The importance of international collaboration to enhance education for environmental citizenship

David Christian Finger*, Camelia Draghici, Dana Perniu, Marija Smederevac‐lalic, Rares Halbac‐cotoara‐zamfir, Azra Sehic, Marijana Kapović Solomun

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Environmental Education is essential to promote awareness and facilitate the development of environmental citizens. To contribute to the enhancement of environmental awareness, Ice-land, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania have collaborated in joint educational projects which aim at building capacities on sustainable development, delivering environmental teaching lectures, and developing open educational resources. This article presents past and ongoing collab-orations between the mentioned countries, assesses the status of environmental education, and highlights the benefits of international collaboration. For this purpose, information on environmental courses in representative universities from each country was collected, SWOT analyses were performed in each country, and a survey among potential students was carried out. The presented analysis reveals that international collaboration raises environmental awareness and increases the likelihood of becoming environmental citizens.

Original languageEnglish
Article number326
JournalSustainability (Switzerland)
Volume13
Issue number18
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Sept 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), COST Action CA16229 ?European Network for Environmental Citizenship (ENEC)? and by the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2014?2021, Cooperation Projects in the Higher Education area, project ?Environmental Education?OERs for Rural Citizens (EnvEdu? OERs)?, project code 19?COP?0038.

Funding Information:
The EEA Grants and Norway Grants are grants funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway with the aim to reduce social and economic disparities in the European Economic Area (EEA) and strengthen bilateral relations with the 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe [28]. The main objective of the EEA grants is the strengthening of fun‐ damental European values such as democracy, tolerance, and the rule of law. Further‐ more, and linked to the promotion of democracy and rule of law is the promotion of en‐ vironmental education and sustainable development. Central European Exchange Program for University Studies (CEEPUS) is a multilat‐ eral university exchange program in the extended Danube region based on an Interna‐ tional Agreement. More than 15 member states have joined the current CEEPUS III agree‐ ment [29], including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia. Apart of the educational programs, there are framework programs financing re‐ search and innovation, but all of these include educational chapters in their projects. The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) is a funding organi‐ zation for research and innovation networks [30]. COST is operated according to the in‐ strument called COST Action, which is a network dedicated to scientific collaboration, complementing national research funds. In this context, universities from Iceland and Bal‐ kan states in southeastern Europe are collaborating and joining their efforts in the COST action project for education for environmental citizenship. The European Network for En‐ vironmental Citizenship (ENEC), is one of the COST actions, in which 32 countries are participating, including 30 European Countries, Israel, and the USA [4]. The ENEC project is aiming to improve understanding and assessment of environmental citizenship and ed‐ ucation for environmental citizenship in European societies and participating countries, being organized in four working groups:

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), COST Action CA16229 “European Network for Environmental Citizenship (ENEC)” and by the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2014–2021, Cooperation Projects in the Higher Education area, project “Environmental Education—OERs for Rural Citizens (EnvEdu— OERs)”, project code 19‐COP‐0038.

Funding Information:
At the institutional level, the exchange of staff and students had an important role in disseminating knowledge and expertise in identifying new common directions of re‐ search/collaboration in terms of environmental awareness and implementing the concept of environmental citizenship in different regions, respectively. Numerous former students are currently employed in environmental sectors, indicating that the transfer of knowledge to the economic sector was successful. Transilvania University from Brasov (UNITBV) is a prestigious institution both at a national and international level, a comprehensive university with 18 faculties, covering all fundamental domains, such as engineering sciences, exact sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, medicine, physical education, and sports. One of the priorities of the UNITBV management is to intensely promote internationalization activities, stated in the internationalization strategy [31]. The international collaboration with other HEIs all over the world (Africa, North America, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, and Europe) is based on projects agreements (such as Erasmus, EEA, and CEEPUS) or on mutual framework agreements signed between the partners [32]. UNITBV and RU successfully applied for the project “Protecting biodiversity and the importance of ecosystem services” funded by the Fund for Bilateral Relations within the RO 02 program “Biodiversity and ecosystem services”, Financial Mechanism of the Euro‐ pean Economic Area (EEA) 2009–2014. The main objective of this project was to identify sustainable solutions to protect biodiversity, for acknowledging, understanding, and ju‐ dicious using of ecosystem services through activities adapted to different age groups in‐ cluding adults, children, and young people through an inter‐generational approach. The partnership of UNITBV with RU and the idea of cooperation based on a project emerged after the participation of representatives from RU, Bucharest University of Eco‐ nomic Studies (BUES), and UNITBV at one workshop, in May 2017. Common educational training experiences and needs were identified, and thus the three teams decided to start collaboration for possible future educational projects. To prepare an educational project application, in January 2019 a Preparatory visit was organized for UNITBV and BUES groups at RU, with financial support from the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 and the Erasmus+ mobility projects. As a consequence of the dis‐ cussions during the preparatory visit, in January 2020 the consortium formed by RU, UNITBV, BUES together with the Technical University Gheorghe Asachi from Iași (TUIASI) applied for a cooperation project, with the title Environmental Education— OERs for Rural Citizens (EnvEdu—OERs), as indicated in Figure 1. The project proposal was granted and started in November 2020 [33].

