How academics at an Italian University respond to the sustainability challenge: a quantitative study of the research-teaching nexus

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) face a multi-dimensional call to action on Sustainable Development through their core missions: research, education, and societal engagement. This paper focuses on the relationship between sustainability-related research and teaching. Yet, existing literature offers limited insight into how individual academics engage with sustainability, and how the interplay between research and teaching unfolds in response to these global challenges. This study explores the dynamics of academic engagement with sustainability at the individual level for an Italian university, focusing on the extent to which teaching and research reinforce one another or remain compartmentalized activities. We built a longitudinal dataset (2016–2023) detailing the annual teaching and research activities of the university’s academic staff in domains related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We conducted both exploratory and regression analyses. Our findings suggest a gradual and asymmetric pattern of engagement: while sustainability research shows a longer and slower trajectory of adoption, teaching appears as a more recent and rapidly expanding phenomenon. A large share of academics engages in only one of the two domains, suggesting a fragmented response to institutional pressures. However, logistic regression analyses reveal a significant, positive association between prior teaching activity and subsequent research engagement, and vice-versa, supporting the hypothesis of a mutually reinforcing relationship. These results contribute to the literature on the research-teaching nexus by highlighting individual-level trajectories rather than institutional approaches. They also offer valuable insights for policymakers seeking to integrate sustainability more effectively into academia.