Bridging the Sustainability Governance Gap in European HEIs: Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Climate Change has occurred and impacted the space available for human occupation. Cascade effects of indoor environmental conditions. This research reveals an implementation gap of Higher Education Institutions to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No. 11, while there is a difference between institutional commitment and practice in the area of sustainability. The study aims to make an attempt to figure out the gap in sustainability governance in HEIs quantitatively. The number of actual productions and commitments is reflected in bibliometric and governance records. The kind of investigation was explained sequential mixed methods design. In Phase 1, 1,374 publications with a DOI were identified that were related to SDG 11. The Netherlands affiliated research organizations provided the baseline, the comparators, for this study. In the institutional surveys of phase 2, the institutional leaders from 12 European HEIs took part. Using our Sustainability Governance Gap score, 74 respondents created their scores. Four purposively selected institutions were used for phase 3 for analysis through semi-structured interviews and documents. The Cronbach's alpha for the validated instruments was 0.75 or higher. A minimum link strength of 15 was used in VOS viewer for the bibliometric analysis. Each level of Governance successfully produced statistically significant positive gap scores. Pedagogical co-creation had the highest implementation gap. There were negative correlations between the Longitudinal Monitoring protocols and each of the aggregate scores of IAQ. Variance in governance gaps was accounted for by the institutional type, geographic region and building age. Higher levels of the Arnstein ladder had fewer governance deficits. Fragmented knowledge production helps sustain the governance gap for sustainability. If engagement with the stakeholders is only nominal, the degree of implementation fidelity is limited. Co-creative governance structures are needed for technical solutions. The role of monitoring is distributed across groups of participants to ensure a long-term SDG-aligned practice.