Disputation: The Sustainable University: An exploration of how the sustainable university is conceptualized and takes shape

Den 20 maj försvarar Maarten Deleye sin doktorsavhandling i didaktik: The Sustainable University: An exploration of how the sustainable university is conceptualized and takes shape.

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- Why did you choose to attend PhD studies in Sweden and Uppsala University?

A lot of interesting research on sustainability education originates from Uppsala University, so in that sense it was a logical decision to apply for a PhD in Uppsala. It allowed me to become part of and connect to a vibrant research community and tradition. In addition to this, I was attracted by how the doctoral education program is really taken serious at EDU, with a lot of focus on coursework as well. Finally, doing my PhD in Uppsala was a great opportunity to get a taste of a different (research) culture.

- Your thesis is about the sustainable university. How did you become interested in that subject?

During my previous studies in social and cultural pedagogy, I became very interested in the complex and often contested relationship between education and sustainability issues. At the same time, I have developed a love for the specificity of the university as educational setting. In my PhD, I was able to combine this.

- What do you think are the most important conclusions that you have reached in your thesis?

My thesis connects more general insights into how the sustainable university is conceptualized and how higher education systems might change with what happens in micro-level change practices in which lecturers concretely give shape to their educational practices. First of all, I have shown that “the sustainable university” is conceptualized in three dominant ways in the current literature. This implies that we have to be specific when we talk about integrating attention for sustainability in universities. Building further on these results, I have shown the value of connecting this to the empirical analysis of how lecturers conceptualize and give shape to sustainable university when they redesign an educational program. Secondly, I have developed an overview of which characteristics of a higher education system (Flanders, Belgium) might affect the further embedding of sustainability in that system, but also show that the actual effect of those characteristics on how lecturers give shape to their educational practices depends on how the latter act upon these characteristics.

- What are you going to do after you have completed your dissertation?

I will now work on a research project for EERA, the European Educational Research Association, in which I will analyze their abstract database of all past ECERs. I do not yet know what the future holds after that.