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The University World News has explored recently the growing roles of universities and researchers in advancing global sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recent review attracts attention to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development (HLPF2025), which took place in New York, US this July: the forum, among other issues, also focused on advancing science- and evidence-based sustainability solutions around the world.
Background
Research, science and education has been for years the spotlight at the global SDGs monitoring process: this time, the global higher education providers and policy-makers gathered in the UN to craft a greater role for universities in shaping the post-2030 sustainability agenda.
Higher education and science have assisted the sustainable development process, arguing that they educating tomorrow’s leaders and the workforce with sustainability knowledge and skills to generate research and innovation for optimal SDGs solutions.
As the Pact for the Future, adopted by UN members states in September 2024, notes “science, technology and evidence-based solutions are certainly referenced very well world-wide.”
However, while the science- and evidence-based solutions are already widely available, the higher education’s role was not explicitly mentioned at the forum.
The HLPF 2025 was held under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); most of the action during the 10-day forum was at the sidelines, but after their three-day gathering UN members states formally adopted a Ministerial Declaration on 23 July 2025.
The declaration says in its preamble: “We commit to bridging the digital, science, technology and innovation divides and the responsible use of science, technology and innovation as drivers of sustainable development.”
Besides, Katrin Kohl, UNESCO co-chair with Hopkins at York, said that the first new Global Higher Education Symposium “came about because of deep concerns around lack of progress on the SDGs and a likely post-2030 agenda”.
Reference and citations from: https://press.un.org/en/2025/ecosoc7216.doc.htm?
Positive shifts
Secretary General of International Association of Universities, Dr. Hilligje van’t Land notes that some positive shifts have already occurred: “we hope the future will involve higher education as a key sector: the international science community is already well represented; since the sciences are being developed at universities, there is a legitimate and normal path to including higher education much more strongly in moving forward.”
According to Jayashri Wyatt, UN Chief of Education Outreach in the Department of Global Communications: “it’s fair to say that certain countries who were self-reporting did speak to how important science- and evidence-based solutions actually are”.
Source and citation from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250726073436507
Accelerating actions in sustainability’s education
The overall sense of the forum’s discussions showed that the world actions are “way below SDG targets”, and that there is much more work to be done. The forum made constant and vital references to the fact that “the sciences are key and should be better explained to the broader public.” But given the clear connections between higher education and sustainability, most countries should place much more emphasis on this.
Indeed, “progress is generally disappointing, said the UN Secretary General in the 2025 progress report, which -based on SDG indicator data from 137 targets – showed that 18% of targets have regressed below baseline levels of 10 years ago; 47% of targets are moving too slowly or show no progress; and 35% of targets are on track or showing moderate progress.
UNESCO has reported that there were around 264 million students in higher education institutions globally in 2023: i.e. up 25 million in two decades, and more than double since the beginning of the century.
Source: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/report/2025/SG-SDG-Progress-Report-2025-advanced-unedited-version.pdf
Stronger science-policy coordination needed
Amid growing concern that the SDGs’ is lagging, particularly in implementation phase, the participants called for stronger science-policy coordination and a “paradigm shift” not only in the financing science and research but in educational governance and decision-making.
The world-wide events were structured around three critical objectives: a) accelerating SDG implementation through transdisciplinary science; b) confronting the gaps in implementation, including financial investments in science and socio-political aspects; and c) exploring science’s role in shaping the post-2030 development agenda.
“As the international community approaches the final stretch of the 2030 Agenda, there is widespread recognition that progress across many of the SDGs remains alarmingly slow. This is especially true in areas such as financing, capacity and institutional coordination,” noted UNDP’s Babatunde Adebayo during the event.
Source: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250725105859817