Keywords

15.1 The Context of the Alma Mater Studiorum: University of Bologna

Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance(Ban Ki-moon during the G20 working dinner on Sustainable Development September 2013).

With 86,509 enrolled students, and personnel over 5500 units (University of Bologna 2018), the University of Bologna, one of the most ancient Western higher education institutions was established in 1088 A.D. (University of Bologna 2017a) and, located in a middle-sized town of Northern Italy, faces daily challenges in a constantly evolving society with continuously changing paradigms. At Alma Mater, a multi-campus structure with over 1,162,506 m2 of facilities only in Europe placing the University as the first European university for international mobility with 2787 outbound students and 1970 inbound students in 2018 (INDIRE 2019). This geographic spread and other factors require a broad and long-term vision of the governance strategy, which goes side by side with the central activities of researching and training in full respect of the freedoms of science and teaching, as it is stated at Art. 3.1 of the University Statute (Italian Republic 2011).

The considerable human and physical of the University system lead to both the need and the duty to harmonize the relationship within people, between people and the environment—that is, between the University and all its stakeholders. Recognizing its role in the society and willing to be a positive actor of change, combining innovation with the history that it has consolidated over time, the Alma Mater Studiorum is fully aware that its activities can produce a significant impact, both direct and indirect, on the community and in the region.

As a large public university conscious of its social responsibility, the Bologna University has invested, in the past three academic years, energies and resources to embrace a new approach in measuring its performance. This consists of an innovative path based on the careful classification and reporting of its activities in a framework that considers its contribution to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as of 2016. This chapter will start from the investigation of the reasons that led to this new approach in the governance of the University system, focusing on the inner relationship between Higher Education and the 2030 Agenda in the case of the University of Bologna. It will then provide an overview of the pathway that brought the comprehensive tool of the Report on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a variety of previously existing projects and documents. The core point of the chapter is the novelty of the approach to the 2030 Agenda, which will be scrutinized through the reasons behind the choice of conducting such a research, the analysis of its methodology, and the implementation and assessment of the effectiveness of the strategy towards the SDGs of objectives. The conclusions will point out the two main challenges raised by the reporting framework.

15.2 Higher Education and the 2030 Agenda: Perspectives and Actions of the University of Bologna

Even before the adoption of the 2030 Agenda (United Nations 2015) in late 2015, higher education and more broadly academia, has been included in the discussion on sustainable development. This evidence in the reading of United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/66/288, well known as “The Future We Want,” which set the basis for the creation of today’s development trajectory (United Nations 2012). Paragraph 235 of this resolution explicitly calls for support of educational institutions, especially of higher education institutions (HEIs) to conduct research and innovation for sustainable development “geared to bridging skills gaps for advancing national sustainable development objectives” (United Nations 2012).

A significant role of educational institutions and scholars also emerged from the following debate that gave birth to the 17 SDGs (Dodds et al. 2016). Arguably, the linkage between higher education and the 2030 Agenda has become closer with the shift from the 2000 Millennium Development Goals—MDGs (United Nations 2000) to the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. While in the MDGs, higher education was feebly mentioned in goal number 3 aimed to achieve gender parity, the SDGs in contrast offer a more extensive reference at goal number 4 titled “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” More specifically, higher education finds place in five targets under Goal 4. Direct tackling of this objective is in target 4.3 which states “equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university,” and 4.B “substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available […] for enrolment in higher education…,” while indirect references are in target 4.4 “number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship,” 4.5 “eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education,” and 4.7 “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development.”

Following the adoption of the Agenda 2030, educational institutions have been engaging in a variety of actions and initiatives one hand and on the other have provided inputs to or been tackled by international tools for further exploring the relationship between them and sustainable development. To this extent, it is relevant to consider the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) for the first set of actions and the FFA—Education 2030 Framework for Action (UNESCO et al. 2015) for the latter. HESI consists in a partnership between UNDESA, UNESCO, UNEP, UN PRME initiative, UNU, UN-HABITAT, UNCTAD, and UNITAR and collects commitments from over 300 universities from around the world and provides higher education institutions with a unique interface between higher education, science, and policy-making (United Nations 2016).

