News, updates and archive

 

2026

I am taking more time out this year – after working in EE and EfS for some 50 years (!), I need to reserve more of my days and energies for other things. But I will keep some writing going, and keep my website populated. And contribute to LinkedIn on occasion.

I am heartened that my work is widely read and cited. But please note: I get so many requests on Research Gate for full text manuscripts that it’s too much to service! If you cannot find my material through normal channels, please contact me as shown under the ‘Contact’ tab above.

My latest book Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times is going well!

Take a look at the latest review here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/australian-journal-of-environmental-education/article/review-of-learning-and-sustainability-in-dangerous-times-s-sterling-2024-learning-and-sustainability-in-dangerous-times-agenda-publishing/4334A6A9522BE3523D7D9DC148166464

Apologies – have been absent from website editing for some time. What follows is a quick update of some of my key engagements last year.

In 2025, I was pleased to receive the plaudit of ‘Highly Ranked Scholar’ by Scholar GPS under the category of ‘Sustainability’.

https://scholargps.com/scholars/29641401460394/stephen-sterling

The following paper was an invited paper for a special issue of JESD, ‘Policy Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development’ edited by UN SDSN

Truly transformative? Why ESD falls short in epochal times’, Journal of Education for Sustainable Development (JESD) DOI 10.1177/09734082251336543. Published in July. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09734082251336543

In June, I gave a keynote to a Norwegian National conference. ‘Educating for the Future We Want – Sustainability and Transformation in Critical Times’. National Network Meeting for Sustainability in Higher Education, 2025, NMBU, Norway.

https://nmbu.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=612d738b-97d8-4d90-a131-b30000927686

In July, I gave an invited presentation ‘Education and the ‘good of the whole’, Our Shared World, https://oursharedworld.net/osw-learning-lunches/

In October, I was pleased to accept an invitation from SEED (Sustainability and Environmental Education) to become SEEd’s first Honorary President. https://se-ed.org.uk/

A number of times in 2025 (and again repeated in ’26) I am informed by Research Gate that I am the second most read academic at the University of Plymouth.

And am pleased to add that in January (’26), Research Gate stated my writing contributions were the most read at my institution. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen-Sterling-2/achievement/696e178b6520eb5d156d991e

On 24th January I am one of the panellists at this event held by the Learning Planet Institute – do join us if you can (online). https://www.learning-planet.org/event/the-planetary-mission-of-the-university/

Partial diary of 2025

April

‘Policy Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development: Launch of the JESD Special Issue’

You might be interested in this webinar event on 23rd which is discussing the state of ESD policy and practice, as part of the launch of a special issue of the Journal of Education for Sustainable Development (JESD).

23 April 2025, 10-11:30 am ET (ZOOM)

I am one of 6 speakers/panellists. I’ll be touching on my paper ‘Truly transformative? Why ESD falls short in epochal times’ which is being published in the journal.

https://sdgacademy.org/policy-perspectives-on-esd/

Feb 19th. In these crazy times, I felt motivated to write a short piece ‘Contrasting Worldviews affecting the future’ to try to clarify the challenge we face given the surge in right wing thinking and policy – and which may be expected to affect education policy as time goes on. The piece is here.

Contrasting worldviews

The iceberg image shown in this piece conveys the idea that we need ‘surface’ both worldviews – i.e. the far right, in order to push back against the tide, but also the ecological to give hope to all those who know that things are wrong but are unclear about the grounding and implications of alternatives. Particularly, of course, educators working for a safe and sane future.

February ’25: So, 2024 was the first year to pass the 1.5C global warming limit, and emissions are still rising threatening our common future!

The need for education to make a positive and significant difference to the chances of a safe world is obvious – or should be! This year – whilst taking retirement a little more seriously than hitherto – I will continue to work for necessary transformative change in educational systems, policy and practice.

I shall be putting more blogs on this site – new work, plus some previously unpublished pieces, so do check in from time to time, thanks.

Some of my work last year (’24) is summarised below. An outline of key work 2021-2 is shown in a brief archive below also.

‘Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times’

The book was launched at the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, University College, London, in April ’24. I was in conversation with Professor Justin Dillon about the book and the issues raise, and why I wrote it. A lively Q&A session followed, and I later wrote it up – Online Q&A Responses.

