An in-depth literature review of the evolving roles and contributions of universities to Education for Sustainable Development

Universities have been consistently considered significant contributors to the pursuit of regional sustainability initiatives for over two decades. The composite nature of sustainable development (SD) has appointed Universities to critical partners to all relevant efforts, always in firm collaboration with other local actors. An extensive number of articles presenting relevant University experiences has been published in academic journals worldwide. A literature review and critique of such articles, published between the years 2003–2011, after the declaration of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), is presented in this paper. Though the paper offers a broader analysis of the relevant literature, it, ipso facto, emphasizes the role and contribution of two leading journals in the field, the Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and the Journal of Cleaner Production. The paper finds that the published ESD research covers a wide range of regions, topics, methodologies, and findings. The prevailing methodological approaches include theoretical and case-study articles. Yet, the former suffer from a rigorous conceptual framework deficiency while the latter are characterized by their descriptive nature which can be inspiring and encouraging for future peer efforts but of limited added value to theory development.