KU founding member of new Bavarian Center for Higher Education and Sustainability

BayZeN offers members of all Bavarian universities a platform for institution-wide networking, exchange and cooperation for the implementation of sustainability and climate protection goals in the fields of research, teaching, operations, transfer, student initiatives and governance. KU President Prof. Dr. Gabriele Gien emphasizes: "The founding of BayZeN is the result of an ongoing process that was significantly initiated and supported by the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. The Bavarian Network for Sustainability in Higher Education, the forerunner of BayZeN, was rightly recognized by UNESCO as a pioneer for sustainability. The new center can also initiate nationwide impulses beyond Bavaria." BayZeN sees itself as an institutionalization of the Bavarian Network for Sustainability in Higher Education, which was founded in 2012 as a bottom-up initiative. The presidents of all state and state-recognized universities in Bavaria have signed a voluntary commitment to cooperation and the overall institutionalization of sustainability and climate protection. The network closely cooperates with the Student Representative Council in Bavaria (LAK).

The mission of BayZeN is to promote scientific discourse on the major societal challenges of sustainable development and on the responsibility of universities in Bavaria. BayZeN also supports universities in the implementation and structural anchoring of sustainability and climate protection goals through individual consulting. It offers interested parties various networking and exchange formats as well as working groups in all fields of action. For this purpose, the following six sponsoring universities each provide start-up funding for BayZeN for a period of three years: Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (HSWT), Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU), OTH Amberg-Weiden (OTHAW), Nuremberg Institute of Technology Georg Simon Ohm (Ohm), Technical University of Munich (TUM) and University of Passau. The BayZeN office is located at the HSWT.

Within BayZeN, the KU has set itself the goal of coordinating the topics of teaching and educational research in particular. For example, the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development in university teaching has been scientifically investigated under the leadership of the KU. Funded by the Bavarian State Ministry for the Environment and Consumer Protection, training formats were developed at the KU, for example, and their effectiveness was investigated. The background to this initiative is the United Nations Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), according to which ESD is to be firmly anchored in the curricula and teacher training, among other things. However, only a few teachers are and feel prepared for this task so far. This is where our project came in, with which teachers of all subjects can find support to implement ESD in their university teaching.

Under the umbrella of the previous network, the higher education institutions and universities in Bavaria have also already agreed on a uniform greenhouse gas accounting system. In this way, the KU in Bavaria also takes on a pioneering role in Germany and Europe, which means that it can serve as a role model for other universities and institutions. The comparability of the balance sheets creates transparency in reporting and thus greater credibility, so that higher education institutions and universities can live up to their model function.