Book details:

Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times

A new review of the book is here (in the International Journal of Lifelong Education) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02601370.2024.2428905

Forewords to other new books

It’s good to see a flurry of books emerging on education, sustainability and futures. For egs., I’ve written a number of forewords and book endorsements this year. These include:

  • Liza Ireland, (2024), Ecological Principles for Sustainable Education: Challenging root metaphors and our Industrial school systems, Routledge.
  • Katharine Burke, (2024) EARTHWARDS: Transformative Ecological Education, Hawthorn Press.
  • Rehema M. White, Simon Kemp, Elizabeth A.C. Price and James W.S. Longhurst (eds) (in press), A critical guide to perspectives and practices of Education for Sustainable Development in higher education, Routledge.
  • Michele John, (ed.), (in press), The Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Education and Thinking for the 21st Century, Routledge.

Past news & events

Use the toggles below to read about some of my work in recent years

A busy period! Including…

1) Webinar, 9th September, Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times – Reflections on context and challenge for the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems.

The recording is now live at: https://youtu.be/hxvwKzASEps

A summary of this webinar is here.

2) Presentation at the UPF University, Barcelona, 2nd/3rd October.

Educating for the future we want: sustainability and transformation in critical times, invited lecture (in person) Centre for Learning Innovation and Knowledge (CLIK), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

Conference presentation:

https://youtu.be/Byu8xbrJmVs

Plus interview by Prof Humberto Llavador

https://youtu.be/BPspzR0_nvI

3) 15th October: I led a webinar hosted by the International Association of Universities (IAU). This also included contributions by Hilligje Van’t Land (IAU), Arjen Wals, Iveta Silova from ASU, and Elena Toukan from UNESCO’s Future of Education initiative.

Re-thinking (higher) education and inspiring transformation for a more sustainable future, IAU Webinar Series on the Future of Higher Education International Association of Universities. Recording available here.

The webinar was reported by the University World News 18/10/24

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20241018075930530

4) 18th October: I wrote and recorded a presentation on Zoom for an international forum event hosted by the University of Tasmania (UTAS), as part of their Global Climate Change Week. Very unusually(!), UTAS is looking at the importance and possibility of a systems approach at the heart of their work.

The forum event was called ‘Recasting the university with a sustainable systems epistemology at its heart’. My talk is entitled Moving towards a systems paradigm in higher education. An edited version is here: https://www.globalclimatechangeweek.net/sterling-presentation.

April 5th: In person keynote presentation. Learning for response-ability in HE: the challenge of transformation, conference ‘Re-imagine your curriculum with sustainability’. University College, Cork.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJw_NNaShas

1st June 2022 – Keynote to a session of the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education

On May 20th I presented a keynote to a session of the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education (WHEC). The conference aimed to ‘reshape ideas and practices in higher education to ensure sustainable development for the planet and humanity’. (Not before time you might think….)

The session I was involved in – hosted by the International Association of Universities (IAU), was entitled ‘Higher Education’s role in securing the future – a more equitable, peaceful and sustainable society. Are universities ready to assume their full responsibility?’

and my keynote was an updated version of a presentation I have now done on a number of occasions – Educating for the future we want – re-imagining higher education in unprecedented times.

An article about the session can be found here. It also includes a video of the session – my keynote can be found about 40 mins in. If you’d like a pdf of the slides, please get in touch.

18th April 2022 – Keynote to a session of the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education

I have been delivering various versions of a presentation (usually) entitled ‘Educating for the Future we Want – re-imagining higher education in dangerous times’. This included to the annual conference of the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). One iteration was for my old university -Plymouth – at the beginning of the year. This video can be found here.

The work I did, with my co-editors, on the ‘Research Topic’ of the Frontiers in Sustainability journal was recently concluded. All the details are below.

  • Re-Purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress’ – Research Topic and e-book published (open access). The Frontiers in Sustainability Research Topic on ‘re-purposing universities’ (that I have been involved in co-editing over more than a year) has now been published on-line. An e-book is also freely available. The Research Topic consists of 24 varied papers and has involved 65 authors in total. As of April 22, the home page has now had nearly 90K views. This collection represents a major and very timely commentary on the role that higher education must assume in our times of multiple global crises – and on how this full response might be achieved.
  • My own paper is here: ‘Concern, Conception and Consequence: re-thinking the paradigm of higher education in dangerous times’.
  • The ‘Editorial’, written with my co-editors Iain Stewart and Victoria Hurth is here.
  • Alternatively, you can access the whole Research Topic e-book as both pdf and E-PUB downloads via the e-book via the Research Topic homepage, where all articles are also individually available. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/14778/re-purposing-universities-for-sustainable-human-progress/articles
  • Note update: (as of mid 2024), this has registered over 160k hits or downloads.

18th May 2021 – CIES webinar

Check out the pdf of my webinar to CIES last November – just uploaded under ‘Presentations’ on this site. ‘Positive dis-illusion and everyday consciousness – breaking through to regenerative education in ten propositions’.

17th May 2021 – Great Transition Initiative (GTI) on-line Discussion Forum

The Great Transition Initiative (GTI) on-line Discussion Forum took place in March, where the theme was ‘The Pedagogy of Transition: Educating for the Future we Want’.

I was honoured to be invited to write the Opening Essay for this discussion, and this attracted responses from fifty-six GT Network members around the world, mounting to over 60,000 words of comments, suggestions and proposals.

A selection of the contributions (29 out of the 56 received) has just been published on-line by GTI, and it is a very rich source of ideas, good practice and inspiration. (Click on title below).

To quote the release:

‘Our new GTI Forum, The Pedagogy of Transition, explores how to align education with emerging social and ecological imperatives. The times call for approaches that cultivate integrated knowledge and global citizenship, while preparing students for curious, well-informed, big-hearted lives. Instead, we continue to educate for a world we don’t want.

Forward-looking educators confront the challenge at two levels: long-term efforts to adapt educational systems for a changing world and the near-term work creating alternative curricula and pedagogies within existing systems. The Forum is thus divided into two panels, Frameworks and Practices. The first appraises the state of education today, the factors maintaining its deficiencies, and strategies for its reformation. The second reports on the kinds of innovations already in the classroom (and beyond) that point the way forward.’

Any publicity that can be given to this GTI Discussion Forum collection through your networks would be very welcome, thank you.

11th May 2021 – Great Transition Initiative (GTI) on-line Discussion Forum

Exciting news coming very soon about my work with the Great Transition Initiative (https://greattransition.org/) but for now, two fairly recent pieces of work you might be interested in:

A lecture to education staff at the University of Lancashire on ‘Concern, congruence and contribution: re-purposing higher education in unprecedented times’ Stephen Sterling – Sustainability Education December 2020.

AND

an Earth Charter podcast based on an interview by Mirian Vilela, Director of Earth Charter International.

20th January 2021

Good wishes to all those working to make education and learning relevant to and effective towards securing a safe future in these troubled times. Our work has never been more important.

At last – and I really mean that! – there are signs that many policymakers and educators are waking up to the fact that education/learning really has to be fundamentally re-thought if it is going to make a positive difference to the profound challenges we face at local and global levels. For example, UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative is to be welcomed.

Apologies to those who had been keeping an eye on this website in 2020 and seen little change!

I experienced a very close family tragedy in the spring of 2020, which led me to step back from professional engagements for some months. In addition, as with many people, Covid 19 had a major negative effect on my work progamme. That said, I kept fairly busy, particularly from the autumn.

This work included:

  • 16th November: Global Bioeconomy Summit 2020, on-line talk for conference: ‘Towards sustainability through systemic change in education’.
  • 17th November: Talk / webinar for CIES / Earth Institute ‘Positive dis-illusion and everyday consciousness – breaking through to regenerative education in ten propositions’.
  • 20th November, Keynote talk for Lifelong Learning Week 2020 ‘Towards sustainable education and learning’ (starts at 26 minutes).
  • 11th December: ‘Concern, Congruence and Contribution – re-purposing higher education in unprecedented times,’ talk and symposium for Institute for Curriculum Enhancement, Lancaster University.

Amongst other things, I am currently working as a co-editor on a special issue of the Frontiers in Sustainability journal, with the title ‘Re-purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress’.