Editorial: Re-Purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress

Editorial on the Research Topic
Re-Purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress

Humanity is confronting the most acute and urgent threat it has ever consciously faced. Soaring inequality, accelerating climate crises, ecological collapse, and social and psychological breakdown represent a multi-faceted socio-ecological crisis that is threatening viability of life on Earth. The undeniable evidence of this is fueling a growing global recognition that something has gone badly wrong with the ways in which our society has sought to optimize its wellbeing and that of non-human life which it brings into its ethical sphere of care. But what is the culpability of universities in allowing this systemic unsustainability to emerge? And how can this existential threat be dealt with if academic institutions are not firmly in the vanguard?