Journal of Cleaner Production 62 (2014) 114e119

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

A consideration of the changing focus on the sustainable development

in higher education in Poland
Cezary Ko
scielniak 1

, Poland
Social Science Department, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89a, 61-565 Poznan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The main goal of this article is to analyse the implementation of the sustainability factor in Polish higher
Received 27 June 2012 education after the amendment to the Law of Higher Education. On the one hand Poland participates in
Received in revised form European environmental politics, takes part in international forums, on the other hand the application of
16 May 2013
sustainable development for concrete sector policies is weak, if not insufcient, which attests to the
Accepted 5 June 2013
discontinuity of transmission between declarations and political actions. The rst part of this article
Available online 27 June 2013
shows the key challenges to the concept of a sustainable university as well as the level of its imple-
mentation within the Polish higher education system. The next section deals with Poland. Its purpose is
Keywords:
Sustainable university
to demonstrate the possibility of sustainable change in Polish tertiary education institutions according to
Poland the Law of Higher Education. The last part presents two case studies: The University of Warsaw (UW) and
Polish law of higher education the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
(AMU), the leading Polish institutions of knowledge. This part
of the paper also presents institutional obstacles to the implementation of sustainability in the Polish
tertiary education system.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Towards the idea of the sustainable university modify higher education as an institution, in its entirety, to-
wards sustainability remains a huge challenge. Only a few uni-
Since decade, the role of the sustainable development in Euro- versities worldwide have taken on this challenge [4, p. 610].
pean higher education has been increasing (see: Adomssent and
The crucial issues related to sustainable development strongly
Beringer, 2008; Adomssent et al., 2009; Adomssent et al., 2006).
affect the mission of the university, its system of research and ed-
Researchers have underlined the role of the sustainable change
ucation, and its relation to external stakeholders. Several case
within the higher education system by creating a network between
studies prove that sustainable change occurs around the world
university and region (Arbo and Benneworth, 2007, p. 79e84). The
(see: Fihlo, 2010). Today a university is expected to be engaged in
main aim of the paper is the analysing of the sustainable change of
crucial social problems, and to nd innovative solutions. Univer-
the university. The reconstruction of the idea of sustainable uni-
sities are expected to be involved with social, technological and
versity follows that of the group of German researchers, who have
environmental issues. It is important to highlight another aspect,
described the models of sustainable transformation of knowledge
which meets these various expectations towards the modern uni-
institutions (see: Adomssent and Michelsen, 2006; Michelsen,
versity halfway: transdisciplinarity, which is an attribute of sus-
2011). At the beginning, two issues have to be distinguished: the
tainable development (Scholz, 2011). Transdisciplinarity is
universitys education to sustainable development from the crea-
especially signicant in times of crisis, when the need for univer-
tion of the institutional concept of the sustainable university.
sities to be engaged economically and where their innovative
What does sustainable university mean? Adomssent and
suggestions are emphasised. Scholz explains the meaning of
Beringer (2008) point out:
transdisciplinarity:
A sustainable university project tackles the challenge of sus-
Transdisciplinarity [.] organize mutual learning among
tainability in higher education at the institutional level. To
members of science and society that can generate socially robust
knowledge. For the most part this mutual learning takes place in
E-mail address: cezkos@amu.edu.pl.
transdisciplinarity processes in which members from the sci-
1
The paper is supported by National Center of Science, project nb. 1455/B/H03/ entic community and the community in general interact with
2011/40. decision makers, stakeholders, or the public at large, (p. 375).

0959-6526/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.06.006
 C. Ko
scielniak / Journal of Cleaner Production 62 (2014) 114e119
Another matter is the ethical expectations. The modern uni-
versity, in Humboldts, Newmans or Jeffersons version has always
highlighted the mission of axiological and civil formation. In our
present day, environmental values are included amongst civil
axiology. Modern societies are becoming increasingly aware of the
need of a certain respect towards environmental issues and human
diversity, which are marked out by the concepts of liberal de-
mocracy (see: Nussbaum, 1998; Rawls, 2005). Sustainable devel-
opment is associated above all with ecology and social justice, but
also with a healthy lifestyle, living in harmony with nature, an eco-
friendly development approach, which means that there is a need
for education in this eld and the commitment of public in-
stitutions. Yet, it is not sufcient enough to limit oneself to
ecological expectations. Adomssent and Beringer (2008) explains a
wider ethical challenge, e.g. a resignation from utilitarian consumer
ethics and a movement towards a new model of human action, a so
called environmental justice, based on the protection of and
respect for nature:
One can argue that current challenges of unsustainability exist
because previous and existing ethics have not kept pace with
scientic-technological developments; that dominant modes of
anthropocentrism and utilitarian ethics which emphasize
resource use over the rights of nature e environmental justice,
care, and respect e have failed to reign in human induced
environmental degradation and its associated and interwoven
social implications (p. 618).
