Proceedings of the Conference of Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability (GROUFES 2026)
Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability (GROUFES 2026)
📍Magdeburg, Germany🗓️ 5-6 May 2026
Conference: Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability (GROUFES 2026)
Date: 5-6 May 2026
Location: Magdeburg, Germany (Hybrid)
Website: https://www.eugreen.ovgu.de/groufes2026_magdeburg.html Karina Becker1, Britt Johanne Farstad2, Maria Assunção Folque3, José Luis Gómez Ramos4, Anne-Rachel Hermetet5, Maria Ilhéu3, Laure Pillot5, William Pillot5, Philipp Pohlenz1, Daniel Pust1, Hugo Rebelo3, Antonio Roselli1, and John Scahill6
1 Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
karina1.becker@ovgu.de
2 University of Gävle, 80176 Gävle, Sweden
3 University of Évora, 7000 Évora, Portugal
4 University of Extremadura, 06071 Badajoz, Spain
5 University of Angers, 49000 Angers, France
6 Atlantic Technological University, Galway, H91 T8NW, Ireland On 5th and 6th May 2026, the international and interdisciplinary conference “Growing up the Future. Education for Sustainability” (GROUFES) took place at Magdeburg University, Germany. It was organised by members of the transnational Alliance of nine European universities, called EUGREEN, which is funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme under Grant Agreement nº 101089896. The aim of the conference was to investigate various facets of sustainable education from an interdisciplinary perspective taking into consideration global issues and challenges as well as regional and national realities, which affect the education systems, too, e.g. climate change, digitalization, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, migration and flight, ageing society, inequality and exclusion, future anxiety, and depopulation of rural regions. We discussed recent research results, new approaches and concepts, proven teaching practices within eight thematically distinct panels. First, we want to outline six reasons, why education is the “driving force” (Filho et al., 2023, p. 565) for a sustainable future, then we will present the topics and themes of each panel in more detail. 1 Growing up the Future Through Education? Six Reasons 1.1 The Future is Shaped by Education With the adoption of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), education was not merely identified as one of 17 goals, but as a prerequisite for all the others. Education is not a side issue in sustainable development – it is its “driving force” (Filho et al. 2023, p. 565). Since teachers are key actors both to equip learners with knowledge and skills to engage for sustainable development and to ensure equitable and quality education for all, while fostering a culture of respect and tolerance (cf. UN 2015, p. 17), “educating the educators” (Persson et al. 2023, p. 200) is necessary, too: “Since the educators in HE [i.e. higher education] might function as gatekeepers for the student’s development of SL [i.e. sustainability literacy], support in developing good teaching practices that can improve the student learning environment is important.” (Persson et al. 2023, p. 200). ‘Growing up the Future’ means more than simply ‘letting the future grow’. It means taking responsibility for shaping the future. It means understanding education not merely as the transfer of knowledge, but as an active process of shaping the future. The future does not come about by itself. It grows through education, through decisions, and through a willingness to take responsibility – for what is happening today and for what should be possible tomorrow. And it means not only preparing young people for a future, but empowering them to shape their own. However, this also requires a shift in teaching methods towards active learning and transformative learning – something that has been called for the past 20 years (e.g. Niemi 2002; Mezirow 2008; Patiño 2023). 1.2 Education Aims to Foster Creative and Transformative Skills We are living in a time of multiple crises: climate change, loss of biodiversity, social inequality, geopolitical tensions, digital transformation. “Because today’s crises are causally entangled, they can be neither fully understood nor addressed in isolation from one another.” (Lawrence et al. 2024, p. 13). The global polycrisis is systemically intertwined: It affects ecological, economic, social and cultural dimensions simultaneously. This has consequences for our understanding of education: creative and transformative skills are needed. “In the pursuit of fostering transformational creativity within educational settings, establishing a creativity-friendly classroom culture forms the foundation for unlocking the potential of students.” (Desmet & Sternberg 2024, p. 4) For encouraging transformative learning, Taylor (2009) uncovered six interdependent elements that nurture transformative learning in educational settings: individual experience, critical reflection, dialogue, holistic orientation, awareness of context, authentic practice (Taylor 2009, p. 4). 1.3 Education Is a Cross-Cutting Task Education for sustainability is more than just environmental education. It is more than simply learning facts about CO2 emissions or recycling rates. Above all, it is more than a misguided moral appeal for ‘correct behaviour’. During the last years, different approaches for the selection and definition of key competencies required for sustainable development have been developed, e.g. shaping competence (de Haan 2006), sustainability literacy (Parkin et al. 2004), sustainability skills (Stibbe 2009), and OECD’s DeSeCo key competencies (Rychen & Salganik 2003), for instance. “In Germany, developing ‘Gestaltungskompetenz’ (‘shaping competence’) has been discussed as the central educational objective of ESD. ‘Shaping competence’ encompasses a set of key competencies which are expected to enable active, reflective and co-operative participation towards sustainable development.” (Rieckmann 2012, p. 130) To understand complex systems, shift perspectives, tolerate conflicting goals and jointly develop viable solutions, there is a need to create learning spaces in which uncertainty is understood not as a shortcoming, but as the starting point for insight. We must strengthen interdisciplinary approaches in which the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, as well as artistic and medical perspectives, engage in dialogue with one another. Sustainability is not a discipline – it is a cross-cutting issue. 1.4 Education Needs Suitable Learning Spaces Universities are places of reflection. But they are also places of innovation. When we talk about ‘Growing up the Future’, this does not only concern schools or early childhood education. It concerns our curricula, our research programs, our knowledge transfer strategies – and, not least, our own day-to-day institutional life. • Are our campus structures organised sustainably?
• How transparent are our supply chains?
