The University’s efforts to fight the climate crisis are incorporated across everything we do, including work to reduce carbon emissions and embed sustainability into research, teaching and governance, operations, and partnerships. This includes the work we do in the OER Service and with our Online Course Production Service colleagues.

Since 2015 the OER Service has collaborated with Geoscience’s Outreach (GO) course, where students create educational projects with community clients, and then work with our summer student interns to curate an exceptional collection of high quality OERs into an accessible collection on the TES platform. This curated collection now consists of 59 OERs, packaged for teacher’s ease, on wide ranging scientific, environmental, and climate conscious topics for ages 3-18.

Read more about our collaboration with Geoscience Outreach

In 2021 when the UK hosted the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow we have put together a list of open educational resources (OERs) and free short courses relating to “Environment and Sustainability” to be used by teachers or individuals. The number of educational resources on environment and sustainability topics has since grown as we continue to create educational materials of value for teachers and students.

Read more about our environment and sustainability resources

In 2023 the Online Course Production Service, with support from the OER Service, received a Social Responsibility and Sustainability Changemaker Award for increasing the accessibility and sustainability of educational materials, offering opportunities for individuals to learn about issues such as climate change.

Read more about the Social Responsibility and Sustainability Changemaker Award

In 2022 the University’s efforts to fight the climate crisis have been recognised with an international award. The International Sustainable Campus Network named the University the winner of its ‘whole systems approach’ award. The prize recognises work to reduce carbon emissions and embed sustainability into research, teaching and governance, operations, and partnerships. It comes just weeks after the University was ranked 29th in the world for its contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Watch the video below to hear Principal and Vice-Chancellor Peter Mathieson speak about the activities being undertaken across the University, including the work of the OER Service, to support sustainability.

Learn more about the Whole University approach to sustainability