The idea of sustainable development joins these expectations in
a modern form, that is why it is necessary to introduce it on a wider
scale to the discourse concerning the role of universities today.
Marco Rieckmann (2012) ascertains education for sustainable
development as an element of knowledge, decisions and long-term
cultural consequences:
The concept of HESD can be linked to the future at least in two
ways: On the one hand, it aims to develop sustainability key
competencies and, thus, to enable students to deal with difcult
problems and to contribute to a sustainable future. On the other
hand, it is about the future of higher education itself, because it
raises the question of how higher education should look in the
future in order to be able to take part in the sustainable devel-
opment of (world) society. (p. 128).
Sustainable development becomes a new point of reference for
current global problems marked out on three levels: nature,
economy and social justice. These issues have a strong inuence on
public institutions, as well as universities. A universitys commit-
ment to these issues entails its commitment to future global
problems:
Discourses concerning sustainable universities and Higher Ed-
ucation for Sustainable Development give some guidance as to
what strategies could be used and what measures could be taken
to ensure that universities can meet these challenges. One
important element is that universities create these kinds of
teaching and learning environments in which future pro-
fessionals will be able to cope with issues of sustainable devel-
opment and to deal with difcult problems in their future elds
of work and thus contribute to a sustainable future (6, p. 134).
2. Sustainable development and the institutional change in
the university
In what areas are institutional changes introduced in a univer-
sity leading in the direction of sustainable development? The
University has to acquire new educational tasks, which include
115
formative tasks, directed at students as well as the Universitys
environment. Nevertheless, accepting the model of a sustainable
university implies implementation of complex institutional re-
forms. Michelsen (2011) indicates two basic institutional tasks for a
sustainable university: design of sustainability indicators in/for
higher education (which is a means of transformation of a uni-
versity into more sustainable institution) and initiating and
assessing transformative learning processes (which means seeking
good practice and suitable designs for a sustainable policy for
universities).
The rst, and probably most important area of sustainable
changes, is the universitys mission. The contemporary European
university is in a state of serious mission crisis. Europes secularized
societies see no common reference point neither in religion (in the
case of Newmans model), nor in the national state (in the case of
Humboldts model). Contemporary universities based on globalized
civic values, which include the expectations of sustainable devel-
opment policy. Since Clark Kerr, the president of the UCLA and his
concept of the university as a multiversity, focused on business,
commercialisation of the results, the meaning of knowledge in-
stitutions has been changed (Kerr, 2010; Neweld, 2011). A concept
of the sustainable university meets these dilemmas halfway, allows
discovering new growth rates in economic as well as ethical action.
Below the selected areas of university sustainable transformation
are analysed.
First and the most important sustainable change should be the
mission of the university. The mission is proof of the will of the ac-
ademic community and the main direction of the change. The
sustainable mission can be considered in two dimensions. The
rst, the institutional dimension, implies providing the university
with institutional support in the form of accepting its activity and
values leading towards a policy of sustainable development. The
second, the formative dimension, implies an educational policy; the
mission level then comes into being, a prominent symbol of the
universitys educational priorities. It should be added that intro-
ducing SD to the mission creates the possibility of implementing a
sustainable strategy according to the top down method.
The next sphere will be the process education, the aim of which is
to bring the subject matter of sustainable development closer, as
well as to increase competencies, understood as skills of moving
trans-disciplinarily through knowledge and social practices, and
ethical competencies, the skills of acting responsibly and reec-
tively. According to Barth et al. (2007) education in the eld of the
sustainable university should include the following competencies:
[.] Competency in foresighted thinking, competency in
interdisciplinary work, competency in cosmopolitan perception,
transcultural understanding, and cooperation, learning partici-
patory skills, competency in planning and implementation
skills, a capacity for empathy, compassion, and solidarity, com-
petency in self-motivation and in motivating others, compe-
tency in reection on individual and cultural models (p. 256).