Moreover, linking higher education with Goal 4 would offer a very limited and an insufficient picture of the topic in the interconnected world of the twenty-first century. Hence, higher education plays a significant direct role in many other fields inter alia, good health and well-being (Goal 3), gender equality (Goal 5), decent work and economic growth (Goal 8), industry, innovation and infrastructures (Goal 9), reduced inequalities (Goal 10), sustainable cities and communities (Goal 11), and partnerships for the goals (Goal 17). The choice of this set of goals is not accidental, as they, together with Goal 4 have been included in the 2016–2018 Strategic Plan of the University of Bologna. As the 2030 Agenda is not merely a set of 17 goals, rather a harmonic plan of action, Bologna University has therefore taken action by merging the SDGs with its vision, mission, positioning analysis, and community goals. The plan of action in this regard has initiated from three main considerations.

First, a complex range of teaching activities conducted throughout a multi-campus system requires a synergy that increasingly generates interaction between the cities, departments, and schools where the courses are set. Therefore, it is pivotal to improve and to expand facilities and spaces where teaching and research activities are carried out. Second, Bologna University feels the need to increasingly become a major laboratory of ideas for sharing with other players active in its local area in the fields of industry, business, and cultural investment. A multi-stakeholders net of partnerships is one of the answers to understand the present and to face the challenges that tomorrow will bring. Third, the University is aware of the importance of consolidating the already existing dense web of relationships with HEIs all over the world to make the many forms of knowledge locally developed interact with those of other realities and cultures. All these, together with the recognition of the value that education has in the development of every country led to a progressively wider line of reasoning on the real function of the Alma Mater Studiorum in the achievement of the 17 SDGs. Considering that the University of Bologna is a leading academic institution in Europe and worldwide, the discussion soon questioned the broader role of HE broadly asking the questions: Where and how the University set itself in the demanding path towards sustainability? What is its role both internally and externally? How can the University meaningfully benefit from the full embracement of the SDGs in its strategy and the implementation of this strategy?

These questions are pressing universities to confirm their accountability to society under conditions of constantly changing and reorienting paradigms. Driven by these questions, a debate was conducted within the University of Bologna. This debate assisted in identifying the rationale behind the reporting framework this chapter present. While the focus on teaching and research remains primary, the aim to set sustainability as a propulsive push for the betterment of the institution and its communities, goes further and beyond this traditional mandate of the University. Indeed, the Alma Mater has significantly broadened the sphere of application of the sustainable perspective by incorporating it in all its governance actions. Therefore, not just the highest strategic plan has been shaped around the 2030 Agenda, but other areas have been touched by its mandate. Accordingly, the embodiment of the Sustainable Development Agenda starts from the institutional mission of Bologna University, which chiefly consists in the twin pillars of the vocation for teaching and that for research and extends to the international vocation of the University. Vital and dynamic relations with society and with the labor market complete this frame together with the passion for culture united with a deep ethical conscience, and the enhancement of the pluralities of its intellectual disciplines. In this context, the resources allocation mechanism has taken the 2030 Agenda into account at the stage of budgeting and at that of final balancing, the first for foreseeing the impact of the University actions on the goals, and the latter for the impact assessment.

These perspectives and actions, mentioned by way of examples, facilitate the understanding of the mutual link connecting higher education with the SDGs. Thus, it is simple to explain why the SDGs need universities for their achievement. By providing the knowledge and scientific solutions, universities support the implementation of the goals, combining research with innovation and carrying out experiments and gathering relevant data. Second, the embodiment of the SDG values in all of the university operations, ensures a higher level of completion of the goals due the institutions’ significant social, economic, and environmental footmark. Third, universities are mainly credible and impartial stakeholders of either a local or a broader society. This allows them to play a leading role in guiding the response to the SDG implementation strategies at different levels. Leadership can therefore be cross-sectoral, thanks to the gravitas universities assume. Hence, the teaching duty of the HEIs goes beyond its first mission of educating younger generations: advocacy for a more sustainable future, through a change of policies and behaviors, might positively impact but also the public and the private sector, the public opinion, and civil society movements. These considerations have been fully incorporated in the perspective of the Bologna University and complemented with two main driving reasons for the insertion of the SDGs in the University life and one simple and effective way of doing so.

A university holds the paramount responsibility of shaping the current and the future generations of implementers of the 2030 Agenda. This social duty operates in two directions: on one side there is the necessity to forge the right mindsets, on the other there is the chance to provide people with the proper knowledge, skills, and abilities towards sustainability. The expression of such a burden can be directed not only to the students’ community, but also to the international network of alumni and campuses. The University of Bologna has deep roots in the world of academia making is a recognized center of knowledge and innovation. Only by translating its very same name “Alma Mater—Studiorum,” the University of Bologna feels the extra responsibility of acting as mothers of all other universities, in constituting the best role model of the harmonic integration of the SDGs in the university system.

Finally, the answer to the “how” to reach such results has been put in practice within the Alma Mater long before it has been codified in words: only by finalizing the entirety of the institution’s activities in a conscious way towards the SDGs, the University can turn into a living lab for a sustainable future. In a society of fast-changing paradigms, universities must not only respond to needs that come from the outside, but also anticipate, needs from within, the fundamental questions on which they will orient their institutional missions: education, research, and Third Mission which deals with the engagement of the University in the socio-economic context it is part of.

The Strategic Plan of the University of Bologna is the programming document that anticipates and directs change, tracing the development vision, the objectives and the institutional strategies, also setting the indicators to evaluate any improvements achieved. It represents the synthesis of a shared planning process that directly engages university governance, departments, and other academic and administrative structures, as well as external stakeholders.

In Italy, universities are now required to adopt a strategic plan as a consequence of the implementation of the legislative decree 150/2009 (Italian Republic 2009) which provides that all public administrations prepare annually Performance Plans as part of tools in performance management cycles. The University of Bologna Plan is a 3-year planning document in which, consistent with the resources assigned, the objectives, indicators, and targets are explained. In November 2016, the University of Bologna adopted the new 2016–2018 Strategic Plan, a program document that outlines the University’s mission, strategic guidelines, and objectives based on the General Guidelines for Planning of Universities defined with the Ministerial Decree 635/2016 (Ministry of Education of the Italian Republic 2016).

For the first time, the new strategic plan introduces Sustainable Development (SD) as a transversal dimension that intersects both the strategic objectives related to the three institutional missions (research, teaching, and third mission) and the operational objectives related to the administration, which are the direct responsibility of the University’s management structure.

In order to carry out a strategic planning that puts issues related to sustainable development at the center of the University’s governance action, the Alma Mater developed the Strategic Plan with an articulating its objectives and strategies according to the 17 SDGs and the related 169 targets. In the first experimentation of the new strategic planning methodology, each basic objective of the Strategic Plan was associated with one or more objectives identified in the 2030 Agenda. This association was represented through the inclusion of the icon related to the associated SDG with which the University of Bologna intended to contribute. The weak point is that when the University started this new approach it had incomplete and non-systematic quantitative data relating to the strategic and operational objectives on the 17 goals of 2030 Agenda. Lacking a historical basis for measuring sustainability performance presented a limitation of the 2016–2018 strategic plan since it was difficult to define indicators and objectives directly linked to the 2030 Agenda except for a limited number of SDGs. In 2017, using data from 2016 and previous years, the Alma Mater prepared the first reporting document measuring the impact of the University on each SDG. In 2018, the second report was compiled, and the compilation of the third edition report was in progress at the time of writing this chapter. The acquisition of a historical database and the learning on how to measure the impact of the University to the 2030 Agenda, is an indispensable condition to improving the planning process pertaining to the University’s sustainability strategy. The new planning process involves a diagnosis phase important to fully understand the reality within which the University operates and the resources at its disposal to operate at the desired level. From the process, it was decided to develop an internal analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the University’s sustainability and an external analysis of the risks and opportunities given by the context in which the University of Bologna operates.

The strengths have been identified as the characteristics for which the University stands out in a positive sense. While the weaknesses are the features that present room for improvement. Opportunities were then identified as the external factors that the University can grasp to improve its sustainability positioning. Finally, the risks are external factors that constitute a constraint in the University’s operations or events that can negatively influence sustainability performance.

On the light of these findings, the next section will develop the precise methodology on which the University’s report on SDGs is built upon.

15.3 Methodology and Report’s Picture

As earlier reported, the University of Bologna Report on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to date has been published twice, for 2016 and 2017. For the purpose of this explanation, reference will be mainly made to the latest edition of the Report (University of Bologna 2017b), which was prepared from April 2018 to July 2018. The data presented refer to 2017, as well as academic year 2017/2018 for training data.

