Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals Into Croatian Higher Education: A Content Analysis of University Strategic Documents



Author Information

Nena Vukelić, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

The integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into higher education policy is an important step towards fostering a responsible, transformative academic environment. This study focuses on a content analysis of Croatian universities' strategic documents to understand how the contribution to the implementation of the SDGs is addressed. A content analysis protocol was created to code all points of the strategic documents that address the facilitation of the realization of the SDGs within the core academic activities (in research, teaching, management and community engagement). The analysis shows that while universities emphasize the importance of their own societal impact and sustainable development in general, the integration of the SDGs and SD remains uneven in both scope and depth across institutions. The strategic documents are generally aligned with the SDGs, such as Quality Education (SDG 4), Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9) and Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), but detailed frameworks for how academic staff can contribute to these goals are not clearly outlined.


Paper Information

Conference: ECE2025
Stream: Higher education

This paper is part of the ECE2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Vukelić N. (2025) Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals Into Croatian Higher Education: A Content Analysis of University Strategic Documents ISSN: 2188-1162 The European Conference on Education 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 787-794) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2025.62
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2025.62


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