Course descriptions complemented with information about Sustainable Development Goals

Aalto University is committed to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of its teaching. The university offers more than 1400 courses which deal with themes related to at least one of the sustainable development targets. This comprises 47 % of all teaching offered at the university.

During this year, the responsible teachers have analysed the content of their courses from the Sustainable Development Goals point of view and identified the most relevant SDGs, respectively. For the students, it is now easier than before to find courses whose content deals with sustainable development themes they are interested in.

”Making teaching that is aligned with sustainable development goals visible and easy to find is an important step on our path to find solutions that we as a university community can offer to global sustainability challenges” says vice president for education, Petri Suomala.

Out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals defined by the UN, themes related to the goal of resilient infrastructures, sustainable industries and innovations (SDG # 9) are most prominently present in the course offerings at Aalto University. The course palette also comprises more than 400 courses that focus on themes around sustainable consumption and production (SDG #12) and sustainable cities and communities (SDG #11), respectively.

Aalto University is committed to advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively. Apart from education, they are part of research, innovation activities, and campus development. Aalto University was the first Finnish university to sign the international SDGAccord. It is the joint response of institutions of higher education to sustainability challenges and it strengthens the role of universities in achieving the goals of Agenda2030. More than 150 universities worldwide have signed the commitment.

Further information:

• Aalto is committed to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
• The Sustainable Development Goals
• The SDG Accord