The Scientific and Technical Committee for Social Reporting—appointed by the University Board of Directors has formulated the report with the support of the ARAG—Evaluation and Strategic Planning Unit, and the ARTEC—Communication Unit. In order to fully comprehend the cross-sector nature of the study, it is relevant to catch the diversity of the Committee which comprises: the Rector; the Deputy Rector and the National Coordinator for Italy for the UI GreenMetric Network; Delegates on Budget, on Occupational well-being, and on Building and Sustainability; the coordinator of the Alma Mater Technical Group for H2020; Chair of the Guarantee Committee for Equal Opportunities, Employee Wellbeing and Non-Discrimination at Work—CUG; Pro Rectors on International Relations and on Digital Technologies; the Member of Network of Universities for Sustainable Development (RUS) for University of Bologna; Director General; Head of Administrative Division—ARAG—Finance and Subsidiaries Division; Head of Administrative Division—APOS—Personnel Division; Head of Administrative Division—AUTC—Buildings and Sustainability Division.

The report presents the key figures of the University of Bologna, followed by 17 sections dedicated to each SDG. The sections define the direct and indirect impact of the University’s activities in their four dimensions—training, research, Third Mission and institution—in order to measure their contribution to the advancement of the 2030 Agenda. A single goal is reported using a set of metrics specifically formulated to match and integrate with the institutional documents adapted by the University of Bologna.

First, under the dimension of training three items are measured: course units, students and collaborations. Course units indicate the link between the single course unit of a study program and the 17 SDGs. The relevant data come from a survey conducted through an on-line procedure asking to all teachers to identify the links. Up to 95% of the course units have been found a link with at least one SDG. The number of students who could chose a course unit linked with the taken SDG is then reported, together with the number of collaborations, teaching and mobility projects active in 2017 and listed by continent of implementation. Some SDG sheet is also integrated with further data, such as Goal 8 (Decent work and economic growth) reporting the percentage of graduates employed, at 69.7% in 2017 (University of Bologna 2017b). Second, the dimension of research presents six items: publications in Scopus, “cited by” in Scopus, H-index, publications per capita (international and national benchmark), and the number of FP7 (EU Parliament and Council 2006) and H2020 (EU Parliament and Council 2013) research projects active on 2017.

In order to extract the number of publications from the Scopus database, a research has been conducted considering all articles from 2007 to 2017 containing a specific sequence of keywords chosen for each SDG (considering all its targets) and an author affiliated with the University of Bologna. The “cited by” in Scopus derives from the number of documents that have cited the author for a document’s publication in the database. The H-index, developed by the physician Jorge Eduardo Hirsh, counts the highest number of papers having at least the same number of citations. It expresses an easy to read 1:1 relationship between publishing articles and citations, useful in the medium-long term of a career, for example, to define the level of global citation, in terms of scientific production of an author. In the report, it is used to measure the scientific output of the University of Bologna, using the keywords’ clusters, extracted from each SDG, to contain, cross and limit its topics and objectives. The procedure has the advantage that, once the keywords selected and the Boolean operators applied are fixed, it can be repeated year by year giving the same results (or updated in case of new citations) and gives comparable results when different Institutions are taken into consideration. The main limit of the use of this procedure is that it excludes the non-bibliometric sectors. After a long discussion and the consideration of different proposals and databases to rate the non-bibliometric sectors, none of the possible methods actually available to measure the contribution of the non-bibliometric sectors was agreed to be universally used as a valid and sufficiently updated national or international reference and the Scientific and Technical Committee agreed, till a solution will be found, by to accept and declare this limit.

The international benchmarking standards includes universities within the top 10 European Universities ranked in QS World Universities Ranking 2017/2018 (which are UCL (University College London) UK; The University of Manchester UK; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München—DE; Sorbonne University—FR; University of Copenhagen—DK; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven—BE; University of Leeds—UK; Utrecht University—NL; University of Ghent—BE; Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen—DE) (QS 2018) comparable to the University of Bologna in terms of: size (XL—more than 30,000 students), focus (FC—all five QS faculty areas, including the school of medicine), Research Intensity (Very High—more than 13,000 publications in the last 5 years), and Status (Public). The total number of articles was determined as described in the item publications in Scopus. The total number of articles for each university and each goal was scaled against the number of academic staffs as listed by QS for the World University Ranking 2016/2017 (QS 2018). By doing so, we eliminated any dimensional effect caused by simply considering the total number of publications. Finally, for each goal we compared the University of Bologna’s ratio with the average of the ratios for the ten universities in the benchmark group. The result is the index number “benchmark = 100”; an index number higher than 100 means that “per capita publications” by the University of Bologna academics is higher than the average of the universities in the international benchmark group. If the index is lower than 100, academic productivity of the University of Bologna is lower than the benchmark.

