The Global Knowledge Value Chain on Sustainability: Addressing Fragmentations through International Academic Partnerships

Bettina Schorr, Marianne Braig, Barbara Fritz and Brigitta Schütt
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Bettina Schorr: Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Marianne Braig: Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Barbara Fritz: Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Brigitta Schütt: Physical Geography, Department of Earth Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Malteser Str. 74-100, Haus H, 12249 Berlin, Germany

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-20

Abstract: While research on universities’ role in sustainability transitions has flourished in recent years, explorations into the potential of academic internationalization for the promotion of sustainability transitions are still rare. This article aims at contributing to this incipient literature by emphasizing an underexplored property of international academic networks and transnational academic cooperation: their potential to break disciplinary and geographical barriers in the global debates on how transitions towards sustainability can be achieved. When realizing this potential, international partnerships are able to provide more comprehensive knowledge to inform sustainability transitions while shaping sustainability transitions in various places at the same time. This article pursues three objectives: First, it introduces the concept of the “global knowledge value chain on sustainability” and explores its value as a heuristic to understand global knowledge production relevant for sustainability transitions. Furthermore, it identifies two fragmentations in this chain resulting from global inequalities and specific dynamics within the global science community. Second, it confirms empirically the fragmentations of this global knowledge value chain on sustainability. Third, it provides good practice ideas on how international academic partnerships can overcome these fragmentations by drawing on the authors’ experience with the international partnership “trAndeS—Postgraduate Program on Social Inequalities and Sustainable Development in the Andean Region” carried out by the Institute of Latin American Studies of Freie Universität Berlin and the Department of Social Sciences of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru (PUCP).

Keywords: academic cooperation; global knowledge value chains; higher education; inequalities; internationalization; sustainability transitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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