Chapter 2: The European Higher Education Area and Its Sustainable Development Agenda

This chapter is based on the authors’ recent paper¹ and provides an updated perspective of how the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has shaped its approach to sustainable development (SD) in international policy since 2020, situating this within broader debates about global governance and soft power. Despite increasing attention to SD within higher education, there remains a significant gap in research focused specifically on the EHEA’s evolving role in this area. Addressing this, the chapter draws on the framework of policy governance as orchestration to analyse 10 EHEA policy documents and interview data from stakeholders in France, Germany and Italy. Through this extended empirical investigation, the authors identify three core dynamics: the EHEA’s emerging role as a vehicle for strengthening the United Nations’ SD agenda, the translation of existing weaknesses in UN-led SD governance into EHEA policymaking and the EHEA’s tentative progression towards a more defined SD agenda. The authors show how the EHEA invokes SD rhetorically but continues to lack a coherent implementation strategy or shared understanding of the concept. Building on these findings, the authors offer three forward-looking recommendations: the need for a clear, operational definition of SD; a broadening of policy dialogue beyond Eurocentric frameworks; and a stronger engagement with academic research in EHEA policy design. In doing so, the chapter contributes original insights to ongoing discussions about SD in European and global higher education.