Austria's Commitment to the 2030 Agenda

Helga Kromp-Kolb
© Wolfgang Gaggl
Emeritus University Professor of Meteorology and
Climatology at the University of Natural Resources
and Applied Life Sciences Vienna and Founder and
Director of the Centre for Global Change and Sustainibility
Like ripples around the stone...
In the UniNEtZ project, professional and
personal links were established within and
across the universities, interactions were
identified, horizons broadened, methodology
was discussed, teaching quality improved,
and students were responsibly involved: a
palpable gain for the scientists involved and
their universities.
The outward-facing options are limited in
their transformative value due to the structurally
driven, “SDG by SDG” negotiating
approach. However, the projects aimed at
transformation must start under the given
framework conditions, because the actual
required, integrated and disruptive system
change cannot be expected in the short
term. Smaller and bigger steps of the transformation
can produce its own dynamics
which leads to changes on the systemic
levels. Like ripples around the stone which
is thrown into the water, forming wider and
wider circles, each transformative step will
create the next ones.
UniNEtZ has left its mark on policy-making
already in its first phase, as it has sent the
clear signal that science is willing to take
up the dialogue, in order to contribute to
overcoming pressing and highly complex
political challenges.In the second phase
of the project, the aim is to prove that
science is also capable of dialog and also
has constructive things to offer in terms
of implementation.
Those wanting to contribute to a transformation
of society would do well to start
with themselves. As a contribution to an
overdue discussion, a policy statement
on the “Transformation of Universities
into Pioneers of Social Sustainability” has
been prepared.
It is intended to be an impulse-giving stone
whose ripples can no longer be stopped
inside and outside universities. With the
prototypical transformation of its own
house, UniNEtZ II hopes to gain legitimacy
and persuasiveness in order to be able to
encourage and carry others along.
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