ITD-CH 20

Looking back at the HES2020: In this video the conference organizers and speakers reflect on the event and its outomes.To the video

LATEST UPDATE: The attractive conference program is online. Read also the Interview with the organizers (td-net's statement on page 2).

Join us for the Virtual Higher Education Summit 2020 (#HES2020) from 31 August – 2 September 2020. The international event addresses the question “How can we assure quality and transformative learning for sustainable development?” and is co-organised by the COPERNICUS Alliance, saguf, td-net, the University of Bern, and the University of Lausanne.

WHY MEET FOR THE #HES2020

Higher education institutions in Europe acknowledge the urgent need for rapid and radical transformation towards sustainable development and agree that higher education has an important role to play in this process. But how can this role be assumed, what values should guide the process, what should be transformed, how, and who should lead and who be engaged? Suggestions and models exist, but they remain niches, often nested at institutional levels that are disconnected from relevant larger-scale, standard-defining quality and policy bodies.
The conference will enable participants from a number of different stakeholder and expert groups interested in transformation towards sustainable development to meet online beyond their “natural borders” and to discuss both research and practice-related issues.

AIMS

The Virtual Higher Education Summit 2020 aims to:​ 

• ​Address the challenges of quality assurance and transformative learning for sustainable development
• Get different communities together, foster creative listening, and spark new inspirations
• Share latest knowledge across these communities, learn from each other, and get inspired for improved practices towards sustainable development
• Refine the research agenda in the fields of transformative learning, quality assurance, and sustainable development
• Inspire new research that cuts across these fields

CHALLENGES

Participants will engage in lively, daring and creative debates to address the following challenges: 

1. Values in transformative teaching and research
2. Assessing and assuring quality
3. Knowing, doing and leading
4. Professional development for sustainability competences
5. Students as agents of change
6. Co-producing actionable knowledge with society

GATHERING OF KEY PLAYERS

This conference seeks to convene key players for Higher Education for Sustainable Development and transformation, foster creative listening, and spark new inspirations across the following communities: 

• lecturers and researchers at higher education institutions
• experts in professional development in higher education
• managers of higher education institutions
• experts in quality assurance
• students and lifelong learners
• civil society actors