Academic staff engagement in education for sustainable development Gisela Cebri  an a, * , Marcus Grace b , Debra Humphris c a Faculty of Social Sciences and Education, Camilo Jos e Cela University, c/Castillo de Alarc on, 49, Urb. Villafranca del Castillo, 28692 Madrid, Spain b Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, Building 32, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom c Education Office, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom article info Article history: Received 15 October 2013 Received in revised form 28 October 2014 Accepted 3 December 2014 Available online 11 December 2014 Keywords: Higher education Education for sustainable development Action research Academics Views Engagement abstract The research presented in this paper emerged from the need to identify the factors influencing academic staff members when engaging in Education for Sustainable Development in real practice. The aims of this study were to explore: (i) the factors influencing academic staff engagement in Education for Sustainable Development; and (ii) the views and vision of academic staff in relation to Education for Sustainable Development at the University of Southampton. This research was conceived as an exploratory action research study and consisted of two differentiated research stages. In Stage I fourteen academic staff members from different disciplines were interviewed as a reconnaissance phase of a typical action research cycle. In Stage II a facilitator role for curriculum development was adopted by one of the authors as part of her doctoral studies. An interdisciplinary group of five academic staff members from different subject areas was created with the aim to support the group's critical reflection and action. This research was undertaken between October 2011 and May 2013. This study suggests that although academics might have a personal interest and motivation to engage in Education for Sustainable Development, factors such as the lack of time and financial resources, lack of deep understanding of sustainability, current curriculum structures and ways of delivery, academic pressures, external factors, lack of organisational support and existing organisational conditions block their engagement in Education for Sustainable Development. Organisational support and leadership, quality assurance processes, profes- sional development and creating reward structures are necessary strategies towards academic staff engagement in this agenda. This study provides evidence on different views and visions of academics in relation to Education for Sustainable Development and a number of contradictions between its principles and the role of Higher Education. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Universities have signed international and national declarations and have publicly committed to work towards achieving sustain- able practices in their estates and operations, research, outreach and curriculum (Lozano et al., 2013; Wright, 2002). However the field of sustainability in higher education (HE) is a rather recent and emerging research area (Wright, 2010). Most of the research to date has focused on environmental management and greening of uni- versity estates and operations, case studies and examples of good practice of universities, and on introducing sustainability content in specific courses (Cotton et al., 2009; Fien, 2002). The environmental management and greening of campus operations and estates have seen much more progress than curriculum development (Jones et al., 2010). Thus despite the emerging literature, the signature of international declarations and the creation and development of university strategies and policies, little implementation and holistic transformation of universities towards embedding sustainability has been achieved so far (Lozano, 2006; Thomas, 2004). Sustain- ability metrics and rankings of universities in the area of sustain- ability, such as the UI Greenmetric University World Ranking could represent a lever for the holistic implementation of sustainability. University world rankings put in place benchmarking systems that influence decision-making processes, however existing rankings focus on research, education or the environmental dimension of sustainability (Lukman et al., 2010). Sustainability in Higher Education (HE) has been widely advo- cated to be more than an add-on to existing university practices (Sterling, 2004) as it involves a cultural and structural shift to existing dominant structures and practices (Tilbury, 2012). Change towards sustainability requires whole-university approaches that * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ34 91 815 31 31. E-mail addresses: gcebrian@ucjc.edu (G. Cebri an), M.M.Grace@soton.ac.uk (M. Grace), d.humphris@imperial.ac.uk (D. Humphris). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.12.010 0959-6526/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 106 (2015) 79e86