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Centre for Sustainable Development

Our mission

Our mission is to embrace an integrated and equitable approach to teaching, research, and innovation, to co-create solutions with our global partners across academia, civil society, and the public and private sectors, to secure real world impact and to tackle the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Find out more about the Centre for Sustainable Development.

Centre for Sustainable Development.
Centre for Sustainable Development.
Sustainable Development Goals.
Sustainable Development Goals.

Our guiding principles

The University’s Strategic Plan, Strathclyde 2030, puts sustainability at its heart and makes a clear commitment to deliver against the SDGs across all areas of activity, including research, teaching and operational matters.

The centre seeks to foster collaboration and equitable partnerships to ensure that no one is left behind. With this in mind, the centre will operate under a series of guiding principles:

  1. We will be outward-looking in all our work
  2. We will champion new partnership working across all society
  3. We will apply an integrated model to our work, combining education, research and knowledge sharing

Read more about our guiding principles

REF 2021 & Sustainable Development Goals

Find out how our Research Excellence Framework 2021 impact case studies are supporting attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

REF 2021

Strathclyde is

  • Joint 36th in the world for addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals
    Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023
  • 8th in the world for Partnerships for the Goals
    Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023
  • 9th in the world for Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions
    Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023

Education

We place education for sustainable development at the heart of our teaching, be this within our curricula for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, our executive and further education programmes, or our outreach activities for schools and nurseries.

MSc Sustainability

Our flagship programme for the Centre is the MSc Sustainability. 

The course reflects the breadth of sustainability work across all four faculties in Strathclyde. It offers a unique opportunity to work in interdisciplinary groups and meet people from all over the world.

The course is structured in a way that allows candidates to achieve non-specialised qualifications from PG Certificate to Masters Level, making it a flexible choice for those who want to upskill or continue their education at that level.

MSc Sustainability

Latest News

Professor Sir Jim McDonald.
"Our Centre for Sustainable Development provides a platform for enhanced cross-national and cross-institutional work to address the global grand challenges. Notably, we look to build on our exceptional relationship with industry to take our work beyond the boundaries of academia and accelerate the real world impact of our projects."
Professor Sir Jim McDonald, GBE FREng FRSE
Principal & Vice-Chancellor

Responsible Futures Feedback Report

We're proud to have received our accreditation from Responsible Futures which reflects our efforts and progress in putting sustainable development at the heart of our student engagement and partnership.

You can read more here to see where we're doing well and where we need to focus our efforts for the next two years.

SOS-UK 2022 Student Skills Survey

The results of the SOS-UK Strathclyde Student Sustainability Skills Survey are now available. You can see what are students are looking for in their education at Strathclyde, the importance they place on sustainable development and how they want to use these skills in the future.

Global partnerships

At Strathclyde we engage with partners across the world to support attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals through equitable and inclusive partnerships. Contact us to find out more about where we work.

Map of our partnerships showing partners in the UK, USA, South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Sustainable Development Solutions logo
Sustainable Development Solutions logo
ISCN - International Sustainable Campus Network logo
ISCN - International Sustainable Campus Network logo
University Global Coalition logo
University Global Coalition logo
SDG academy logo
SDG academy logo
UArctic logo
UArctic logo