WUN at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference
The Worldwide Universities Network was honoured to join the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC), uniting policymakers and business leaders to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The conference took place during Europe’s heatwave, providing a real-time, urgent focus on independent research that is essential for societies to model climate risks, design adaptation strategies, understand biodiversity loss, and address the social dimensions of climate change.
Opening the conference, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier referred to a New World Disorder characterised by existential threats such as poverty, hunger and climate change at a time when the world is slowed down by conflict. The President told the conference delegates that the world was “on the wrong path,” warning that the international regulatory framework was in jeopardy. He argued that the United Nations needed to change “to reflect the changing environment.”
Furthermore, the President said that the challenges we face now mean there is no time to catch our breath. “This conference sends a signal against the current zeitgeist and to shore up international development cooperation.”
Recognising the critical role of research in advancing the SDGs, the conference considered threats to academic freedom and how to safeguard independent research – particularly as sustainability-related research worldwide is increasingly facing political, economic and societal pressure, threatening the evidence base needed for long-term, evidence-informed action.
Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Executive Director, Professor Dawn Freshwater, who participated in the conference, said the future-focused discussion on academic freedom sought shared priorities to lay the groundwork for protecting academic freedom as it comes under increasing political, economic and social pressure. “As the leader of a global university network dedicated to collaborative research, it was rewarding to see the discussion identify “networks of solidarity” as one of the foundations to protect academic freedom.”
It was also rewarding to have WUN colleagues, the University of Ghana’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Research, Innovation and Development, Professor Felix Ankomah Asante, and the University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria Future Africa Research Chair in Sustainability Transformations, Professor Maano Ramutsindela, in Hamburg for the dialogue.
Header photo courtesy of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference.