Thesis
The Sustainable Campus Observatory: A new scheme for the assessment of university performances towards sustainable development
I. IDENTITY
II. DESCRIPTION
III. FILTERS
University performances assessment has become central in the academic debate since the year 2000s and the apparition of global rankings. At the same time, voices were raised for universities to take a lead in the transition towards sustainability. These two developments led to question of how to articulate the issue of assessment with the new requirement of building sustainable models for universities.
A number of new tools have thus been created in order to evaluate institutions’ efforts for sustainability. However, they fail to take into account the multidimensional and systemic nature of sustainable development. Moreover their impact is limited due to a high level of complexity as to their reliance on universities self-reporting. The objective of the thesis is to develop an alternative model for sustainable institutions assessment integrating adequately the whole spectrum of universities missions, activities and stakeholders. Simultaneously it will seek to meet requirements of feasibility and intelligibility in order to ensure the appropriateness and added value of the introduction of a new performances assessment tool.
The thesis is developed in economic sciences. It is organized in to main sections. The first part is conceptual and theoretical. It aims at defining the key variables detremining the degree of academic sustainability as well as the norm, the ideal organization of a sustainable university. The second part is more applied and empirical. It focuses on the construction, as well as the application, of a tool to assess universities performances toward sustainability at an international level.
The tool is contructed through a participatory approach with a representation of the various groups of university stakeholders (student, administrative staff, academic staff, external partner). The constuction methodology starts with three distinctive areas (university missions, operations and external outreach) that are further developped into specific objectives following a tree structure. It fainally leads to a range of measurable indicatores covering the various dimensions of university performances such as innovation, learning, accessibility, governance, efficiency, territorial anchorage, socio-economic development, environmental responsibility, financial health or scientific excellence. It will therefore be based on a trandisciplinary approach with the various fields integrated into a single model of performances assessment, both for universities’ own imperatives of development (organizational sustainability) and relative to their societal responsibility (institutional sustainability).
The thesis will lead to the construction of a new tool, the Sustainable Campus Observatory, as well as its critical review. Every assessment method is prone to subjective biases. Nevertheless, they will be identified and corrected at most. The originality of the approach lies in the integration of the various dimensions of universities activities into a holistic framework. The research will first be based on a thorough reflexion on the role of universities in society and in relation to its sustainable development. A work on the contextualisation will also be conducted in order to allow for an appropriate analysis of the institutions within the different research and higher education systems. The tool and the research developed will be of interest to every stakeholder of the academic sphere ranging from students to local and national authorities as well as faculties and administrative staff interested in the topic of universities sustainable performances assessment.