As part of the ESD Exchange 2026 conference, taking place at De Montfort University from 16th – 17th April 2026, we are collaborating with the Studies in Empowering Education journal to offer this call for papers, for a special issue of the journal on Education for Sustainable Development and Green Skills in Higher Education.
In this call for papers we seek a range of contributions, including case studies and position papers on the practice and experience of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Green Skills within higher education settings.
ESD is a long-established concept, and viewed as a key enabler of societal transformation to enable sustainable development (UN, 2015). Internationally and in the UK context, guidance is available that outlines how and why to pursue ESD, both as a strategic agenda and through pedagogic approaches (e.g. AdvanceHE/QAA (2021); EUA, 2021). Whilst there is evidence of increased adoption of ESD, driven in part by universities’ stated commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there are significant ongoing debates and challenges (White et al., 2025), including how ESD can be integrated within curriculum design (QAA 2023a) and how its impacts can be evaluated (QAA 2023b). More fundamentally, ESD can be critiqued and challenged from a range of practical and philosophical perspectives, including whether its adoption within universities is fit-for-purpose for the scale and complexity of current socio-ecological challenges (Sterling, 2025).
Green Skills is one of a number of associated agendas to ESD, distinctive due to a focus on professional roles and economic activity, rather than the more holistic societal-learning agenda put forward through ESD. ‘Green Skills’ is a contested term, being used at times with a more limited focus on careers related to renewable energy or resource use, and by others as relevant for every job (Simmonds and Lally, 2024). Where Green Skills have been conceptualised, there are very strong overlaps with the skills, competencies and attributes associated with ESD (e.g. Unicef, 2024).
The current call aims to contribute further to dissemination of practices, debates and sharing of experience related to this broad subject area. We have a particular interest in experiential contributions from learners, potentially as co-developed work with educators. A number of relevant themes are listed below, but any contribution of relevance to the broad agendas of ESD and Green Skills is welcome.
Potential themes:
- Engaging and Effective Teaching and Learning: Practice and experience focussed contributions.
- Green Skills and purpose-driven careers: How should the concept of ‘Green Skills’ be understood and put into practice within universities?
- Civic engagement on sustainability learning: How can universities effectively support their wider place-based community with learning and action for sustainability?
- Artificial Intelligence: How should ESD and Green Skills practice engage with the disruptive influence of AI on education, the economy and society?
- Decolonising, Equity and Inclusion: How does the ESD agenda and practice engage with social inequity, inclusivity and the underlying socio-cultural and economic factors driving this?
- Strategy, processes, leadership: In the current context of higher education and recent post-16 white paper in the UK, what are key challenges and opportunities for systemic change in support of ESD?
- Monitoring and Evaluating ESD: How can institutions, educators and learners best understand the impacts of ESD practice within the taught curriculum and beyond, over the short and long term?
- Future of ESD: In the context of global changes to higher education, accelerating changes to the earth’s climate and political polarisation, what are the priorities for ESD and is ‘ESD’ as a concept still fit for purpose?
References
AdvanceHE/QAA (2021) Education for Sustainable Development Guidance. Available from: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/education-sustainable-development-guidance
EUA (2021) Environmental sustainability of learning and teaching [Online] European University Association. Available from: https://eua.eu/resources/publications/964:environmental-sustainability-of-learning-and-teaching.html
Green Skills – Green Careers Hub. Available from: https://www.greencareershub.com/green-future/green-skills
QAA (2023) Education for Sustainable Development and Academic Quality: Principles and Processes for Higher Education Providers. Quality Assurance Agency. [Online] Available from: https://www.qaa.ac.uk//en/membership/collaborative-enhancement-projects/education-for-sustainable-development/esd-and-academic-quality
QAA (2023) Monitoring and Evaluating ESD in Higher Education. Available from: https://www.qaa.ac.uk/membership/benefits-of-qaa-membership/collaborative-enhancement-projects/education-for-sustainable-development/monitoring-and-evaluating-education-for-sustainable-development-in-higher-education
Sterling, S., 2025. Truly transformative? Why ESD falls short in epochal times. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 19(2), pp.235-247
Simmonds, P. and Lally, C. (2024) Green Skills for Education and Employment. Available from: https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0711/
UN (2015) The 17 Goals. United Nations. Available from: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
Unicef (2024) Skills for a Green Transition. Available from: https://www.unicef.org/reports/skills-green-transition
White, R.M., Kemp, S., Price, E.A. and Longhurst, J.W., (2025) Perspectives and Practices of Education for Sustainable Development. Routledge, London.
Submission formats
We invite any of the following categories of submission:
– Short papers, of maximum 3000 words. These are not subject to full peer-review, receiving formative feedback including checks for coherence and clarity.
– Full-length papers, from 3000 to 8000 words maximum. These are subject to double-blind peer review
The wordcounts above exclude headings, abstract and reference list.
Submission Process
Contributions already accepted for the ESD Exchange conference are invited to submit short or full-length papers for the journal special issue.
Further submissions outside of those contributed at ESD Exchange are welcome, through an abstract of up to 250 words sent by email to Daniel Kerr on daniel.kerr@dmu.ac.uk by 17th May 2026. In these cases, the editors will follow-up with authors to advise on suitability for publication by 31st May 2026.
Short and full papers should be submitted for review on a rolling basis from 1st May 2026 and no later than 1st September 2026. We will promote an initial submission target of 1st June 2026 for those whose contribution is already well-developed.
Our intention is to publish this special issue in full by 1st November 2026.
We look forward to receiving your contributions for this exciting special issue opportunity,
With thanks,
ESD Exchange 2026 Organising Committee