The education of students must assume an interdisciplinary
approach, i.e. demonstrating various aspects of knowledge con-
nected by the denominator of environmental protection and the
development of economic resources. The education of sustain-
ability must be designed in wider interdisciplinary contexts,
methodologies and disciplines, from biological, through social n-
ishing with the arts and humanities (Burton and Dlouha, 2011;
Agenda 21). Here trans-disciplinarity entails lack of a dominating
discipline and exibility in joining different disciplines:
[.] The Sustainable University project can be described as an
actor- and problem-oriented project, and as a discipline-
spanning project. In order to do justice to the diversity of
116 C. Ko
scielniak / Journal of Cleaner Production 62 (2014) 114e119
different subject perspectives, a differentiated approach is used
in the research process e neither making abstract, metatheor-
etical generalizations nor giving precedence to any one domi-
nant discipline (Adomssent et al.,, 2007, p. 393).
Another sphere of the universitys inuence in the context of SD
is the administration of the university. In his entrepreneurial uni-
versities research Burton Clark noted that universities should nd
entrepreneurial solutions for their departments and research
groups (Clark, 2000). A university, as any other public institution,
adopts corporation activities like a material suppliers and technical
staff provide food and ofce supplies for the campus, they organise
refuse collection, etc. Corporation actions permit the administra-
tion of a sustainable development policy. The university has
therefore the possibility of choosing a company, which at the same
time allows for the realization of a green administration while
maintaining effectiveness. A crucial issue is also the administration
of research grant acquisition, where research concerning sustain-
able development will constitute a priority.
The next aspect of cooperation is the third mission, i.e. the
universitys mission in relation to external stakeholders, especially
in relation to the regions (see: Arbo and Benneworth, 2007;
Ko
scielniak, 2012). These are local communities, the social envi-
ronment, local businesses beneting from the universitys work,
etc. The third mission will mean a commitment to projects real-
ized with local communities, where the university could support
certain activities with its knowledge and authority.
Last but not least, another important area of activity is indi-
vidual activities of the faculty and students. These entail the
participation of individual lecturers and research groups, students,
as well as the initiatives of university institutions within the scope
of sustainable development. These activities can often contribute to
the emergence of a new idea or research project (Table 1).
Concluding this part of the considerations, the sustainable
change in the university, means a multifactor transformation, which
includes a mission, the processes of education, relation with
external stakeholders, management and extracurricular activities.
These factors are related to the idea of the sustainable development.
One of the most signicant examples of sustainable change is Leu-
phana University in Germany, where research and education pro-
cesses, and the entire academic culture were successful transformed
to sustainable change. This case could be labelled the Leuphana
effect, with a deep impact on the internal (academic) and external
stakeholders after the implementation of the sustainable change.
3. The sustainable university and the processes of
modernization
The table also indicates a sustainability implementation strategy
for higher education. Here it is important to refer to the Adomssent
Table 1
Sustainable elds of activities in universities.
University mission Education and research
Application of the SD values New vocational courses, e.g.
energy management,
sustainable communication
Application of the SD strategy Change in methodology
through top down method (transdisciplinarity) campus
Acceptance by the authorities Special education training,
of the implementation of SD e.g. childrens university suppliers
strategy third-age university.
Priority for funding research
concerning SD
Source: author.
and Beringer (2008) discussion when it refers to the method of
implementing sustainable changes on the campus. The authors
proposed the top down strategy, derived from the mission of the
university and the implementation of the change of its manage-
ment. Adomssent and Beringer (2008) have resolved this issue in
the following way:
As such, sustainable university projects remain the exception
among greening the campus initiatives. Aiming to work on
implementing sustainability principles and practice in both
subsystems, simultaneously, sustainable university work rec-
ognizes the value of top-down approaches e institutional
sustainability declarations, for instance, as well as bottom-up
initiatives e in the form of individual campaigns, initiatives and
projects, such as an energy reduction campaign or implement-
ing an environmental management system (p. 610).
It is worth noting that the bottom up strategy is weaker, as it
does not have to be necessarily based on institutional factors, but
on others, as, for example, the personality of individuals, or the
current demand for a specic strategy. The top down strategy is
based on institutionalised forms of action, is potentially stronger. It
seems that the authors overestimate the bottom up tasks. There
would be no student activity indicated by them, nor a Leuphana
effect without an institutional strategy, which built the ofcial, as
well as the hidden agenda triggering these actions. But then, in-
dividual actions enter into the institutions structure with great
difculty, and without the institutional support they remain prac-
tically with no inuence. This happens especially at the larger
universities, where many thousands of people study, and several
thousand faculty and staff are employed.