• How do we approach mobility, energy consumption and building planning? Sustainable education loses credibility if institutions are not prepared to become learners themselves. “We need to start now to build the universities of the future, and to restore their civic purpose as necessary components of the constitution of a democratic society”, Ingold states and sets out the “four principles—of freedom, trust, education and community—on which any university must be built” (Ingold 2020, p. 45). Sustainable development is not the task of individual actors. It is a collective endeavour. The future does not grow by itself. It emerges through decisions – small and large, individual and collective. If education is the place where this transformation can begin, then it is the privilege—and the obligation—of universities and schools to be places of education, places where the future is conceived, tested and shaped. 1.5 Education for Sustainability Is Education for Democracy Education for sustainability fosters participation, critical thinking and a sense of responsibility. Doing this, education for sustainability is strongly connected with ‘learning democracy’, which consists, following Edelstein (2011, p. 130), of three interconnected tasks: “learning about democracy” focus on becoming “a knowing and conscious demo-cratic actor in (future) situations of social and political choice anddecision”; “learning through democracy” acquires “sustainable democratic habits” when taking actively part in democratic bodies; “learning for democracy” includes “the construction and ongoing development of democratic forms of life, based on cooperation and participation in local, national and transnational contexts” (Edelstein 2011, p. 130). Additionally, in times when scientific findings are increasingly politicised or called into question, educational institutions have a dual responsibility: to generate knowledge—and to strengthen trust in knowledge. That is why ‘Growing up the Future’ also means dealing with ambivalence. Sustainability does not mean harmony. It often means conflicting goals: between economic development and ecological resilience, between global justice and national interests, between individual freedom and collective responsibility. This is precisely why we need education that does not simplify, but rather distinguishes. Education that embraces complexity. Education that promotes systematic thinking. Education that integrates ethical reflection. Education that recognises cultural diversity as a resource. 1.6 Education for Sustainable Development Requires a Cultural Shift Sustainable development is, ultimately, a cultural project. Technological innovations are important – renewable energy, the circular economy, digital efficiency. But without a cultural shift, they remain piecemeal. Tibbs shows, that social survey data indicates “that in many affluent nations close to 50 percent of the population have now adopted post-materialist values. Modeling this cultural shift as a substitution phenomenon shows the values of modernity being rapidly replaced by the values of transmodernity and suggests an important turning point in progress towards sustainability” (Tibbs 2011, p. 13). Education is the place where this cultural shift can begin. Education for sustainability is not a ready-made concept that we simply need to implement. It is an ongoing process, depending on peoples’ openness, self-criticism and willingness to engage in dialogue. 2 Transforming Teaching and Living for a Sustainable Future—An Overview of Topics and Themes in This Proceedings 2.1 What Do We Know and Think About Sustainability? Sustainability, both as a term and as a concept has multiple interpretations, it is context sensitive and can be interpreted to have a wide range of meanings. In higher education the range of meanings and interpretations is amplified by the variety of stakeholders, academic disciplines and the myriad ways that each engages with and addresses the topic. In this section, three papers are presented which explore engagement with sustainability from three different perspectives, those of teaching staff, students and female entrepreneurs. The papers explore some of the key issues and challenges associated with how people from each group engage with sustainability. Hume et al. argues that higher education institutions can address polycrisis in ecosystems, food security, and health by repurposing campus spaces for sustainability learning. The paper presents a pilot case creating an outdoor sustainability learning space, guided by the Connecting Nature Framework to navigate governance and complex transition challenges. The study details the processes, obstacles, and practical possibilities uncovered, showing how outdoor campus spaces can be re-imagined as living laboratories that integrate nature-based solutions, foster interdisciplinarity, and embed sustainability more deeply in institutional practice and pedagogy. Hume et al. argues that higher education institutions can address polycrisis in ecosystems, food security, and health by repurposing campus spaces for sustainability learning. The paper presents a pilot case creating an outdoor sustainability learning space, guided by the Connecting Nature Framework to navigate governance and complex transition challenges. The study details the processes, obstacles, and practical possibilities uncovered, showing how outdoor campus spaces can be re-imagined as living laboratories that integrate nature-based solutions, foster interdisciplinarity, and embed sustainability more deeply in institutional practice and pedagogy. Janine McGinn presents a case study of women in Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Ireland’s North-West. The study explores barriers to sustainable rural entrepreneurship for women in the West/North West of Ireland and Northern Ireland using a mixed-methods approach. Findings identify six influencing dimensions: social capital and networks; financial capital and performance; digital technology and innovation; gendered and societal structures; and institutional policies and legislation. The research recommends decentralising funding and empowering local decision-making to better support women-led enterprises in peripheral rural economies. 2.2 How Can We Transform and Imagine Both University Teaching and Living on the Campus for the Future? How Can We Bring Different Generations Together in Education for Sustainability? The contributions brought together in this section take up the core challenge articulated in Panel 2 of the GROUFES conference: to rethink the university not merely as a site of instruction, but as a physical, social, and institutional space in which sustainable futures are co-constructed. The six papers collectively trace a path from structural diagnosis to transformative practice—across disciplines, pedagogical formats, and generational boundaries. Marius Drugas, et al. open with a systematic overview of research trends, institutional practices, and implementation challenges in sustainability-oriented higher education across the EU Green University network. Identifying recurring structural barriers—resource constraints, disciplinary silos, limited governance integration—their contribution provides the analytical backdrop against which the more practice-oriented papers that follow can be read. Camille Tulasne’s case study of five Val de Loire universities takes this structural perspective down to the level of student agency. Drawing on the GreenComp framework, the paper finds that student associations cultivate ecological awareness and collective action, yet remain largely excluded from institutional decision-making—a gap that points toward the need for more participatory models of sustainability governance. Two contributions then expand the conception of what counts as a sustainability-relevant learning space. Hamadou Ngoei’s study of art universities as transformative actors in ESD demonstrates how performative, aesthetic, and experimental formats foster the critical reflection and visionary thinking that purely cognitive instruction cannot achieve. Silke Rühmland and Juliana Hilf operationalise a related argument through a walking workshop on the OVG U Magdeburg campus, which treats the physical university environment itself as a living laboratory—making sustainability tangible, spatial, and pedagogically productive. Two contributions then expand the conception of what counts as a sustainability-relevant learning space. Hamadou Ngoei’s study of art universities as transformative actors in ESD demonstrates how performative, aesthetic, and experimental formats foster the critical reflection and visionary thinking that purely cognitive instruction cannot achieve. Silke Rühmland and Juliana Hilf operationalise a related argument through a walking workshop on the OVG U Magdeburg campus, which treats the physical university environment itself as a living laboratory—making sustainability tangible, spatial, and pedagogically productive. Cedrick Bardowieck and Joachim Prinz close the section with a disciplinary case study whose implications reach well beyond finance education. Their survey of first-year business students finds that university coursework is associated not with higher but with lower shares of sustainable investment behaviour—a sharp provocation for curriculum designers and a fitting conclusion for a section concerned with the gap between institutional ambition and institutional effect. 2.3 How Can Ecofiction and Ecocritique Develop and Enrichen Pedagogic Strategies in Teacher Training Programs? And Can They Be a New Paradigm in Teacher Training? The panel features presentations that focus on the power of storytelling and fiction to account for environmental issues and to contribute to the creation of educational tools. These tools aim to help students confront ecological crises while also renewing their sensory relationship with the living world. In her paper, Ecofiction as didactic tools to develop shared anticipations and agency towards possible and desirable futures, Britt Johanne Farstad explores ecofiction and storytelling as vital educational tools for future-preparedness. By integrating narrative practices, educators can foster collective reflection, agency, and a pedagogy of hope to counter climate anxiety in students. Central to this approach is anticipation, the act of envisioning potential futures to inform present-day decisions. Aligning with OECD and WEF frameworks on anticipatory governance, the text highlights how speculative fiction serves as a thought experiment. Ultimately, these narratives act as political and performative tools in the classroom, shaping collective imagination, challenging current ideologies, and empowering the next generation to visualize actionable, sustainable alternatives. Kathryn McSweeney’s paper, Addressing Sustainability Themes Using Visual Story-telling, explores an Irish Initial Teacher Education module that utilizes visual storytelling to teach sustainability within Home Economics. Pre-service teachers first mapped curriculum connections to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and global issues like climate change. The module fostered a sustainability mindset and advanced pedagogical expertise through reflection and research, in line with Ireland’s Teaching Council. Students selected an SDG, engaged in narrative pedagogy, and created fictional stories. Classroom dialogues and shared stories demonstrated their deepened understanding, while students ultimately used textiles as a creative medium to visually communicate diverse viewpoints and personal experiences regarding sustainability. 2.4 How Can Critical Thinking Help to Foster the Future and the Present? In Panel 4, we aimed to reflect on and respond to the question: How can Critical Thinking help to foster the future and the present? The three contributions presented in this panel converged around a central concern: the need to educate citizens capable of thinking critically when faced with the major challenges of the contemporary world. Although they address distinct objects of analysis: artificial intelligence, the Sustainable Development Goals, and experiential learning around complex sustainability problems. They all emphasise that education cannot be limited to the transmission of content or to the technical mastery of tools. On the contrary, it must create conditions that enable individuals to understand the complexity of the world, question dominant discourses, recognise tensions, and participate responsibly in the construction of collective responses. In Panel 4, we aimed to reflect on and respond to the question: How can Critical Thinking help to foster the future and the present? The three contributions presented in this panel converged around a central concern: the need to educate citizens capable of thinking critically when faced with the major challenges of the contemporary world. Although they address distinct objects of analysis: artificial intelligence, the Sustainable Development Goals, and experiential learning around complex sustainability problems. They all emphasise that education cannot be limited to the transmission of content or to the technical mastery of tools. On the contrary, it must create conditions that enable individuals to understand the complexity of the world, question dominant discourses, recognise tensions, and participate responsibly in the construction of collective responses. The first article, Critical Citizens Regarding the Use of Artificial Intelligence: An Approach from Social Engineering authored by Fernando Broncano-Morgado, Aurora Cuartero-Sáez, Mar Ávila-Vegas, Andrés Caro-Lindo, and Pablo García-Rodríguez, draws attention to the ethical, democratic, social, and environmental risks associated with artificial intelligence, showing how digital systems can produce new forms of surveillance, manipulation, disinformation, and social control. In this context, critical thinking emerges as an indispensable condition for digital citizenship. The second paper Scaffolding Sustainability: Critical Thinking for SDG Achievement, from Rita Payan-Carreira, Ana Maria Cristóvão, Luís Sebastião and Hugo Rebelo, situates this reflection within the field of sustainability, arguing that the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals requires higher education to be committed to critical analysis, ethical reflection, and a systemic understanding of global problems. Taken together, both texts show that critical thinking is not merely a matter of evaluating information or arguing more effectively; it also involves understanding interdependencies, identifying conflicting interests, recognising uncertainties, and acting in an informed manner in contexts marked by ambiguity. The panel thus invites us to rethink the role of education in preparing citizens capable of critically inhabiting technologically mediated and environmentally vulnerable societies. Rather than simply preparing students to respond to predefined problems, the aim is to equip them to formulate better questions, engage in dialogue with different perspectives, and construct solutions that are just, sustainable, and democratically responsible. 2.5 What Does it Mean to Live and to Teach in a Postmigrant and Inclusive Society? The contributions gathered in this section respond to the question raised in Panel 5 of the GROUFES conference: what does it mean to live and to teach in a society that is no longer adequately described as ‘migrant’ or ‘post-migrant’, but is increasingly shaped by diversity as a structural condition? Education for Sustainable Development and the related principles of inclusion and diversity are closely entangled here, since both aim at equitable and quality education for all while fostering a culture of respect and belonging. The papers in this section move from teachers’ beliefs as a resource for inclusive practice to professional learning and systemic critique. Karina Becker opens the section by foregrounding teachers’ professional beliefs as a central resource for inclusive classrooms. Drawing on a long-term pilot study at the University of Magdeburg, she examines how university seminars designed to sensitise prospective German teachers to diversity and inclusion shape their diversity-related beliefs, and how those beliefs are intersectionally connected. The paperTeachers’Beliefs as resources for inclusive teaching closes with concrete recommendations for diversity-oriented teacher training at universities—establishing the conceptual ground on which the remaining contributions build. José Luis Gómez, Sergio Silva, María Teresa Becerra, Manuel Lucero, and Manuel Montanero widen the analytical lens from individual teacher beliefs to the structural assumptions of the education system itself in their contribution titled Rethinking Teaching for Inclusive Education in a Postmigrant Society. Drawing on focus-group and survey data from 24 secondary and vocational educators in Madrid, their study argues that rigid, universalist models of education systematically perpetuate exclusion rather than fostering inclusion. They propose relational universalism as a sustainable, equity-centred pedagogical framework that reimagines schools as spaces of belonging, co-creation, and social cohesion in postmigrant contexts. Read together, the two contributions share a common conviction: that teaching in a postmigrant and inclusive society requires educators who can interrogate their own assumptions, institutions that are willing to redesign their pedagogical grammar, and an understanding of inclusion that is at once cultural, structural, and digital. 2.6 How Can Teacher Training Programs be Designed to Foster Social, Cultural, Economic and Environmental Sustainability and Awareness? Across Europe, teacher education has emerged as a crucial arena for addressing the interrelated social, cultural, economic, and environmental challenges that define contemporary sustainability debates. If education is to equip younger generations to engage critically and responsibly with complex global issues, teacher training programmes must themselves be reimagined in both scope and purpose. The five contributions gathered in this panel address this challenge by exploring which competences should be fostered and how teacher education can be designed to support transformative forms of professional learning and practice. Considered together, these texts move from broader conceptual and ethical orientations towards more specific pedagogical approaches and applied models of teacher training. The section opens with María del Carmen Afonso et al. paper which positions care as a fundamental principle for education for sustainability and global citizenship. Drawing on the experience of the Network of Educators for Global Citizenship, the authors argue for teacher education grounded in collaboration, reflective practice, human interdependence, and eco-dependence. This emphasis on care as both an ethical stance and a pedagogical principle establishes an important foundation for the panel as a whole. In a strong analytic way, Paula Jäger and Anne-Kathrin Lindau then provide an interesting point of view regarding practice transfer across professionalization phases. Their fieldwork is based on the study of second phase of teacher education in Germany and questions how ESD policy directives produce divergent practices in Studienseminare, in a context of shared governance conditions. The following papers turn more directly to specific approaches for competence development and pedagogical transformation. Sunet Grobler’s text presents a participatory model for fostering sustainability competences among pre-service teachers through reflective practices and Socratic dialogue, explicitly engaging with the European Green Comp framework. Elena Nardiello challenges education to go beyond and across disciplinary knowledge and move the focus to experiential and outdoor learning as path-ways for deepening environmental awareness, strengthening ecological identity, and encouraging pedagogical renewal. Finally, Karina Becker et al. offer an applied and international perspective by presenting a teacher training model that combines interactive online courses, collaborative reflection, and tutoring. By linking sustainability with language learning, inclusion, and competence-based design, this contribution illustrates how sustainability-oriented teacher education can be implemented across diverse educational settings. Taken together, these five texts offer a rich contribution to current discussions on teacher education for sustainability, as trainees or senior ones, illuminating both its conceptual foundations and its practical possibilities. 2.7 How Can We Learn to Live in a Multispecies Community? Despite the fact that the modern way of life often implies a less conscious connection with “nature”, humanity still lives among a huge diversity of forms and ways of being, and cohabits, in various ways, with millions of more-than-human beings to whom we are intimately connected, often without noticing, and to whom we owe much, yet rarely appreciate. Drawing attention to the world around us is perhaps one of the greatest aims of education for sustainability (EfS), fostering awareness of and care for the multi-species communities we still have the chance to live with, despite the current global destruction of biodiversity (Zhong Mengual 2021). This panel was conceived to welcome papers that promote the arts of noticing, encourage collective reflection on how to learn from and coexist with more-than-human beings, and foster strategies for envisioning more inclusive and liveable futures, in filiation with the works of Bruno Latour, Baptiste Morizot, and Anna Tsing, among others (Tsing 2015; Latour 2015; Morizot 2020). In the frame of this panel and in this perspective of questioning the ways of learning to live in a multispecies community, we had the opportunity to discuss various topics during the GROUFES conference in Magdeburg, and we had at the end two articles for our panel, which are presented in the present volume. These two different case studies share a strong will to make tangible a different way of conceiving EfS and environmental awareness, mainly through living outdoor environments. The combination of speculative approaches, creative expressions, scientific data, and storytelling are here a way for the reenchantment of the world (Berman 1981), and for fostering sympoetic inter-connections with different forms of being alive (Haraway 2016) which we believe are key elements for a transformative education in the context of the contemporary polycrisis. 2.8 Junior Forum The Junior Forum provided a platform for aspiring researchers, as well as more senior co-authors, to present and discuss their ongoing research projects. Based on poster presentations at the conference, the contributions collected in this section take the form of extended abstracts that outline the conceptual and methodological foundations of the respective projects and, where appropriate, present initial findings. Together, they reflect the diversity of emerging research in Education for Sustainable Development, illustrating how sustainability challenges are addressed across different educational contexts and disciplines. At the same time, they span various levels of educational enquiry, ranging from teacher professionalisation and learning cultures, via innovative pedagogical approaches for fostering sustainability literacy, to subject-specific practices integrating digital, intercultural and sustainability competences. In Professionalisation in the Third Phase of Teacher Training: Changing the Learning Culture Through Learning Guidance, Lena Maria Kesting investigates the evolving role of teachers as learning guides within constructivist educational settings. Through a qualitative research design, the project explores how professional attitudes and institutional conditions can support transformative learning processes that empower learners to act as agents of sustainable change. Turning from teacher professionalisation to environmental humanities, Joana Portela examines in Reading the Alentejo Landscape. Literary Landscapes as a Pedagogical Tool to Foster Landscape Literacy, how literary representations of the rural landscapes of southern Portugal can foster landscape literacy among children and young people. Drawing on ecocriticism and landscape studies, the project argues for incorporating literary landscapes into teacher education as a means of promoting environmental awareness, civic engagement, and the appreciation of sustainable landscapes. Finally, Julia García Quirós, Laura Victoria Fielden Burns, and Gemma Delicado Puerto explore in their contribution titled Fostering Sustainable Teacher Competence Through Digital Assessment of Intercultural Oral Production in English as a Foreign Language: A DigCompEdu-Aligned Approach the potential of digital technologies for assessing oral and intercultural competences in secondary English language education. The preliminary findings highlight the need to strengthen teachers’ competences in digital assessment practices, thereby supporting the development of sustainable teacher competences in line with the aims of Education for Sustainable Development. We would like to thank all colleagues who agreed to carry out the peer review and provided valuable feedback on the individual articles. Acknowledgements For the financial support for this publication, we extend our thanks to the Ministry for Science, Energy, Climate Protection and Environment of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Additionally, we acknowledge the support by the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. References 1. Berman, M. (1981). The reenchantment of the world. Cornell University Press.
