Reporting their impact can help universities secure their future

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned higher education on its head. A return to campus for next semester is not yet a given and the effects on international study are certain to be prolonged and painful.

Amid this uncertainty, high school seniors are questioning whether to proceed with planned undergraduate studies. A March 2020 poll by the Art & Science Group, reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, found that 17 per cent of high school seniors polled were considering changing their plans from attending college full-time to options such as gap years or part-time attendance. Many poll respondents were also concerned about the affordability of an undergraduate degree.

Questioning the value of post-secondary education is not only pandemic-driven: it is also in part generational. An article in the Harvard Business Review last year recounted that “Gen Z wants to get its foot on the first rung of a career ladder – a good first job quickly, and without incurring any debt – before deciding what secondary or tertiary postsecondary education pathways to follow in order to bolster cognitive skills, become managers, move on, and move up.”

We are at a tipping point. As the editor of Yale Daily News wrote last month, “[t]he question now is whether we want to put another generation through a failed system, or finally fix the longstanding problems in our society that the coronavirus has exposed.” There is an urgent need to communicate the contributions of universities to society, to current and future students, as well as to alumni, local communities, and government and corporate partners.

Former governor of the Bank of England and current United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance Mark Carney posited a few days ago that the pandemic is inspiring a reckoning of “the values of economic dynamism and efficiency (…) [and] those of solidarity, fairness, responsibility and compassion”, and that “[t]he great test of whether this new hierarchy of values will prevail is climate change”, since it requires a united front from the entire world.

Out of this very difficult and immediate crisis, there is a rare opportunity for a long-term vision for the value of universities to emerge.

A prime example of an area where universities can prove their value is in tackling climate change, an unprecedented existential threat. The will is evident: many universities have launched comprehensive umbrella initiatives for climate research and action at their institutions, for example Cambridge Zero.

Others are classifying their campus-based research and action under the broader framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, such as the University of Tokyo’s Future Society Initiative. Yet others are working across institutions to federate teaching and research resources on climate, such as the Enterprise for Society Center run by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) and the University of Lausanne (UNIL), resulting in a new master’s degree in Sustainable Management and Technology.

Several universities are banding together to advance common policy and principles, like the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate and the International Universities Climate Alliance.

University research and knowledge is crucially providing the playbook for ensuring the future we need: to name a few examples, Purdue University’s College of Agriculture is demonstrating how the time has come for conservation tillage, McGill University is exploring how the polar oceans are affected by climate change, and many universities are working on renewable energies for a low-carbon future. Universities are also giving rise to climate-minded entrepreneurs: for example, ETH Zurich spinoff Climeworks is removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and selling it to clients in the food and beverage and automotive industries.

Times Higher Education has started the important work of reconciling the contributions of individual universities at a global level through its ambitious Impact Rankings. For its second edition, it saw an additional 301 universities voluntarily contribute information for ranking. Although rankings may always be viewed as a competitive exercise, creating a common framework to understand and evaluate the contributions of individual universities on climate and other Sustainable Development Goals provides a starting point for the general public to understand what all universities are doing and can be doing to ensure our future. It is a powerful public communication tool, not just for each individual university, but for universities as a sector.

The next step to show the world that universities are serious stewards of climate and society is to move such reporting from optional to a generalised norm. Rather than a nice-to-have addition, it should be a standard part of every university’s annual reporting. The World Economic Forum’s International Business Community, composed of the world’s leading CEOs, proposed standardised environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) reporting guidelines after the forum’s annual meeting in Davos in January.

Could universities also join this clarion call, for traditional ESG measures where appropriate, for the Sustainable Development Goals, or both?

Reporting has an important legacy of spurring behaviour change in universities. In the US, Title IX reporting has increased the number of women participating in sports and ensured that sex-based discrimination is taken seriously. And the US Department of Education’s College Scorecard has made sure the true cost of their education is clearly available to prospective students. Standardised reporting on societal contributions will help Gen Z – and the world – to better understand the public role of universities.

We know from McKinsey that Gen Z “make[s] decisions and relate[s] to institutions in a highly analytical and pragmatic way”, and from a joint inquiry by Stanford University and Pacific Standard magazine that “students seem to value a troubling notion of impact premised on quantity over quality, one that conflates success with sheer reach and scale”.

The development and adoption of a well-considered framework for detailing quality contributions of universities to climate and society, and how each institution is “walking the walk”, will bring greater transparency and foster the resilience of universities in the face of future challenges.

Jaci Eisenberg is head of academic engagement at the World Economic Forum.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Economic Forum.