Mapping Efforts in Polish Higher Education to Tackle Climate Change
摘要
This study aims to map efforts undertaken in the Polish higher education sector to tackle climate change. Accordingly, the chapter examines each of the three levels of higher education (macro, meso and micro) separately because they are, to a large degree, autonomous and driven by different rules and actors. Overall, the study presents a rather gloomy picture of the Polish higher education sector being politically and institutionally unengaged in addressing one of the biggest crises for humanity. The analysis shows that the government’s interest in tackling climate change is modest and limited to the political commitments stemming from the European Union (EU) membership. Further, policy initiatives and financial resources focus mostly on private businesses as vehicles for the transformation of the energy sector. Universities too, as public institutions, seem to be still rather immune to growing external calls for more reboots of engagement in tackling climate change. Instead, they pay considerable attention to reputational games driven by international global rankings. However, the study does provide some hope for the future in the ample and continuously increasing interest of individual academics and research teams in pursuing problems related to climate change.