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Date: 5-6 May 2026
Location: Magdeburg, Germany (Hybrid)
Website: https://www.eugreen.ovgu.de/groufes2026_magdeburg.html Karina Becker1, Britt Johanne Farstad2, Maria Assunção Folque3, José Luis Gómez Ramos4, Anne-Rachel Hermetet5, Maria Ilhéu3, Laure Pillot5, William Pillot5, Philipp Pohlenz1, Daniel Pust1, Hugo Rebelo3, Antonio Roselli1, and John Scahill6
1 Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
karina1.becker@ovgu.de
2 University of Gävle, 80176 Gävle, Sweden
3 University of Évora, 7000 Évora, Portugal
4 University of Extremadura, 06071 Badajoz, Spain
5 University of Angers, 49000 Angers, France
6 Atlantic Technological University, Galway, H91 T8NW, Ireland On 5th and 6th May 2026, the international and interdisciplinary conference “Growing up the Future. Education for Sustainability” (GROUFES) took place at Magdeburg University, Germany. It was organised by members of the transnational Alliance of nine European universities, called EUGREEN, which is funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme under Grant Agreement nº 101089896. The aim of the conference was to investigate various facets of sustainable education from an interdisciplinary perspective taking into consideration global issues and challenges as well as regional and national realities, which affect the education systems, too, e.g. climate change, digitalization, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, migration and flight, ageing society, inequality and exclusion, future anxiety, and depopulation of rural regions. We discussed recent research results, new approaches and concepts, proven teaching practices within eight thematically distinct panels. First, we want to outline six reasons, why education is the “driving force” (Filho et al., 2023, p. 565) for a sustainable future, then we will present the topics and themes of each panel in more detail. 1 Growing up the Future Through Education? Six Reasons 1.1 The Future is Shaped by Education With the adoption of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), education was not merely identified as one of 17 goals, but as a prerequisite for all the others. Education is not a side issue in sustainable development – it is its “driving force” (Filho et al. 2023, p. 565). Since teachers are key actors both to equip learners with knowledge and skills to engage for sustainable development and to ensure equitable and quality education for all, while fostering a culture of respect and tolerance (cf. UN 2015, p. 17), “educating the educators” (Persson et al. 2023, p. 200) is necessary, too: “Since the educators in HE [i.e. higher education] might function as gatekeepers for the student’s development of SL [i.e. sustainability literacy], support in developing good teaching practices that can improve the student learning environment is important.” (Persson et al. 2023, p. 200). ‘Growing up the Future’ means more than simply ‘letting the future grow’. It means taking responsibility for shaping the future. It means understanding education not merely as the transfer of knowledge, but as an active process of shaping the future. The future does not come about by itself. It grows through education, through decisions, and through a willingness to take responsibility – for what is happening today and for what should be possible tomorrow. And it means not only preparing young people for a future, but empowering them to shape their own. However, this also requires a shift in teaching methods towards active learning and transformative learning – something that has been called for the past 20 years (e.g. Niemi 2002; Mezirow 2008; Patiño 2023). 1.2 Education Aims to Foster Creative and Transformative Skills We are living in a time of multiple crises: climate change, loss of biodiversity, social inequality, geopolitical tensions, digital transformation. “Because today’s crises are causally entangled, they can be neither fully understood nor addressed in isolation from one another.” (Lawrence et al. 2024, p. 13). The global polycrisis is systemically intertwined: It affects ecological, economic, social and cultural dimensions simultaneously. This has consequences for our understanding of education: creative and transformative skills are needed. “In the pursuit of fostering transformational creativity within educational settings, establishing a creativity-friendly classroom culture forms the foundation for unlocking the potential of students.” (Desmet & Sternberg 2024, p. 4) For encouraging transformative learning, Taylor (2009) uncovered six interdependent elements that nurture transformative learning in educational settings: individual experience, critical reflection, dialogue, holistic orientation, awareness of context, authentic practice (Taylor 2009, p. 4). 1.3 Education Is a Cross-Cutting Task Education for sustainability is more than just environmental education. It is more than simply learning facts about CO2 emissions or recycling rates. Above all, it is more than a misguided moral appeal for ‘correct behaviour’. During the last years, different approaches for the selection and definition of key competencies required for sustainable development have been developed, e.g. shaping competence (de Haan 2006), sustainability literacy (Parkin et al. 2004), sustainability skills (Stibbe 2009), and OECD’s DeSeCo key competencies (Rychen & Salganik 2003), for instance. “In Germany, developing ‘Gestaltungskompetenz’ (‘shaping competence’) has been discussed as the central educational objective of ESD. ‘Shaping competence’ encompasses a set of key competencies which are expected to enable active, reflective and co-operative participation towards sustainable development.” (Rieckmann 2012, p. 130) To understand complex systems, shift perspectives, tolerate conflicting goals and jointly develop viable solutions, there is a need to create learning spaces in which uncertainty is understood not as a shortcoming, but as the starting point for insight. We must strengthen interdisciplinary approaches in which the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, as well as artistic and medical perspectives, engage in dialogue with one another. Sustainability is not a discipline – it is a cross-cutting issue. 1.4 Education Needs Suitable Learning Spaces Universities are places of reflection. But they are also places of innovation. When we talk about ‘Growing up the Future’, this does not only concern schools or early childhood education. It concerns our curricula, our research programs, our knowledge transfer strategies – and, not least, our own day-to-day institutional life. • Are our campus structures organised sustainably?
• How transparent are our supply chains?
