Abstract

The twenty-first century has brought new challenges that demand major shifts both in the way we see the world and how we live. Sustainability (as a complex combination of ecological, cultural, economic, and political factors that must be considered together) needs to become a central component of higher education. The importance of sustainability as a curricular component in the design field has been recognized by most educational structures and has started to be implemented to varying degrees and effects across a number of universities worldwide. Yet, it is clear that there is space for research and improvement since a number of issues remain. These include institutional barriers, the absence of cohesive educational frameworks, as well as a lack of research, investigation, and assessment of existing initiatives. Previous research highlighted strategies and methods for a better implementation of sustainability as a curricular component, such as prioritizing place-based learning, active learning, critical reflection, interdisciplinary approaches as well as the necessity of engaging with the students in the process of developing learning strategies. While this research constitutes considerable progress in the field, it is of limited scope as the effect of the proposed strategies and methods has not been clearly investigated. With a focus on design, this article aims to review the literature to highlight the current research gaps in the field of sustainability in higher education. It emphasizes the crucial importance of research in successfully implementing sustainability to higher education curricula and proposes guidelines to address the gap between current research and curriculum design.