Teaching Innovation Seminar València- Würzburg: Teaching sustainability across disciplines

This First Valencia-Würzburg Teaching Innovation Seminar, “Teaching Sustainability across the Social Sciences, Political Science, and Law: Critical Approaches to the SDGs in Higher Education,” was designed as a forum for meeting, exchange, and reflection among faculty and professionals from Valencia and Würzburg. The seminar provided an opportunity to share teaching experiences and innovative methodologies applied to the teaching of sustainability, human rights, environmental governance, law, political science, and the social sciences, thereby reinforcing the project’s international and interdisciplinary dimensions. 

Five Scholars from the Universitat de València, representing different spheres of the science and philosophy of law (Ana Colomer Segura, Julio Llop Tordera, Lucía Aparicio Chofré, Karla Zambrano, Blanca Lirio), and four from the Institute of Political Science and Sociology at the JMU (Ulrike Zeigermann, Elena Dück, Almut Mohr, Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach), presented their ideas and shared their experiences on how to teach various aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an engaging way with students. The presentations addressed various thematic areas: incorporating the reality of refugee camps into human rights education; teaching biolaw through the analysis of judicial decisions; integrating SDG 17 into private international law; the use of games, simulations, and challenge-based learning to teach environmental and climate governance; interculturality in educational innovation linked to the SDGs; hope as a pedagogical category in the teaching of international environmental governance; and the use of literature to address SDGs 10 and 16. 

Of particular note was the participation of Núria Gómez Herrero, a professional nurse with experience in various nongovernmental organizations, who spoke as a guest presenter on the topic “Approaching Refugee Camp Reality in Human Rights Education: A Nurse’s Perspective.” Her contribution particularly enriched the session by linking theoretical content on human rights, health, vulnerability, and forced displacement with practical experience gained in the field. This presentation reinforced the need to strengthen the connections between the university and civil society, incorporating knowledge derived from professional experience and humanitarian action into the classroom.
In sum, the workshop was a great start to exchange in how to teach various aspects of sustainability and left the participants with many creative and inspiring insights. Additionally, the concept of bringing scholars from various disciplines (law and social sciences) and from different countries (Spain, Germany) together in talking about teaching sustainability, was a very fruitful experience. The positive feedback from the event suggests that new editions will be organized in the coming academic years, with the aim of consolidating this academic collaboration.