Post-communism universities in Europe full yet another role:
modernisation. They form new ideas and cultural models, which
presumably encourage innovative thinking. Nonetheless, this is not
a practical role, but rst and foremost, a cultural one. Although
research indicates a continuation of the relationship between in-
dustry and academic entrepreneurship (see: Clark, 1998; Zal and
Ptacek, 2012), the area of business is, however, something
different to that of the acquisition of knowledge, which is why
initiatives are located particularly on the cultural, and not economic
level. In post-transformational countries, which went from
communist subordination to democracy and built a free-market
economy, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and
Hungary, sustainable development is a socially and culturally
difcult challenge, often unaccepted. The OECD (2011) report on
green development mentions the following tasks, which Poland
should achieve realizing sustainable economy project using EFS
funds:
This could be achieved by using ESF Funds to: Create and build
a data collection system; Strengthen green public and corporate
Management Regional mission Individual activities at the
university units
Green infrastructure in campus, Common sustainable projects, Individual projects of the
e.g. water & energy saving programs, e.g. improvement of cycling faculty and students
infrastructure for cyclists, etc. infrastructure in city)
Promotion of the health food in Participatory research with The networks of the
stakeholders from local researchers in the area
communities of SD
Cooperation with sustainable Public scholarship: open The individual contribution
lectures and coaching into Departments, e.g. books,
addressed at the region articles
 C. Ko
scielniak / Journal of Cleaner Production 62 (2014) 114e119
procurement; Enhance green standards; Conduct energy audits;
Facilitate access to capital; Build institutional capacities; Provide
green entrepreneurship programmes; Classify skills and provide
tailored training; Raise awareness of the green economy (p. 16).
Have these objectives been achieved in Poland? The next section
provides the answer to this question through the case study of two
universities: Warsaw University and Adam Mickiewicz University
in Poznan.
4. Sustainable development and Polish transformations of
higher education
When involved with higher education in the context of sus-
tainable development in Poland, it has to be said immediately that
the most important legal acts, reports and audits do not refer to this
issue. Poland cannot wait for the Leuphana effect, a restructuring
of the university administration in order to full in a systematised
way the needs dened even by the Millennium Declaration. Here
our attention is drawn to the institutional-legal conditions of the
implementation of SD in Polish universities, disregarding cultural
and social factors, demanding separate study and analysis. How-
ever, from the beginning we have to point out that the law, as stated
above, does not refer to the issue of sustainable development, thus
only the possible application of changes, which could entail will be
indicated. In other words, comparing the undertakings and
implementations in other countries will reect on the effect this
application for change could bring to the Polish reality and its
passage through a Polish act of law.
The signicance of the Law of Higher Education is crucial for
Polish universities. According to the Polish Law on Higher
Education, tertiary education institutions e both public and pri-
vate e depend on the countrys politics. The system is centralised,
the principal actor in any changes is the Ministry of Science and
Higher Education. The Ministry shapes the framework of the
curricula, the path of an academic career, and supervises the State
Accreditation Council. It is also responsible for the main institutions
for nancing the research projects e the National Center of Science
and National Center for Research and Development are state
directed and are nanced by the government. The university issues
a diploma recognised in Poland. Therefore, the act, the Law of
Higher Education, is a special driving initiative which determines
the actions of the university, staff, students, educational pro-
grammes and all the organizational matters involved. The Act of the
Law of Higher Education was passed on July 27th, 2005, and the last
amendment was accepted in 2011.
A fundamental change in relation to the earlier status is the
possibility of employing external experts as lecturers. The Act
meets the needs of creating knowledge together with practical
experience halfway, which is especially important in the case of SD.
Environmental projects in Europe are based in a large part on NGOs
and local communities. For instance, it is impossible to realize a
program for the protection of green zones without the support
from nongovernmental stakeholders; it is impossible to engage the
campus in this based only on a university department without
practical commitment. Support from active non-governmental
representatives, e.g. for environmental protection, would be
indispensable here. In the case of SD these experts could be rep-
resentatives of organizations committed to environmental protec-
tion, sustainable business, or artists using this idea in their work.
Even though a year has passed since the amendment, this mecha-
nism has been used rarely, if at all. The Polish Ministry of Science
and Higher Education provides no data for its application.
