The 17 United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a global framework for actions toward a sustainable future. Many local and international initiatives and programs have already referenced these goals. At the same time, we are witnessing global developments addressing that increased collective efforts are needed to turn the ambitious goals into reality. These developments strongly point to the need for a realistic stocktaking of where we are today, where the next steps should be taken and what hurdles need to be overcome.
Higher education institutions play a prominent role in this process: It is here where knowledge is created, we are enlighted about the state of our world, options for action are developed, and where political and social practices are analyzed. However, universities also provide important impetus for civil society initiatives and vice versa: Practical, often locally oriented, initiatives pave the way for broader social activities. With our lecture series, we would like to bring actors from these areas of social development into exchange, which is embedded in two countries that are already intertwined in many visible and less visible ways. The goal of the lecture series is to bring perspectives from different research disciplines and fields of action towards the SDGs in two regions into dialogue. In particular, topics should be addressed in which professional, methodological or disciplinary intersections exist between Colombia and Germany. In one to two lecture(s) per meeting, the speakers will present Colombian and German perspectives and offer their relevance to the SDGs for discussion. The overarching interest of the lecture series is to provide insight into complex development challenges from an intercultural perspective.
Guide on how to enroll in the course (PDF) for participant who don't have an University of Potsdam account.
Supported by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the DIES Partnership “Higher Education Partnership Colombia - Potsdam” (HEPCoPa) aims to optimize the institutional management and strengthen the future-oriented aspects digitalisation and quality management in the context of teaching and learning. The University of Potsdam, the Asociación Colombiana de Universidades (Colombian Association of Universities), the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana section Cali, the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana section Bucaramanga and the Universidad de Caldas thus joined the DAAD partnership program to expand their internationalization profile as well as increase of international competitiveness. After a successful lecture series "Societal Transformation Processes" (Youtube-Link) from November 2021 to March 2022 within this partnership, we would like to continue this intercultural collaborative format with a serie of lectures focused on the SDGs.Funded by the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD), the DIES Partnership “Higher Education Partnership Colombia - Potsdam” (HEPCoPa) aims to optimize the institutional management and strengthen the future-oriented aspects digitalisation and quality management in the context of teaching and learning. The University of Potsdam, the Asociación Colombiana de Universidades (Colombian Association of Universities), the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana section Cali, the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana section Bucaramanga and the Universidad de Caldas thus joined the DAAD partnership program to expand their internationalization profile as well as increase of international competitiveness. After a successful lecture series "Societal Transformation Processes" from November 2021 to March 2022 within this partnership, we would like to continue this intercultural collaborative format with a serie of lectures focused on the SDGs.
Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana