Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

Learning while driving change: A novel education for a better world

How can students from all areas of knowledge significantly and actively learn about sustainability and social innovation while engaging in transformational practices? The sustainability bootcamp “Innovating for the Common Good” at Universidad Veracruzana is an online training programme in which students develop competencies in sustainability, interculturality, social innovation, and effective communication, while contributing to the University’s sustainability programme.

Based on transformative pedagogies such as interdisciplinary collaborative work, problem and project-based learning, design thinking, gamification, and mentoring, students from undergraduate and graduate programmes in all knowledge fields gather in multicultural interdisciplinary teams. They dedicate more than 60 hours to the achievement of 23 challenges to become change agents able to ideate, develop and lead sustainability projects for the benefit of the community.

Students coming from this bootcamp have the competencies necessary to engage in interdisciplinary work for designing and implementing innovative solutions to sustainability issues in professional and public life settings.

Top 3 Learnings

1. Our students' full potential and commitment comes from letting them freely make their own choices.
2. Our role in higher education is to enable students to create and apply knowledge themselves.
3. Sustainability is not a topic, but a stance on the kind of world we want.