Conference Agenda

This panel examines how education for sustainability and global citizenship is researched, conceptualised, and enacted under changing conditions of knowledge production and use. The session papers are framed around the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), bringing together scholars who explore sustainability and global citizenship as interconnected educational aims and analyse how related forms of knowledge are translated into curriculum and pedagogical practice in higher education.

The panel responds to contemporary shifts in education research, including the diversification of knowledge-producing actors, the increasing dominance of data-driven and standardised approaches, and growing pressures for policy relevance in the context of global poly-crises. Against this backdrop, the presentations foreground ethical, values-based and relational ways of knowing that are often marginalised in dominant research paradigms. Drawing on Soka, or value-creating education – an educational philosophy developed in twentieth-century Japan – the panel explores alternative epistemological and pedagogical orientations that connect sustainability, global responsibility, and educational action.

Empirical and conceptual contributions examine curriculum development and pedagogical practices across diverse national and institutional contexts, focusing on how educators engage with concepts such as sustainability, peace, and service as situated forms of knowledge guiding learning and action.

Collectively, the panel debates the role of universities in contributing to more peaceful, just, and sustainable societies globally. It highlights ethical epistemologies, curriculum innovation, and perspectives from within Europe, and beyond, as key resources for advancing education for sustainability and global citizenship that is socially responsive, context-sensitive, and oriented toward the common good.

Structure of the session: The chairperson will introduce the session, followed by three presentations, and a discussion led by an expert in the field (listed as final presenter).

Paper 1

Value Creation and Educators’ Agency in a Time of Poly-Crisis: Insights from a Master’s Programme in Educational Innovation

Abstract:

This paper examines how a Master’s programme in Educational Innovation for Value Creation at the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain enables practicing educators to critically explore their role as social change agents. Drawing on participants’ professional experiences, the study analyses how a value-creating approach underpins reflective, participatory and transformative learning oriented towards ethical responsibility and social engagement. The paper highlights how educators learn to design contextually grounded educational innovations that integrate global citizenship and sustainability, fostering ethical values, service and collective responsibility in educational practice in response to climate challenges and social inequalities.

Paper 2

Global Citizenship Education for Sustainable Coexistence: UNESCO’s 2023 Recommendation and Ikeda’s Educational Proposals in Practice at Soka University

Abstract:

This paper examines the convergence between UNESCO’s 2023 Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, and selected educational proposals advanced by Japanese educator and Soka progenitor, Daisaku Ikeda (2002, 2012) to promote global citizenship and sustainable coexistence. It further investigates how the integration of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can be situated within a humanistic framework that fosters an ethic of reverence for life and responsibility toward the planet (Sharma 2025), taking examples of key initiatives at Soka University.

Paper 3

Communiversity for Global Citizenship and Sustainability in Higher Education

Abstract:

This paper proposes the Communiversity approach to GCE in higher education as an epistemic alternative amid ecological and sustainability poly-crisis. Drawing on a collaborative initiative between Soka University Japan and Philippine Normal University, it illustrates how university–community partnerships reconfigure knowledge through dialogical, situated, and relational practices. Anchored in the Tbilisi Declaration (1977), UN Agenda 2030, and informed by transformative and value-creating education, the paper argues that Communiversity enables transgressive learning and global solidarity. It integrates GCE and ESD, linking local action with global responsibility through a normatively grounded and publicly accountable higher education praxis.