Furthermore, the act draws attention to the need for a voca-
tional focus for students. The mechanism relies on the fact that
117
within the Bologna process in the new settlement the university
can itself create detailed specializations. Here also SD creates a
substantial chance, as the market of traditional curricula has been
exhausted. Sustainability allowing for environmental education,
especially engaging the social and humanistic sciences department,
is able to enrich the offer. Environmental process management
experts, with experts also from the eld of social activities, creating
sustainable communities, or solving social environmental prob-
lems (e.g. sustainable water management, energy management,
sustainable communication studies) can certainly offer an inno-
vative offer of courses of study.
The two aforementioned changes to the act open the legal path
for implementing sustainable changes in Polish universities. Of
course, the amendments to the Act on their own are not enough;
they provide, however, possibilities for universities to implement
sustainable changes. Nevertheless, apart from the Act of Law
essential representations for forming Polish higher education are
strategies, especially from the Polish Academic School Rector
Conference (Polish: Konferencja Rektorw Akademickich Szk1
Polskich e KRASP). Before the implementation of the amendment
to the law Ernst & Young (as requested by the Ministry of Science
and Higher Education) and KRASP prepared reports on the state of
Polish higher education as well as scenarios for strategic activities
_
(Fulton et al., 2011; Strategia rozwoju szkolnictwa wyzszego, 2009).
What is interesting, in the reports created 3 years prior to the
conference in Rio in 2012 and in the face of increasingly common
environmental trends in the world, neither institution took a stand
on sustainable development (in the Ernst & Young report this
notion has been introduced with a completely different meaning:
the relationship between the division of subsidies in higher edu-
cation) (Diagnoza stanu szkolnictwa wyzszego_ w Polsce, 2009).
According to previous considerations, the implementation of the
sustainability in Polish universities was placed in the area of in-
dividual activities. The other areas, such as university mission,
education & research, management and regional activities have
not been fullled. The lack of a reference for sustainable develop-
ment in ofcial documents demonstrates signicantly how irrele-
vant this problem in Polish higher education seems to be. This is not
the place for an analysis of the reasons behind this state of affairs;
nonetheless, we can say that at its core lies a weak culture of sus-
tainable development in Poland, and what also follows, in the
agendas dealing with higher education.
5. The case of the University of Warsaw and the Adam
Mickiewicz University in Poznan

A demonstration of the state of sustainable development
implementation in Polish higher education can be seen in the cases
of the University of Warsaw and the Adam Mickiewicz University in
Poznan
. In the case of the University of Warsaw an example of
educational activities will be shown. In the case of the Adam
Mickiewicz University in Poznan
we will demonstrate aspects of
sustainable management. The University of Warsaw is the leading
institution of knowledge in Poland. In 2011 it employed 3211
people. In 2011 the university received 315.373.679 PLN (over 73
million Euro) for research. 290 doctoral dissertations defences and
60 post-doctoral dissertations were conducted in 2011 at the UW
(Annual Report of UW, 2011, p. 57). In 2011 the university was
ranked: In the Shanghai Ranking in the 300e350 group, in the The
World Universities Ranking at level 301e350. 51803 students
studied at the University of Warsaw in 2011, of which 63.4% were
full-time, with 36.6% extramural studies. In the University of War-
saw annual report there is no mention of sustainable development.
The University Centre for Environmental Studies was estab-
lished in 1989, as an inter-departmental and interdisciplinary
118 C. Ko
scielniak / Journal of Cleaner Production 62 (2014) 114e119
education and research centre, dealing with the promotion of
ecological knowledge. The Centres council consists of representa-
tives of the natural world and social departments: economy, law,
history, geography and regional studies. The centre is committed
above all to educational activities. It organizes monthly seminars,
debates, and presents news about sustainable development in the
world. It collaborates with international organisations, such as the
British Council, which coordinates international programmes. For
many years the centre has been organising regular interdisciplinary
lectures and discussions. It works on the basis of the bottom up
method. Students and lecturers can join its programmes voluntarily
but the centre does not offer mandatory courses for students, or
doctoral seminars (as it does not possess the rights for it). We
therefore have a paradox: on the one hand, research by the centres
employees are of an international nature (with evidence: publica-
tions, grants, participation in conferences and international part-
ners, e.g. the British Council), on the other hand, this potential is not
exploited in the universitys structure.
The Adam Mickiewicz University is the third largest research
university in Poland, located in Poznan
in the Wielkopolska region.
