Collaborations and the open exchange of ideas are the only way to make progress towards our common goals. In 2018, Indiana University (IU) became a founding member of the U.S. chapter of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), an alliance of U.S. universities working together to create global sustainable societies.
To that end, IU invited six international partner universities across the world to join forces to delve into the issues surrounding the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The partners‘ main goals are to motivate students across the world to engage thinking about and acting on SDGs and their surrounding topics to come up with innovative ideas and solutions to contribute to a more sustainable and just world.
At the heart of the network’s activities lies a research poster competition that focuses on the SDGs and a jointly organized forum. Each year, the partners jointly choose one of the 17 SDGs for a research poster competition for students and young researchers at their institutions. Each institution hosts parallel the poster competition and chooses their own winners. Following the competition, the partners provide winning students the opportunity to present their innovative and forward-thinking ideas and solutions at the jointly organized Global Partners Research Forum.