The rationale of the book ist the consensus that higher education plays an indispensable role in addressing the critical challenges of sustainable development. Higher education has a special responsibility to conduct the scholarship and scientific research necessary to respond to these challenges. This includes the generation and dissemination of knowledge through interdisciplinary research and teaching, policymaking, capacity-building and technology transfer. It is importand that higher education institutions understand and accept their responsibility within the broader context of globilization and the creation of a sustainable future.

The book reflects on the role of higher education for sustainable development, ten years after the Rio-Conference. On the basis of the Lüneburg-Declaration on Higher Education for Sustainable Development, which constitutes a major joint policy statement of three university organizations (COPERNICUS-CAMPUS, IAU, ULSF) and UNESCO and that addressed the World Summit for Sustainable Development, the book analyses the need to reorient higher education towards sustainable development, Furthermore, it gives some examples that should describe the framework of the concept of higher education for sustainable development that has to be institutionalised.