Sustainable Development Goals
At the heart of UCD Sustainability’s agenda is a determination to progress the SDGs, locally, nationally and internationally.
Overview
The SDGs also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2016 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. As part of the development of the SDGs, (opens in a new window)Professor Patrick Paul Walsh, UCD School of Politics and International Relations, represented universities as a member of the UN Major Group for Science and Technology.
Professor Walsh is Vice President of Education and Director of the SDG Academy at the (opens in a new window)UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). UCD is an active member of Ireland’s chapter of SDSN and of (opens in a new window)UN Academic Impact which promotes action for the SDGs.
UCD Sustainability’s Core Working Group on SDG Engagement and Impact is chaired by (opens in a new window)Professor Enda Murphy who has published extensively on the implementation of the SDGs.
UCD was selected as a Sustainable Development Goals Champion 2024-2025 by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The programme allows a diverse range of organisations in Ireland to showcase the work they are doing to achieve the SDGs and to share their experiences and achievements locally and nationally.
UCD Alumnus David Donoghue was co-facilitator, with the Ambassador of Kenya, for the intergovernmental negotiations which led to the development and adoption of the SDGs as part of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Research, Innovation and Impact
The UCD Earth Institute places the SDGs at the heart of its activities. Its membership directory shows how each member’s research links to individual Goals.
Over the course of 2019, one of the Institute's flagship activities was the UCD Sustainable Development Goal Seminar Series. The series addressed each goal in turn and sought to highlight how groundbreaking work led by UCD researchers and colleagues from academia, government, industry and the charitable sector is contributing to SDG targets in Ireland and further afield and to stimulate further research and collaboration for impact.
Education
UCD offers an MSc in Sustainable Development an MSc in Global Change: Ecosystem Science & Policy, and an interdisciplinary BSc in Sustainability among other programmes addressing the SDGs.
A wide range of individual modules accessible to students on many degree programmes address individual goals or the SDG Agenda in more general terms. For example, the Development Studies programme in the School of Politics and International Relations includes a module on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Campus Initiatives
Want to search for UCD’s sustainability actions and initiatives relating to each individual SDG? An interactive dashboard has been created to let you do just that. Funded by the Higher Education Authority, the Sustainability at UCD dashboard consists of 17 SDG cards you can click to find out more on related campus policies, reports and services. Maps allow you to visualise the location on campus of research institutes, student societies, amenities and more. The information compiled in this dashboard responds to feedback from UCD students and staff gathered during the campus-wide sustainability survey. It has been created, gathered and curated mainly by students.
UCD was chosen as one of Ireland’s 20 (opens in a new window)SDG Champions for 2024-2025. An initiative of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the SDG Champions Programme was developed to raise public awareness of the SDGs and to demonstrate, through the examples provided by the SDG Champions, that everyone in society can make a contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
UCD is working with other SDG Champions and seeks to ensure staff and students and wider society are well informed about sustainability challenges and have the motivation and capacity to take and lead action.