• How do we approach mobility, energy consumption and building planning? Sustainable education loses credibility if institutions are not prepared to become learners themselves. “We need to start now to build the universities of the future, and to restore their civic purpose as necessary components of the constitution of a democratic society”, Ingold states and sets out the “four principles—of freedom, trust, education and community—on which any university must be built” (Ingold 2020, p. 45). Sustainable development is not the task of individual actors. It is a collective endeavour. The future does not grow by itself. It emerges through decisions – small and large, individual and collective. If education is the place where this transformation can begin, then it is the privilege—and the obligation—of universities and schools to be places of education, places where the future is conceived, tested and shaped. 1.5 Education for Sustainability Is Education for Democracy Education for sustainability fosters participation, critical thinking and a sense of responsibility. Doing this, education for sustainability is strongly connected with ‘learning democracy’, which consists, following Edelstein (2011, p. 130), of three interconnected tasks: “learning about democracy” focus on becoming “a knowing and conscious demo-cratic actor in (future) situations of social and political choice anddecision”; “learning through democracy” acquires “sustainable democratic habits” when taking actively part in democratic bodies; “learning for democracy” includes “the construction and ongoing development of democratic forms of life, based on cooperation and participation in local, national and transnational contexts” (Edelstein 2011, p. 130). Additionally, in times when scientific findings are increasingly politicised or called into question, educational institutions have a dual responsibility: to generate knowledge—and to strengthen trust in knowledge. That is why ‘Growing up the Future’ also means dealing with ambivalence. Sustainability does not mean harmony. It often means conflicting goals: between economic development and ecological resilience, between global justice and national interests, between individual freedom and collective responsibility. This is precisely why we need education that does not simplify, but rather distinguishes. Education that embraces complexity. Education that promotes systematic thinking. Education that integrates ethical reflection. Education that recognises cultural diversity as a resource. 1.6 Education for Sustainable Development Requires a Cultural Shift Sustainable development is, ultimately, a cultural project. Technological innovations are important – renewable energy, the circular economy, digital efficiency. But without a cultural shift, they remain piecemeal. Tibbs shows, that social survey data indicates “that in many affluent nations close to 50 percent of the population have now adopted post-materialist values. Modeling this cultural shift as a substitution phenomenon shows the values of modernity being rapidly replaced by the values of transmodernity and suggests an important turning point in progress towards sustainability” (Tibbs 2011, p. 13). Education is the place where this cultural shift can begin. Education for sustainability is not a ready-made concept that we simply need to implement. It is an ongoing process, depending on peoples’ openness, self-criticism and willingness to engage in dialogue. 2 Transforming Teaching and Living for a Sustainable Future—An Overview of Topics and Themes in This Proceedings 2.1 What Do We Know and Think About Sustainability? Sustainability, both as a term and as a concept has multiple interpretations, it is context sensitive and can be interpreted to have a wide range of meanings. In higher education the range of meanings and interpretations is amplified by the variety of stakeholders, academic disciplines and the myriad ways that each engages with and addresses the topic. In this section, three papers are presented which explore engagement with sustainability from three different perspectives, those of teaching staff, students and female entrepreneurs. The papers explore some of the key issues and challenges associated with how people from each group engage with sustainability. Hume et al. argues that higher education institutions can address polycrisis in ecosystems, food security, and health by repurposing campus spaces for sustainability learning. The paper presents a pilot case creating an outdoor sustainability learning space, guided by the Connecting Nature Framework to navigate governance and complex transition challenges. The study details the processes, obstacles, and practical possibilities uncovered, showing how outdoor campus spaces can be re-imagined as living laboratories that integrate nature-based solutions, foster interdisciplinarity, and embed sustainability more deeply in institutional practice and pedagogy. Hume et al. argues that higher education institutions can address polycrisis in ecosystems, food security, and health by repurposing campus spaces for sustainability learning. The paper presents a pilot case creating an outdoor sustainability learning space, guided by the Connecting Nature Framework to navigate governance and complex transition challenges. The study details the processes, obstacles, and practical possibilities uncovered, showing how outdoor campus spaces can be re-imagined as living laboratories that integrate nature-based solutions, foster interdisciplinarity, and embed sustainability more deeply in institutional practice and pedagogy. Janine McGinn presents a case study of women in Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Ireland’s North-West. The study explores barriers to sustainable rural entrepreneurship for women in the West/North West of Ireland and Northern Ireland using a mixed-methods approach. Findings identify six influencing dimensions: social capital and networks; financial capital and performance; digital technology and innovation; gendered and societal structures; and institutional policies and legislation. The research recommends decentralising funding and empowering local decision-making to better support women-led enterprises in peripheral rural economies. 2.2 How Can We Transform and Imagine Both University Teaching and Living on the Campus for the Future? How Can We Bring Different Generations Together in Education for Sustainability? The contributions brought together in this section take up the core challenge articulated in Panel 2 of the GROUFES conference: to rethink the university not merely as a site of instruction, but as a physical, social, and institutional space in which sustainable futures are co-constructed. The six papers collectively trace a path from structural diagnosis to transformative practice—across disciplines, pedagogical formats, and generational boundaries. Marius Drugas, et al. open with a systematic overview of research trends, institutional practices, and implementation challenges in sustainability-oriented higher education across the EU Green University network. Identifying recurring structural barriers—resource constraints, disciplinary silos, limited governance integration—their contribution provides the analytical backdrop against which the more practice-oriented papers that follow can be read. Camille Tulasne’s case study of five Val de Loire universities takes this structural perspective down to the level of student agency. Drawing on the GreenComp framework, the paper finds that student associations cultivate ecological awareness and collective action, yet remain largely excluded from institutional decision-making—a gap that points toward the need for more participatory models of sustainability governance. Two contributions then expand the conception of what counts as a sustainability-relevant learning space. Hamadou Ngoei’s study of art universities as transformative actors in ESD demonstrates how performative, aesthetic, and experimental formats foster the critical reflection and visionary thinking that purely cognitive instruction cannot achieve. Silke Rühmland and Juliana Hilf operationalise a related argument through a walking workshop on the OVG U Magdeburg campus, which treats the physical university environment itself as a living laboratory—making sustainability tangible, spatial, and pedagogically productive. Two contributions then expand the conception of what counts as a sustainability-relevant learning space. Hamadou Ngoei’s study of art universities as transformative actors in ESD demonstrates how performative, aesthetic, and experimental formats foster the critical reflection and visionary thinking that purely cognitive instruction cannot achieve. Silke Rühmland and Juliana Hilf operationalise a related argument through a walking workshop on the OVG U Magdeburg campus, which treats the physical university environment itself as a living laboratory—making sustainability tangible, spatial, and pedagogically productive. Cedrick Bardowieck and Joachim Prinz close the section with a disciplinary case study whose implications reach well beyond finance education. Their survey of first-year business students finds that university coursework is associated not with higher but with lower shares of sustainable investment behaviour—a sharp provocation for curriculum designers and a fitting conclusion for a section concerned with the gap between institutional ambition and institutional effect. 