16 May 2024, 2-3 pm CET

Presenter: Caroline Hart
Chair: Andrew Crabtree

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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82077179201?pwd=TjROZFRLWXhtNGQrek82OHlPUFVpUT09

Meeting ID: 820 7717 9201
Passcode: 138534

Educational institutions and their processes have the potential to make a significant contribution towards the development of individual capabilities and sustainable development more broadly. Albeit the latter will be diversely conceived, this potential exists, though cannot be assumed due to positive and negative impacts of educational processes, trade-offs and sacrifices along the way (Hart, 2018). In the first part of this webinar, Caroline will present a case study of a higher education institution in England that is striving to implement a sustainability agenda. The institutional policy aims for carbon neutrality, a greener campus, research and innovation that prioritises sustainability concerns, and education for sustainable development embedded in all undergraduate courses by 2025. The presentation will focus, in particular, on the policy strand that aims to embed Education for Sustainable Development within this wider sustainability agenda. Drawing on concepts from the capability approach, the discussion will illuminate some of the challenges and opportunities for this work. Particular attention is given to the social interactions and power dynamics within the institutional hierarchy, across disciplines and between university staff and students.  Further discussion is invited during the second part of the session and everyone is welcome to participate.

Hart, C.S. (2018) Education, Capabilities and Sustainable Development in F. Comim, S.Fennell & P.B.Anand (Eds) New Frontiers of the Capability Approach, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Presenter: Dr Caroline Sarojini Hart
Caroline is a social and behavioural scientist with a longstanding interest in the capability approach in relation to education, health and human flourishing.  Following a successful  international teaching career, Caroline before moved into academia, holding academic positions at the University of Cambridge, University of Bradford, Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield. More recently, Caroline’s professional work and scholarship have centred on applying a capability approach to health coaching and person-centred care with a particular focus on personalised care policy and the design and delivery of educational programmes for NHS staff in the UK.  Caroline is a Fellow of the HDCA and a joint coordinator of the HDCA European Regional Network.

Chair: Andrew Crabtree
Andrew Crabtree is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School. His primary interests lie in the human development approach and he is presently working on a notion of nature-based human development which includes traditional human development concerns – lack of basic freedoms, rights, needs, security, inequalities and socio-cultural structures  - understood through a nature-based lens which emphasizes our rootedness in and our relatedness to cultured nature’s threats and opportunities. He has worked as a consultant for the Human Development Report Office’s 2022 Special Report on Human Security New Threats to Human Security in the Anthropocene and the 2022 Human Development Report Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World. He edited the volume Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security (Palgrave, 2020). He is a co-coordinator of the European Regional network of the Human Development and Capability Association.