The ISLE project (Innovation in the teaching of Sustainable Development in Life Sciences in Europe) objective is to implement the concept of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. Higher Education Institutions among all educational structures are vested with significant responsibility, both to incorporate this concept within their activities (teaching, research, operations) and to widespread Sustainable Development in the society and business world. This report is the final product of Work Package 3 (WP3) entitled “Identifying sustainable and user-friendly Good Practices”. The objective is the identification and diffusion of Good Practices concerned with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education Institutions. The topic is analysed in a broader sense, on one side considering the characterisation of the political and institutional framework, and on the other side describing formal and informal learning experiences in Higher Education Institutions. 36 Good Practices are discussed and presented in systematic forms, that have been categorised according to the following topics related to the implementation of Sustainable Development education: policies, institutional activities, teaching and practical experiences. The Good Practices represent a wide range of situations concerning different European countries, institutions, typologies of the initiatives and geographical levels of implementation. However in this diversity some characterising aspects emerge: the holistic and interdisciplinary approaches to ESD, the attention in achieving tangible results, the involvement of local communities and the bottom-up approaches, the importance of partnerships and networking, the capacity building, the innovation of the initiatives, and the attention in building a framework favorable to Sustainable Development. The Good Practices were selected from a wider range of case studies, emerging from a “State of the Art” analysis in the field of Sustainable Development in the University Studies of Life Sciences in Europe, carried out within the ISLE project, and from the research of the project partners. The selection has been done in accordance with the criteria of transferability, pertinence, capacity building, user friendless, innovation, networking capacity and interdisciplinarity.


