Extract

How can universities more effectively engage in better understanding and acting on the existential and complex sustainability challenges of the twenty-first century as our human population exceeds seven billion and exponential growth has not as yet stalled? How can social processes for the creation of new knowledge, including in research and education, better take into account complex challenges? How can such change processes acknowledge that in the transformation of cities and regions, the social and the material world are interdependent and inextricably intertwined? How can science that is largely organized in disciplinary silos better relate insights on the biophysical carrying capacity of our planet to changes in social organization? This book presents an unprecedented wide range of perspectives across four continents on how universities engage with government agencies and private partners to foster social and technological change, transforming society and the environment they are embedded in for greater sustainability.