Khatereh Ghasemzadeh
Khatereh Ghasemzadeh, Post-doc Researcher, Department of Management–University of Bologna, Via Capo di Lucca, 34 - 40126 Bologna (Italy)
Khatereh is a post-doc researcher in the Department of Management of the University of Bologna (UNIBO). She holds a Ph.D. degree in the field of Innovation Management. Her research and publications include, open & user innovation, user knowledge in organizations, and organizations and sustainability policies. Currently, Khatereh is researching sustainability and higher education and how higher education institutions are transforming societies through sustainable development. She also organizes the communication activities that UNIBO takes to embrace and convey regarding UN SDGs named Almagoals. Her research orientation is multidisciplinary with innovation studies in particular user innovation, sustainability management, sustainability strategy in higher education institutes and, organizational behavior being her main fields. Email: khatereh.ghasemzadeh@unibo.it
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 crisis has deteriorated the endeavors towards achieving SDG 4 targets to a large extent, a path that was not even on track before the pandemic. Higher education went under unforeseen pressure like other education systems that made it challenging to cope within a short amount of time. Following a micro perspective, this study aims to unfold the influence of the Covid-19 crisis on the sustainable development actions of the University of Bologna (UNIBO) in Italy by comparing the data of the UN SDG report of the year 2019 and 2020. To do so, we confronted all the four pillars of the activities towards the uptake of SDGs (Teaching, Research, Third mission, Institutional efforts) with 17 goals of the Agenda 2030. Based on the methodology that UNIBO generated a few years ago, each pillar consists of a few sub-areas to measure each of four areas and report them annually. Hence, we mapped the fluctuations of the data of each sub-area of activity comparing the reports of 2019 and 2020 and marked them differently for the increase, decrease, and no change in the numbers. By mapping the fluctuations of each sub-area against each SDG, we can understand the changes over the four pillars of UNIBO to address the following questions: Which areas of activity: teaching, research, third mission, and institutional actions have been influenced the most? In what way?, Which dimension of the Agenda 2030 namely economic, social, and environmental has influenced the most? worsened or enhanced?,What are the lessons learned from the experience of the UNIBO? We understand that the data of the report is not a silver bullet to map and analyze the effects of the pandemic crisis on a higher education institution which in reality has multidimensional facets beyond the scope of this research. However, the insights and the lessons learned from this case study could leverage the policies, strategies, and practices for leading the universities to a more sustainable future.
Keywords: Covid-19, SDGs, report, Higher education, Sustainable development