Professor Angela Paiva has already joined the National SDG Commission. The class she teaches is part of the course schedule “Education for Global Citizenship”, taken by students from the Institute’s Multiprofessional Residency in Health Care for People with Disabilities and Master’s in Neuroengineering programs. 

Discipline is ahead the professor-researcher and general director of ISD, Reginaldo Freitas Júnior.

In addition to Angela's presentation, this week's class featured a presentation by the researcher Paula Serafini, master's student in Production Engineering at UFRN and founder of the ODS Practices Project (@praticasods, on Instagram), which seeks to share knowledge and methods for implementing the 2030 Agenda in companies, universities and other sectors.

THE 2030 AGENDA

The 2030 Agenda is defined by the United Nations (UN) as a universal action plan that seeks economic development, eradication of poverty, misery and hunger, social inclusion, environmental sustainability and good governance at all levels, including peace and security. 

It is made up of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 global action targets to be achieved by 2030, “for the most part”, says the UN, “covering the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development, in a integrated and interrelated”.

During the class taught for ISD, Ângela and Paula presented a large x-ray on the topic.

Class was taught virtually and broadcast to ISD students and employees

They covered a historical perspective of the 2030 Agenda, detailed the related indicators, what is being done in Brazil, what is the current situation in Brazilian governments and higher education institutions, and how everyone collaborates or can collaborate in this context.

CHALLENGES

Among the challenges related to the Agenda, they cited the lack of knowledge among the population – and also among public managers, for example – about what the SDGs are in practice and about how what is done on a daily basis, whether in research projects , at work or in public policies, is related to these objectives and can contribute to their achievement.

“Many people don’t really know what the SDGs are, and not just what the acronym means, but what these objectives are for and how they can contribute to the dissemination of this culture,” said Paula. Professor Ângela added, in a kind of summary of the definition, that “the 2030 Agenda gives meaning to what we do, looking to the future”.

Research carried out in 2019 by the Social Knowledge Network in conjunction with IBOPE Intelligence and Social Knowledge - Strategy and Management shows that 49% of Brazilians do not know what the Sustainable Development Goals are.

THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE

Ângela cited the participation of the entire society as fundamental for the objectives set out in the 2030 Agenda to be disseminated and fulfilled. And educational institutions, their students, researchers and collaborators are also seen as playing a crucial role in this process.

“If you want to align your students and your researchers (with what the SDGs recommend), a good path, which (professor) Reginaldo has already started to follow, is to encourage them to think about the projects they develop. The ISD project, the master’s project, how do we align with an objective of the 2030 Agenda?”, said the professor.

What is the objective of the research carried out by the Institute? What can the generated knowledge interfere with? and what will it provide? are among the key questions that can and should be asked in this direction, according to her. Participation in extension projects is cited as an important step towards discovering these answers.

“When you don't know exactly what you want, where your project is going, go to the community. Then what you are working on will make sense. Go to the community. Know where the pain hurts”, commented the teacher. 

“We”, she analyzes, “have the habit of thinking 'that what we do is very small, that it is just a small part'. “But this cut is in context. In what context does your project fit?” he asks.

The professor presented the knowledge generated by the research as “a great weapon, in a good way”. 

“It is a good instrument of struggle, for improvement, as long as it is thought of like this. This premise that generated knowledge is a super interesting arsenal for transformations is important. But we need to be sensitive to society’s demands and then the extension makes a lot of sense.” 

SDG SEAL

Regarding higher education institutions, researcher Paula Serafini observes that there is bad news and good news involving the SDGs.

The bad thing is that the “SDG Network of universities”, which was created in 2017 to promote the inclusion of the Sustainable Development Goals in the teaching, research, extension and management activities of institutions, was dismantled and it is no longer possible to measure the impact it causes. .

The good news, according to her, is that the idea of an SDG seal to value actions implemented by universities and federal institutes in this field is becoming a reality. 

“There is an ongoing project at the University of Brasília (UnB) to create this seal,” said the researcher.

According to UnB, the ODS Seal project's main objective is to format a technology that allows universities to become living laboratories to align their teaching, research, extension and management actions with the 2030 Agenda – and that it can be understood as an opportunity for collective construction of a network of universities aligned with strengthening democracy and combating inequalities.

“AN OBSTACLE TO BE OVERCOME”

For professor Reginaldo Freitas Júnior, adjusting goals to local reality is an obstacle to be overcome. 

The Santos Dumont Institute has an institutional program entirely linked to the SDGs – and seeks to encourage students to reflect on how what they do on a daily basis is related to these objectives. 

The goal is to “make it clear”, where necessary, that these objectives also belong to us, that they are not something “others”, something distant.

Culture

At the Institute, for a preceptor, a researcher or other collaborator to submit a new project, they need to make it clear in the submission what they are going to do in teaching, research, and extension, what objective and to what goal of the Objective they are contributing with that project .

But the challenges in this context do not stop. Now, ISD is studying ways to include the alignment of potential candidates with these objectives among the prerequisites to be evaluated in future employee and student selection processes. 

The idea is to measure what tests and the lattes curriculum do not measure, says Freitas Júnior, and adds: “Now it is with us, in our hands. Let’s see where the pain hurts and let’s act where the pain hurts, since caring is our profession.”

THE OBJECTIVES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN ISD

At the Santos Dumont Institute, five of the 17 SDGs are strongly linked to the activities it develops.

See below what they are: