The coexistence of multiple challenges and crises is directly impacting the ability of countries, particularly in the developing world, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In this context, the role of institutions of higher education is even more fundamental than ever before. Their knowledge and expertise are crucial to achieving the Goals, but also to change narratives, improve resource management, and even connect with other educational levels to advocate for sustainable development. The State University of Campinas (Unicamp), a member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in Brazil, is precisely working on this front.
“Our efforts have been focused on making the energy transition through a management model that could inspire other universities and even cities,” commented Professor Luiz Carlos Pereira da Silva, Sustainable Campus Coordinator, concerning the purpose of the Living Laboratory on Energy Transition, Efficiency, and Sustainability. This lab, created in 2017, was created with the initial support of the Brazilian National Electric Energy Agency and the energy company Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz, aimed to transform Unicamp into a reference for sustainable human, natural, and economic resource management.
The Sustainable Campus initiative has consolidated at Unicamp and expanded with the creation of the São Paulo Center for Energy Transition Studies, supported by the São Paulo Research Support Foundation. “We want to connect with the government of the state of São Paulo as part of its public energy management by sharing the best practices we researched and developed,” Professor Silva explained while adding that “there are several thousand consumer units that need actions to improve energy management.” And the university has already experienced significant transformations through the implementation of several projects.
These changes had positive impacts on both the university education process and the administration of the institutional energy system. Its projects involved different themes, from the operation and monitoring of electrical systems to energy contracting, photovoltaic energy generation, energy efficiency, intelligent systems, building labeling, and human resources training. Each project was designed and implemented simultaneously on the university’s campus, with the ability to adapt to the social needs related to energy sustainability, continuously, modeled after Sustainable Development Goal 7: Clean and Affordable Energy.
The second phase of the Sustainable Campus initiative resulted in new projects on urban electric mobility, microgrids, smart public lighting systems, and, notably, the Interdisciplinary Teaching, Research, and Extension Program called Eyes on the Future. Danúsia Arantes Ferreira, Postdoctoral Researcher at the university’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and program coordinator, said that the positive outcomes of it come from “implementing interdisciplinary projects with students from public schools” and that it was “a crucial step to expand energy education and focused on the interdisciplinarity of the Goals.”
Eyes on the Future promotes an adapted, targeted and critical comprehension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Goals, especially the energy-related one, as it develops studies and initiatives for energy education and conscious consumption. “Many of the Global Goals are also relevant as structural pillars needed for the articulation of implementation mechanisms in the student’s learning process for them to become agents for social change,” commented Ms. Ferreira, who emphasized the critical aspect of education and teaching through dedicated research, as well that this project’s idea is to create a space for collaborative learning.
In its initial phase, as an experimental project for public schools, Eyes on the Future involved the Executive Directory on Human Rights and eight different Unicamp teaching units. This interdisciplinary collaboration reflects the commitment of the university to approaching sustainability and human rights issues through a variety of knowledge fields. “The experience gained in recent years created new demands and possibilities of integration and strengthening of the triad teaching, research, and outsourcing in the relationship that needs to exist between our university and the community,” Ms. Ferreira further explained.
Currently, the program involves 23 professors in addition to 30 students among undergraduate and graduate ones. The first idea to connect the university’s Sustainable Campus with a public school, in particular the one named after Dr. Telêmaco Paioli Melges, and design the Eyes on the Future program, came after conversations where the issue of incorporating engineering and the development of technology into discussion on human rights issues took place, sustainability being considered as a human right itself. As of now, several projects have been developed within the framework of this particular and innovative program.
Such projects were all designed based on an interdisciplinary action methodology. Ms. Ferreira formulated this approach, and the main objective of it is to explore the nature of interdisciplinarity and its application as a practical scientific-methodological approach based on essential criteria, such as identity, resources, cooperation, and complementarity. This methodology promotes a relevant systemic approach to structuring and successfully implementing the program and its projects, enabling the integration of different disciplines and enriching the overall educational experience at school for the young students.