2.3 How Can Ecofiction and Ecocritique Develop and Enrichen Pedagogic Strategies in Teacher Training Programs? And Can They Be a New Paradigm in Teacher Training? The panel features presentations that focus on the power of storytelling and fiction to account for environmental issues and to contribute to the creation of educational tools. These tools aim to help students confront ecological crises while also renewing their sensory relationship with the living world. In her paper, Ecofiction as didactic tools to develop shared anticipations and agency towards possible and desirable futures, Britt Johanne Farstad explores ecofiction and storytelling as vital educational tools for future-preparedness. By integrating narrative practices, educators can foster collective reflection, agency, and a pedagogy of hope to counter climate anxiety in students. Central to this approach is anticipation, the act of envisioning potential futures to inform present-day decisions. Aligning with OECD and WEF frameworks on anticipatory governance, the text highlights how speculative fiction serves as a thought experiment. Ultimately, these narratives act as political and performative tools in the classroom, shaping collective imagination, challenging current ideologies, and empowering the next generation to visualize actionable, sustainable alternatives. Kathryn McSweeney’s paper, Addressing Sustainability Themes Using Visual Story-telling, explores an Irish Initial Teacher Education module that utilizes visual storytelling to teach sustainability within Home Economics. Pre-service teachers first mapped curriculum connections to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and global issues like climate change. The module fostered a sustainability mindset and advanced pedagogical expertise through reflection and research, in line with Ireland’s Teaching Council. Students selected an SDG, engaged in narrative pedagogy, and created fictional stories. Classroom dialogues and shared stories demonstrated their deepened understanding, while students ultimately used textiles as a creative medium to visually communicate diverse viewpoints and personal experiences regarding sustainability. 2.4 How Can Critical Thinking Help to Foster the Future and the Present? In Panel 4, we aimed to reflect on and respond to the question: How can Critical Thinking help to foster the future and the present? The three contributions presented in this panel converged around a central concern: the need to educate citizens capable of thinking critically when faced with the major challenges of the contemporary world. Although they address distinct objects of analysis: artificial intelligence, the Sustainable Development Goals, and experiential learning around complex sustainability problems. They all emphasise that education cannot be limited to the transmission of content or to the technical mastery of tools. On the contrary, it must create conditions that enable individuals to understand the complexity of the world, question dominant discourses, recognise tensions, and participate responsibly in the construction of collective responses. In Panel 4, we aimed to reflect on and respond to the question: How can Critical Thinking help to foster the future and the present? The three contributions presented in this panel converged around a central concern: the need to educate citizens capable of thinking critically when faced with the major challenges of the contemporary world. Although they address distinct objects of analysis: artificial intelligence, the Sustainable Development Goals, and experiential learning around complex sustainability problems. They all emphasise that education cannot be limited to the transmission of content or to the technical mastery of tools. On the contrary, it must create conditions that enable individuals to understand the complexity of the world, question dominant discourses, recognise tensions, and participate responsibly in the construction of collective responses. The first article, Critical Citizens Regarding the Use of Artificial Intelligence: An Approach from Social Engineering authored by Fernando Broncano-Morgado, Aurora Cuartero-Sáez, Mar Ávila-Vegas, Andrés Caro-Lindo, and Pablo García-Rodríguez, draws attention to the ethical, democratic, social, and environmental risks associated with artificial intelligence, showing how digital systems can produce new forms of surveillance, manipulation, disinformation, and social control. In this context, critical thinking emerges as an indispensable condition for digital citizenship. The second paper Scaffolding Sustainability: Critical Thinking for SDG Achievement, from Rita Payan-Carreira, Ana Maria Cristóvão, Luís Sebastião and Hugo Rebelo, situates this reflection within the field of sustainability, arguing that the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals requires higher education to be committed to critical analysis, ethical reflection, and a systemic understanding of global problems. Taken together, both texts show that critical thinking is not merely a matter of evaluating information or arguing more effectively; it also involves understanding interdependencies, identifying conflicting interests, recognising uncertainties, and acting in an informed manner in contexts marked by ambiguity. The panel thus invites us to rethink the role of education in preparing citizens capable of critically inhabiting technologically mediated and environmentally vulnerable societies. Rather than simply preparing students to respond to predefined problems, the aim is to equip them to formulate better questions, engage in dialogue with different perspectives, and construct solutions that are just, sustainable, and democratically responsible. 2.5 What Does it Mean to Live and to Teach in a Postmigrant and Inclusive Society? The contributions gathered in this section respond to the question raised in Panel 5 of the GROUFES conference: what does it mean to live and to teach in a society that is no longer adequately described as ‘migrant’ or ‘post-migrant’, but is increasingly shaped by diversity as a structural condition? Education for Sustainable Development and the related principles of inclusion and diversity are closely entangled here, since both aim at equitable and quality education for all while fostering a culture of respect and belonging. The papers in this section move from teachers’ beliefs as a resource for inclusive practice to professional learning and systemic critique. Karina Becker opens the section by foregrounding teachers’ professional beliefs as a central resource for inclusive classrooms. Drawing on a long-term pilot study at the University of Magdeburg, she examines how university seminars designed to sensitise prospective German teachers to diversity and inclusion shape their diversity-related beliefs, and how those beliefs are intersectionally connected. The paperTeachers’Beliefs as resources for inclusive teaching closes with concrete recommendations for diversity-oriented teacher training at universities—establishing the conceptual ground on which the remaining contributions build. José Luis Gómez, Sergio Silva, María Teresa Becerra, Manuel Lucero, and Manuel Montanero widen the analytical lens from individual teacher beliefs to the structural assumptions of the education system itself in their contribution titled Rethinking Teaching for Inclusive Education in a Postmigrant Society. Drawing on focus-group and survey data from 24 secondary and vocational educators in Madrid, their study argues that rigid, universalist models of education systematically perpetuate exclusion rather than fostering inclusion. They propose relational universalism as a sustainable, equity-centred pedagogical framework that reimagines schools as spaces of belonging, co-creation, and social cohesion in postmigrant contexts. Read together, the two contributions share a common conviction: that teaching in a postmigrant and inclusive society requires educators who can interrogate their own assumptions, institutions that are willing to redesign their pedagogical grammar, and an understanding of inclusion that is at once cultural, structural, and digital. 