The national benchmarking follows the parameters used for the selection of the international one: three Italian universities (Sapienza—Università di Roma UNIROMA1; Università degli Studi di Padova UNIPD; Università degli Studi di Milano UNIMI) were selected from the first 400 in the same ranking (QS 2018).

The dimension of the Third Mission, referring to the role of the University in knowledge society, mainly indicates the numerical level of cooperation and social engagement research projects that are active worldwide, but also—as a non-exhaustive list—students and teachers on lifelong learning programs (SDG 4), spin off and start-ups born by academic entrepreneurship (SDG 8), and events with public engagement (SDG 11). The fourth dimension intended to measure the institution’s overall performance, displays concrete results (e.g. the reduction of water consumption in a 3-year period—SDG 6; the solar energy produced—SDG 7) or data connected to a topic (e.g. institutional accountability and transparency—SDG 16). Further elements of harder classification are reported under the last two dimensions. Among these are the patents (the number of active patents and vegetal varieties registered in 2017 by the University—both ownership and co-ownership-, and their various international extensions) including new plant varieties, and other projects the University is involved in (such as the participation into the Magna Charta Observatory) or has created, e.g., AlmaEngage or Unibo4Refugees.

The Report is presented in a very attractive layout for reading and comprehension of data making the tool accessible to all readers. This presentation style affords quick reading given the difficulties that non-expert readers sometimes encounter with such reports which are sometimes extremely long, detailed, and confusing. However, these quick read reports should give enough information and pointers to move towards stated objectives annually. For a deeper understanding, a reading of the full document is recommended.

15.4 Pathway Towards the Report on UN Sustainable Development Goals

In the past decade, the University of Bologna has been paying holistic and particular attention to the harmonization of its governance. The managing structure of the Alma Mater has indeed prepared and implemented a variety of researches, documents, and tools meant to both analyze the functioning of the institution and its impact on the community, and to provide a solid ground to the future research activity that might deal with the topic or issue each instrument tackles.

A short overview of some of the most significant actions in this regard intends to demonstrate the evolutionary pattern existing within the University of Bologna prior to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to show the vocational push that led to the creation of the reports on the UN SDGs. Indeed, a broad and cross-disciplinary vision has been driving the governance bodies and units in the scrutiny of the University’s status quo while not forgetting to read in depth the relationship between the institution and all its stakeholders. This section will provide an overview on the Alma2021 portal, the Social Responsibility Report, the Gender Equality Annual Report, and the Gender Equality Plan.

The first tool to consider in this framework is the Alma2021 online portal (University of Bologna 2016) which sets out the actions that are intended to implement the Strategic Plan and essentially summarizes the planning processes followed by the University’s governing bodies and departments. The website (University of Bologna 2016) reports on the policy decisions made, the processes of governance implemented within the academic community and outside, the commitments made, and the results achieved. Thus, Alma2021 has a dynamic shape deriving from the continuous inputs provided throughout the University, the adoption of new ideas and the adaption of institutional policies and strategies along the way. This dynamism is expressed through a regular update and a live interaction with all the parties involved. Actions listed in the Alma2021 platform are organized in major categories that are easy to understand, e.g., international, public, and social engagement and digital agenda among others. With a zoom-in path, while accessing a content the user finds the related SDGs highlighted through the display of each goal’s icon. The icons link directly to the UN information box on the SDGs, which is useful for offering the user a better understanding on the goal. However, this linkage does not simply show a relationship, it proofs the University aim of achieving the goal itself.

Finally, the Alma2021 platform, keenly wanted by the Rector Professor Francesco Ubertini at the beginning of its mandate, seeks to be a transparent and systemic tool for communicating the progress made by the governors towards achieving—at the same pace—the objectives of the Strategic Plan and those of the Sustainable Development Agenda.