In 2011 it employed 2993 academic teachers. 189 people attained a
doctoral degree. In 2011 the AMU received 18.705.935 PLN for
research (less than 20 million Euro). In the Webometrics Ranking
of World Universities, the AMU was placed at position 381. 44,889
students started the academic year 2011/2012 (AMU, 2011 Annual
Report). Similar to Warsaw, the AMU annual report does not
mention the issue of sustainable development.
The Adam Mickiewicz University has no specialised research
centre focused on sustainable development. The subject matter of
sustainable development is touched upon in individual and not
centralised lectures (the environmental protection course). There
is, however, no integrated educational programme in this direction.
The AMU does not monitor the results of sustainable develop-
ment, therefore the management at this level can only be judged
based on collected partial data. A study of culture students group
under the supervision of Cezary Ko
scielniak collected data about
sustainable development at the university concerning the topics of:
healthy food on the campus, energy economy and waste sorting. The
groups worked on individual cases using interviews and participated
observation. The results of their work were presented during a poster
session. The students examining the quality of the canteens noticed a
lack of special food, for diabetics, and on par with quality food, fast
food was available. There is, however, a more general problem: the
university leaves the quality of services, including health issues, to
external companies (Brzezicka et al., 2012). The university puts no
pressure on the food policy, nor does it monitor the quality of the
served meals and the products used for their preparation.
Another group collected and interpreted data concerning en-
ergy economy on the campus with the example of the Collegium
Historicum of Adam Mickiewicz University. The main undertaking
of this department was the exchange of light bulbs for energy-
saving bulbs, along with changing to compact taps, in the name
of Energy and water saving practices in the university de-
partments (Grudziecka-Waschman et al., 2012). The students
established that the management of the Collegium Historicum
independently took care of the exchange of light bulbs in favour of
energy-saving bulbs, and installed water-saving compact taps.
Nevertheless, this constitutes a change according to the bottom up
method, and was neither dictated by the departments policy, nor
publicly announced. The students noticed that this change would
be an opportunity for informational activity encouraging the
responsible use of energy and water. This, however, has not been
undertaken. Another group collected information on the waste
sorting system (Pilarska et al., 2012). The students established that
there are waste sorting bins, but in inaccessible places, whereas in
accessible places there are general bins for all kinds of waste. This
indicates zero effectiveness in waste sorting in the departments.
Information collected by the students has shown that the AMU
does not follow the unied sustainable management policy, and
applies a typical bottom up strategy, but also that there are no
appointed people taking responsibility for these procedures. It has
to be emphasised, however, that the case of the AMU is typical for
most Polish universities.
Even though the case of Warsaw concerns educational issues,
and the case of Poznan
concerns management issues, the one thing
the two have in common is the application of the bottom up
strategy, and through this the low signicance of the issue of sus-
tainable development. This constitutes a serious problem: both
universities are huge knowledge enterprises, through which
thousands of students and employees, thousands of initiatives and
several different organizational cultures pass through each year. In
such large institutions it is impossible to succeed with a bottom up
strategy which would reach the level of a strategy for the entire
university. This means that the opportunities for sustainable
development remain inactive: both at the level of education and of
management. Neither university mentions sustainable develop-
ment in their annual reports, neither created special procedures
which would allow for their monitoring and evaluation.
6. Conclusions
The aim of this study was to indicate (1) the possible ways of a
sustainable transformation of a university, (2) the selected obsta-
cles to the implementation of this change in the cases of selected
activities of the two leading Polish universities: University of
Warsaw and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. The rst
conclusion is that, a sustainable movement has not yet occurred in
Polish universities. Furthermore, a serious discussion about the role
of sustainability in higher education in Poland has not started yet.
However, any future changes would have to take into account the
specic construction of the centralized Polish higher education
system. This area is strongly regulated by the Law of Higher Edu-
cation, which determines the fundamental issues concerning the
activities of Polish knowledge institutions. Actually, the sustainable
strategy for higher education is not a priority for the government,
as well as for those who make the changes in higher education
policy. Therefore, the second conclusion is that, the implementa-
tion of SD is recommended to be included in the act of law through
the top down process. This issue has also to be taken into
consideration by the strategic actors involved in the change, mainly
the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. However, only
change incentives embedded in the Law of Higher Education could
have an efcient impact on any serious change in Poland.
Presented considerations should be continued in the future sur-
veys. Important research task is nding an appropriate relation be-
tween the needs of sustainability on national and the level and Polish
institution of knowledge. Another necessary survey is a comparative
study of the obstacles of sustainable education in postcommunist
countries, as well as, the analyses of the successful implementation
of sustainable transformations of selective universities.
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