2.6 How Can Teacher Training Programs be Designed to Foster Social, Cultural, Economic and Environmental Sustainability and Awareness? Across Europe, teacher education has emerged as a crucial arena for addressing the interrelated social, cultural, economic, and environmental challenges that define contemporary sustainability debates. If education is to equip younger generations to engage critically and responsibly with complex global issues, teacher training programmes must themselves be reimagined in both scope and purpose. The five contributions gathered in this panel address this challenge by exploring which competences should be fostered and how teacher education can be designed to support transformative forms of professional learning and practice. Considered together, these texts move from broader conceptual and ethical orientations towards more specific pedagogical approaches and applied models of teacher training. The section opens with María del Carmen Afonso et al. paper which positions care as a fundamental principle for education for sustainability and global citizenship. Drawing on the experience of the Network of Educators for Global Citizenship, the authors argue for teacher education grounded in collaboration, reflective practice, human interdependence, and eco-dependence. This emphasis on care as both an ethical stance and a pedagogical principle establishes an important foundation for the panel as a whole. In a strong analytic way, Paula Jäger and Anne-Kathrin Lindau then provide an interesting point of view regarding practice transfer across professionalization phases. Their fieldwork is based on the study of second phase of teacher education in Germany and questions how ESD policy directives produce divergent practices in Studienseminare, in a context of shared governance conditions. The following papers turn more directly to specific approaches for competence development and pedagogical transformation. Sunet Grobler’s text presents a participatory model for fostering sustainability competences among pre-service teachers through reflective practices and Socratic dialogue, explicitly engaging with the European Green Comp framework. Elena Nardiello challenges education to go beyond and across disciplinary knowledge and move the focus to experiential and outdoor learning as path-ways for deepening environmental awareness, strengthening ecological identity, and encouraging pedagogical renewal. Finally, Karina Becker et al. offer an applied and international perspective by presenting a teacher training model that combines interactive online courses, collaborative reflection, and tutoring. By linking sustainability with language learning, inclusion, and competence-based design, this contribution illustrates how sustainability-oriented teacher education can be implemented across diverse educational settings. Taken together, these five texts offer a rich contribution to current discussions on teacher education for sustainability, as trainees or senior ones, illuminating both its conceptual foundations and its practical possibilities. 2.7 How Can We Learn to Live in a Multispecies Community? Despite the fact that the modern way of life often implies a less conscious connection with “nature”, humanity still lives among a huge diversity of forms and ways of being, and cohabits, in various ways, with millions of more-than-human beings to whom we are intimately connected, often without noticing, and to whom we owe much, yet rarely appreciate. Drawing attention to the world around us is perhaps one of the greatest aims of education for sustainability (EfS), fostering awareness of and care for the multi-species communities we still have the chance to live with, despite the current global destruction of biodiversity (Zhong Mengual 2021). This panel was conceived to welcome papers that promote the arts of noticing, encourage collective reflection on how to learn from and coexist with more-than-human beings, and foster strategies for envisioning more inclusive and liveable futures, in filiation with the works of Bruno Latour, Baptiste Morizot, and Anna Tsing, among others (Tsing 2015; Latour 2015; Morizot 2020). In the frame of this panel and in this perspective of questioning the ways of learning to live in a multispecies community, we had the opportunity to discuss various topics during the GROUFES conference in Magdeburg, and we had at the end two articles for our panel, which are presented in the present volume. These two different case studies share a strong will to make tangible a different way of conceiving EfS and environmental awareness, mainly through living outdoor environments. The combination of speculative approaches, creative expressions, scientific data, and storytelling are here a way for the reenchantment of the world (Berman 1981), and for fostering sympoetic inter-connections with different forms of being alive (Haraway 2016) which we believe are key elements for a transformative education in the context of the contemporary polycrisis. 2.8 Junior Forum The Junior Forum provided a platform for aspiring researchers, as well as more senior co-authors, to present and discuss their ongoing research projects. Based on poster presentations at the conference, the contributions collected in this section take the form of extended abstracts that outline the conceptual and methodological foundations of the respective projects and, where appropriate, present initial findings. Together, they reflect the diversity of emerging research in Education for Sustainable Development, illustrating how sustainability challenges are addressed across different educational contexts and disciplines. At the same time, they span various levels of educational enquiry, ranging from teacher professionalisation and learning cultures, via innovative pedagogical approaches for fostering sustainability literacy, to subject-specific practices integrating digital, intercultural and sustainability competences. In Professionalisation in the Third Phase of Teacher Training: Changing the Learning Culture Through Learning Guidance, Lena Maria Kesting investigates the evolving role of teachers as learning guides within constructivist educational settings. Through a qualitative research design, the project explores how professional attitudes and institutional conditions can support transformative learning processes that empower learners to act as agents of sustainable change. Turning from teacher professionalisation to environmental humanities, Joana Portela examines in Reading the Alentejo Landscape. Literary Landscapes as a Pedagogical Tool to Foster Landscape Literacy, how literary representations of the rural landscapes of southern Portugal can foster landscape literacy among children and young people. Drawing on ecocriticism and landscape studies, the project argues for incorporating literary landscapes into teacher education as a means of promoting environmental awareness, civic engagement, and the appreciation of sustainable landscapes. Finally, Julia García Quirós, Laura Victoria Fielden Burns, and Gemma Delicado Puerto explore in their contribution titled Fostering Sustainable Teacher Competence Through Digital Assessment of Intercultural Oral Production in English as a Foreign Language: A DigCompEdu-Aligned Approach the potential of digital technologies for assessing oral and intercultural competences in secondary English language education. 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