A second tool deserving attention in this treatise is the Social Responsibility Report, which has been published annually since 2012. The report has become a flagship document for the University management, and it reached its 6th edition subtitled “Value of the use of knowledge for the community and the territory” (University of Bologna 2017c).

The Social Responsibility Report consists of an extensive publication covering the economic, social, and environmental effects of the entirety of the University fields of action: identity, strategy, and governance structure; accounting, asset, and properties; activities and results (including research and teaching); procurement policies and impact on the environment. The editing of the report follows a meticulous methodology made of precise data and time references. Hence, its completion gets sharpened year by year thanks to a tenacious investment of time and resources, and to the feedback of the increasing number of readers, from inside and outside the University environment. In the same way, the report precisely sums up the annual life of the University. It also generates an active debate and stimulates a critical discussion on the direction the institution should take in the future, i.e., the next review year. This virtuous circle indicates the transparency end of the document that has been validated to an even stronger extent by the recent sharing of data sets the report is grounded on in the University open data portal. This way, not just a policy of open science is fostered, but also that of open government. It is significant to point out that the Scientific Committee in charge of the work on the Social Responsibility Report, coordinated by Professor Angelo Paletta, Delegate on Budget is the same Committee that manages the editing of the Report on the UN SDGs this chapter focuses on. The complex activity of reporting has gradually involved all university entities at different levels (principle of inclusivity), which consented to identify the most relevant activities and data (principle of materiality) in order to allow an evaluation of the full performance of the institution (principle of completeness). These principles, together with that of a balanced reporting, have been and are the driving standards of all the analysis carried out by the University of Bologna regarding its own actions that are taken in the context of the Report on the UN SDGs.

The University’s stand for gender equality has been translated into two meaningful tools: the Gender Equality Annual Report and the Gender Equality Plan. The Gender Equality Annual Report (University of Bologna 2017d), started with reference to the year 2015, is a voluntarily published document that gives account of the studying, researching, and working opportunities within the Alma Mater from a gender perspective. Conceived under the aegis of the CUG—Guarantee Committee for Equal Opportunities, Work Wellbeing and Non-Discrimination at Work initiative is today (2019) chaired by Professor Benedetta Siboni. The last edition of the Report used, for the first time, the UGII—University Gender Inequality Index (Mignoli et al. 2018) expresses, through a single value, the distance between gender balance at the University and hypothetical perfect equality. The report is organized in the following four sections: (1) Regulations and bodies in charge for the promotion of equal opportunities; (2) Positive Actions Plan and initiatives implemented; (3) Gender composition at the University of Bologna; and (4) Investments made for the promotion of equal opportunities. The third section presents an analysis of the context through disaggregates data of all the universities components—students, teaching staff, technical and administrative staff—and the women representation in university bodies and top positions in research and teaching. Moving to the Gender Equality Plan (GEP), it becomes clear how the University of Bologna’s adhesion to the 2030 Agenda is shaped by global goals that go far beyond the boundaries of the University itself.

The GEP is a fundamental action of the PLOTINA Project “Promoting Gender Balance and Inclusion in Research, Innovation and Training,” granted under the Horizon 2020 financial program of the European Commission (Grant Agreement No. 666008), coordinated by Professor Tullia Gallina Toschi and named after the Roman empress Pompeia Plotina (Birley 2015). The project consists of a consortium of nine partners representing the diversity of European Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) as well as the diversity of European social and cultural environments. Partners include the following: University of Bologna (Italy), University of Warwick (UK), Mondragon Unibertsitatea (Spain), Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao (Portugal), Kemijski Institut (Slovenia), Ozyegin Universitesi (Turkey), Zentrum fur Soziale Innovation GMBH (Austria), Jump Forum (Belgium), Centro Studi Progetto Donna e Diversity MGMT (Italy), and Elhuyar—Zubize SL (Spain) (PLOTINA 2015).

PLOTINA aims to promote career development of both female and male researchers to prevent the waste of talents, particularly for women who are more likely to drop out their careers because of a variety of reasons. The project aims to improve decision-making processes in addressing gender imbalances to meet new opportunities for excellence, to incorporate the gender dimension variable in research especially where it is traditionally not applied, to ensure diversification of views and methodologies in research and teaching, and to stimulate a gender aware culture change. Towards those aims, the GEP is shaped on each partner institution’s specific context and it is divided into five key areas: governance bodies, key actors, and decision-makers; recruitment, career progression, and retention; work and personal life integration; researchers and research: gender equality and sex and gender perspective; integration of sex and gender dimension in teaching curricula. Each key area extensively articulates its objectives and indicators directly linked with one or more targets of the SDGs.

