Austrian Universities and the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the United Nations released the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by 193 countries, containing 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The goals address social as well as economic and environmental challenges in a holistic approach. Participating university members of the Alliance of Sustainable Universities in Austria (ANU), a cooperative work platform that promotes sustainable development at universities in Austria, picked up on this impulse by developing approaches for universities to address SDGs in research and education. The article presents the cooperative process of developing a project with the aim of supporting political decisions for SDG achievement, establishing the SDGs in research and education and intensifying collaboration between universities. Besides interactive workshops and methods to develop the project, a mapping supported the team to find well-established and also underrepresented SDGs in research at universities in Austria.