Society-centred institutions require cultural shift in HE

Universities must focus on equipping their students with leadership as well as technical skills and foster collaborative and experimental forms of learning and knowledge-production that can provide practical solutions to development challenges at scale, according to Arturo Condo, the president of Universidad EARTH (EARTH University) in Costa Rica, which focuses on the advancement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. However, transformation of the institutional culture of universities is required if they are to fulfil their role as agents of such socio-economic change, he says.