This brief outline evidently captures the pre-existing vocation of the University to the approach to Sustainability as it is required by the 2030 Agenda.

Given this inner setting, as integral part of the Alma Mater’s identity and spread through its governance, the time push that brought to the production Report on the UN SDGs has been the Environment Ministerial Meeting of the G7 held in Bologna in June 2017. The Report was launched ahead of the gathering of the Ministers of Environment of the seven most industrialized countries: the presentation aimed to highlight not only the value of the HE’s commitment for sustainability, but also the novelty of Bologna approach.

15.5 The Novelty of Bologna Approach

The innovation in adopting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a reporting framework carries two main elements. First is the political choice behind the full inclusion of the 2030 Agenda in the University strategy; and second the setting of the SDGs as driving standards, rather than mere parameters of analysis. These positions are the product of a long process of reflection directed to answer the overriding question: how to measure the status of compliance of such a complex institution to push the community to commit to sustainability and how to harmonize the implementing actions?

The answer came with reversing the usual paradigm. Instead of identifying the SDGs’ targets and indicators that would fall into the University actions, the alternative was to consider the actions that could deliver on the SDGs and to redesign the University strategy to conform accordingly. This approach of not turning the narrative but the operations upside down required a strong push form the highest levels of governance in the University, and a deep process of reforming the conventional measurement criteria. Although complex, the process was smooth and the measurement of social, environmental, and economic impact of the University read through the 17 SDGs, the University of Bologna has started a new Strategic Plan for 2019–2021 developing initiatives and projects described in a website entirely dedicated to the 2030 Agenda called “AlmaGoals” (University of Bologna 2017e). “AlmaGoals” establishes actions and measures both at the wide-campus level and also at the single-campus level with 3-year objectives. All these measure contributed to create living-labs of sustainability, places where to experiment sustainability by the adoption of appropriate technologies and best practices, particularly related with environmental issues as energy-efficiency, water improving reuse and recycling, solid waste management and recycling, eco-buildings, climate mitigating and adapting technology as green infrastructures, implementation of strategies to reduce consumption, pollution, and carbon footprint.

The organizational structure that allows the implementation of the actions is guaranteed by the Management Plan and its operational objectives (management objectives) contained in the Integrated University Plan and borrowed from the Strategic Plan. In countries with a high degree of administrative bureaucracy as in Italy, there is the risk that the operational objectives are defined in a manner that is detached from the academic objectives, therefore creating an obstacle to the sustainability performance. Sometimes the resulting reaction consists of isolating sustainability actions, delegated only to the administrative component of the University, which interprets its role by managing sustainability in a confined way and hence minimizing interactions with the scientific part. The great challenge that has placed the integration of the 2030 Agenda in the University’s strategic planning has established a broad and long horizon to sustainability, focusing the attention of the whole community towards the achievement of the SDG aims. The objective of the initiative is therefore to supplement the strategies (Strategic Plan) and the reporting of activities (primarily the Social Responsibility Report) with the SDGs, by analyzing the positioning of the University via the definition of indicators and metrics for measuring impact in terms of sustainable development.

In actualizing this approach, the Report on UN SDGs confronted some difficult issues. The main one is that of data management. First, data had to be chosen and a collection strategy planned. Second, availability and certainty of data requested a process of optimization and adjustment in itinere which drove to the creation of the University Data warehouse (DW). Indeed, the innovation of the approach and of the Report itself led to the need to develop new scientific skills for an advanced measurement of the University activities which would go over what was previously needed. If the University is a hotbed of knowledge, for surely developing such an expertise necessitates an investment of energies and resources.

Once the data management issue has been settled, the next challenge in query is the sharing of data.

Organized in three Data Mart (on students, staff, and teaching activities), the DW contains a big quantity of sensitive data. While this informative heritage became essential to carry out any monitoring research, its circulation among outsiders can easily lead to improper use or misinterpretations. On the other hand, the collection of data from different stakeholders could avail positive results in the path towards sustainability through a more effective and integrated monitoring of a community. While the University has moved some steps forward in providing open data, a number of questions remain open. However, in this light, the AlmaGoals initiative is accompanied by a new model for communicating the “Social Responsibility and Sustainability” (RSS) strategy and for promoting discussion and dialogue with all interested parties.

