Thuringian University Network for Sustainability: Tackling global challenges together

Sustainability is no longer a question of the future – it is a central social task of the present. In the face of global challenges, sustainability has become a key cross-cutting issue at Thuringian universities in recent years: as a subject of research and teaching, but also as a guiding principle in operations and transfer activities. By joining forces to form the Thuringian University Network for Sustainability, the ten state universities in Thuringia have committed themselves to playing an active role in the transformation process towards sustainable development. The Thuringian universities recognise their special social responsibility in teaching, research, operations, transfer and governance. As part of the network, they are committed to technological and social innovations in line with their different profiles and strengths to promote the transition to a sustainable society.

On the one hand, the Thuringian universities aim to strengthen the region and prepare it for the challenges of the future through sustainable development. On the other hand, they are also contributing to the necessary global transformation through research and international cooperation. The universities have ambitious goals: to secure the natural foundations of life locally and around the world in the long term, to create humane living conditions for present and future generations and to realise local and global justice. To this end, they are committed to implementing the principles of sustainability in an exemplary manner.

As different as their profiles, their developments and their specific challenges are, the ten Thuringian universities would like to work together in a coordinated manner in future under the umbrella of the Thuringian University Network for Sustainability and to strategically harmonise their activities on an ongoing basis. The universities see themselves as laboratories of democratically organised transformation processes in which all university members, employees and students, are offered opportunities to help shape a sustainable society in all fields of action in topic-specific working groups and committees.

The Thuringian University Network for Sustainability includes:

• Bauhaus University Weimar
• Gera-Eisenach Cooperative State University
• Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences Jena
• Erfurt University of Applied Sciences
• Friedrich Schiller University Jena
• Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar
• Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences
• Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences
• Ilmenau University of Technology
• University of Erfurt

The contacts for the network are Dr Karsten Gaebler from Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Dr Ulrike Kuch from Bauhaus University Weimar, who coordinate the work of the network.