seconds Dean’s Summit in Glasgow, 21.04. – 22.04.2022, under the theme ‘THINGS CHANGE: Academic leadership in times of dynamic flux and flow’, our current challenges in leadership were openly discussed.

During the 3rd Deans’ Summit, ‘Impact of care, caring for students, for society, for the profession’, on 21.04.2023 in Brussels, the results of the survey were on the programme.

Are you interested to host the fourth Deans’ Summit in April 2024? Send an e-mail with your motivation to the secretariat before 30/05/2023.