15.6 Conclusions

This chapter intended to showcase the evolving approach of the Alma Mater Studiorum to sustainability, and its interconnection with the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Recognizing the impact the University has on the region where it was established more than nine centuries ago, the University of Bologna acknowledges its role as international player towards sustainable development, in terms of research, teaching and Third Mission, which refers to its engagement in the socio-economic context. The definition of this role cannot avoid a reflection on the relationship between Higher Education and the 17 Global Goals. In the case of the University of Bologna, the pillars of the 2030 Agenda have shown to be an inherent part of the institution. After the second edition of the Report, the experience of the reporting on the UN SDGs has emphasized some findings. The Reports are used as a summary catalog of the directions and levers assumed by the Institution, both as a tool for the external dissemination and an information abstract for internal use.

First, conducting such a research contributes to raising awareness on the broad sphere of application of the SDGs and its targets within the higher education institution. It starts with a process of basic literacy on sustainability and develops in a political action of inner dissemination of the culture of sustainability. The entire University system therefore becomes the subject through which sustainability permeates in the activities of research and teaching and in the Third Mission. Before the Report, the University units were not measuring themselves on sustainability at all. Second, the experience generates an external interest bringing a competitive push that impacts other universities in turn giving birth to new partnerships at an international level. The interest emerges from the number of downloads: the 2016 edition of the Report on UN SDGs of the University of Bologna has been downloaded 4719 times from 20 Oct 2017, the 2017 edition has been downloaded 3730 times from 3 Aug 2018 for a total number of 8449 downloads (University of Bologna 2019).

This has brought the University of Bologna closer to the global community in terms of dissemination of the SDGs.

In the third place, the publishing of the Reports on the UN SDGs, clearly demonstrates how there is a real need of applicable indicators that are functional to offer comparable results. The University of Bologna has used these indicators in an original way, touching all aspects of its structure. While well aware of the fact that a Report of such a broad application cannot fully represent in detail all the shades of research or of every single discipline taught in the University, it is understandable how proposing it over the years leads to the definition of a more reliable measure. The indexing by goals has two values: on the one hand, to report what has been done, on the other to push—and this has been fundamental above all for the first publication—to undertake actions of research, teaching, and Third Mission strongly oriented to social, economic, and environmental levers of sustainability.

Even a quick comparative reading of the two editions is sufficient to highlight the strengths and the room for improvement the University system needs today. A more careful comparative reading certainly leads to a useful means of guidance for the tracking of development of the university strategies. Moreover, the reporting manifests itself as a great accountability instrument of the institution towards for all of its stakeholders. Recently, the University of Bologna was ranked in the Top 10 Universities in the world for positive impact based on the UN SDGs by Times Higher Education (26 Red Lion Square 2019). With a ninth place sitting in the overall ranking, the Alma Mater earned a fourth place on a global scale for SDGs 4, quality education, and 5, gender equality, even if the path, this should be underlined, to reach a better gender equality and to approach other goals is always long.

However, the novelty of the Bologna approach consists in a full and rooted embracement of the SDGs under a solid political will of the University governance. Nevertheless, this approach raises an internal and an external challenge for the Alma Mater itself.

The internal one is the capability of the University decision-making processes to adjust the governance according to the outcomes of such a reporting, keeping pace with the fast-changing society of today. The external challenge tackles the University stakeholders. Hence, a greater engagement of the local social fabric is necessary: private sector, public sector institutions, and civil society communities shall start reporting their activities through the lens of the SDGs with no further due since a one-only element contribution is not enough to ensure positive results for all.

Finally, the Bologna experience can be summed up in the answer to the following question: to which extent are higher education institutions truly willing to invest in contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda even through an internal process of paradigm shifting? The critique that might emerge from the Bologna approach is the mere formality of the reporting. We can reply that a measuring system truly matters. It forces us to deal with the SDGs and their most intrinsic aim of building a more sustainable and fairer world today and tomorrow. It does so in the planning and in the teaching, which compels concrete exchanges and comparisons broadly. In the full consciousness of the perfectible nature of such an approach, it has shown to be the right start of the route towards the University of Bologna’s contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.