Topic 5d. Knowledge to serve the planet

Topic 5. Table of contents Transforming education for sustainability Overview [+] a. Sustainability framework for higher education [+] b. Educating for living with the earth [+] c. Learning for change [+] d. Knowledge for a new paradigm. e. Research and teaching for sustainable livelihoods [+] f. Open to society: building sustainability together [+] g. Universities in transition [+]

In current context, there is a need for deeper understanding between the difference of information, knowledge, and wisdom. In the most classical definitions, information is any kind of event that affects the state of a dynamical system; knowledge is defined as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; and, wisdom is the correct way to apply knowledge. Then, to imagine a different world, we need to consider what knowledge is needed and generated for what kind of society.

There are, at least, three key issues to review regarding the use and impact of knowledge in our societies: a better understanding of how we build knowledge and transcend disciplines towards a complex thinking; the integration of knowledge from diverse backgrounds (community-based research, indigenous knowledge, intercultural dialogue) and the ethical implications of scientific and technological research and its applications. This need for transformation demands a reform in thinking, necessary to conceive together the context, the global and the multidimensional aspects of knowledge.

One of the strategic challenges that higher education institutions face is the recognition of other ancestral, contemporary and advanced sources of knowledge on human and social development. In the context of the knowledge society, HEIs have also an important role to play in linking technology to citizenship and in bringing about a democratization of science and technology. A feasible university project should be created to recover the idea of universities as places for dialogue and meeting places for different kinds of knowledge, perspectives, interests, cultures and peoples.

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