Funding Information:
Iceland and Reykjavik University are depending on intense collaboration with Eu‐ rope and North America. Being isolated in the North Atlantic, collaboration is essential for capacity building, knowledge transfer, and the development of innovation. While Ice‐ land has extensive knowledge in hydropower and geothermal energies, sustainable fish‐ eries, and aluminum and ferrosilicon, it also relies on incoming expertise from outside the country. Being a member of the EEA Icelandic institutions can participate in both EEA research and mobility grants and programs funded by the European Union. In the following, we outline how international collaboration enhances education for environmental citizens at Reykjavik University (RU) and how the funding programs de‐ scribed in Section 3 have facilitated international collaboration. Reykjavik University wel‐ comes every year over 150 Erasmus students and about 35 students that subscribe to a full Master’s program at the Iceland School of Energy. Reykjavik University has been actively collaborating with the Balkan states Romania, Serbia, and BA, namely Transilvania University of Brasov (Romania), Politehnica Univer‐ sity of Timisoara (Romania), University of Belgrade (Serbia), and University of Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina). With all mentioned universities collaboration ranges from stu‐ dent and staff exchange, development of joint educational and research projects, to joint publications. Especially the international exchange though the Cost Action ENEC has initiated the incorporation of EEC into the curriculum of some of the university courses (Table 1). Lec‐ turers from Balkan countries were invited to Iceland and vice versa, both included con‐ cepts of EEC. Furthermore, through the staff exchange, teaching material was exchanged and EE, as well as EEC, was incorporated into the guest lectures (Tables 2–4). Furthermore, the student exchange has led to the development of student projects from various parts of the world, bringing international concepts to Iceland and educating international students with Icelandic know‐how. Through the incorporation of EE and EEC into university courses, environmental awareness was disseminated across the world.

Funding Information:
EE is well incorporated into the university curriculum of all investigated universities. Nevertheless, enrollment of students is still very low, with about 3% (of the total number of students) at Reykavik University, and less than 2% in the Balkan Univer‐ sities; EEC is in all universities a new concept and has only been incorporated into some EE courses since the start of the Cost Action ENEC. Nevertheless, all universities have been doing an effort to incorporate EEC into the curriculum; Numerous funding programs facilitate the collaboration between more affluent countries, such as Iceland, and economically weaker countries, as some of the Balkan countries. Most of these funding programs promote sustainable development and facilitate the promotion of environmental education; The international collaboration between Reykjavik University in Iceland, an affluent country (GDP per capita: USD 65,273), with the Balkan Universities (GDP per capita: USD 14,968 in Romania, USD 8748 in Serbia, USD 6728 in Bosnia) is very productive and has led to a valuable exchange of knowledge, capacity building, and joint re‐ search projects. Especially the incorporation of the concept of EEC has been facili‐ tated through the international collaboration funded by the Cost Action ENEC; A key driver for international exchange is the funding opportunities for young stu‐ dents and researchers. Student exchange programs present a unique opportunity for ambitious students to acquire valuable know‐how on sustainable development; The majority of the students that are aware of exchange programs, EE and EEC be‐ lieve that it is at least partially the responsibility of the state to provide environmental education to children and students.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Other keywords

  • Environmental awareness
  • Environmental citizen
  • Environmental education
  • International collaboration

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