Importance of educational organisations for sustainable change

This thesis explores the systemic area of a sustainable Third Mission of HSLU D&K. What enables HSLU D&K to address a sustainable Third Mission? Moreover, how can HSLU D&K engage people within their organisation to contribute to a sustainable Third Mission?

The Third Mission outlines the role of higher education institutions in addressing and contributing to sustainable development and changing how we do daily business. Higher education institutions are responsible for knowledge production and educating future leaders. Therefore, it‘s important to do this sustainably as a whole organisation.

Building on existing capacities

The design management approach of this thesis was to rethink and address sustainability systematically at HSLU D&K. My aim was to support HSLU D&K to take a first step towards a sustainable future vision by building on the existing capacities of the organisation.

Support exchange and community building

Through a systemic approach, people affected have been included in the project (participatory research). Exploring possible ideas together with involved people to take action (co-creation/-ideation) and working with feedback loops to improve a proposed design idea (iterative development process), allowed to create a prototype which supports knowledge exchange and community building within HSLU D&K (conceptual design intervention).