DE MONTFORT University Leicester’s role as a global academic hub for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is about much more than just educating students and staff of their importance in creating a fairer and better world.
The role is also about educating its alumni and the wider community in the city of Leicester and beyond, which includes new arrivals such as asylum seekers and refugees.
DMU has been the global academic hub for SDG 16 Peace Justice and Strong Institutions since 2019 and, it was confirmed in December 2024, that the university will become the global academic hub chair for SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities from January 2025.
It is the only university in the UK to ever be a UN global academic hub.
The university has put the SDGs at the forefront of all its work and that includes its dedicated outreach programmes in the community, which all have an element of SDG education.
DMU has created a physical space in its Heritage House complex, in Leicester city centre, for use by students, staff, alumni and the wider community.
The SDG Impact Hub holds regular events and is the focal point for the university’s work as a global academic hub.
All our work is about SDG education
The head of the SDG Impact Hub, Associate Professor Dr Mark Charlton, said: “As a university, we have recognised the importance of the SDGs at a strategic and leadership level. The SDGs are part of our strategic vision as an Empowerment University.
“We have been working with our alumni and the wider community for the past decade across hundreds of outreach programmes during that time and all have an element of education on the SDGs.
“All our events and volunteering programmes are open to our alumni, who regularly take part in our outreach programme in Leicester.”
DMU has been working with asylum seekers and refugees since the Syrian crisis of 2015 and that work continues with Project Atefa, a programme aimed at changing the negative narrative around forced migration through individual storytelling.
Dr Charlton added: “These programmes while helping communities are also about educating those communities on the SDGs.”
One of those outreach projects in 2024 has been Football for the Goals, a United Nations project that harnesses the popularity of sport to increase awareness of the SDGs.
DMU has been working with the city’s amateur football club Leicester Nirvana, which has 1,000 boys and girls playing regularly and operates in one of Britain’s most deprived communities.
Students and alumni have been at a series of club events helping out and also talking to the young footballers about climate change and the SDGs with inter-active games, competitions, surveys and quizzes.
Hundreds of other school children have been educated on the SDGs through events held under the university’s Widening Participation programme and the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre.
The value of the SDG Impact Hub
In 2024, the DMU-organised Big River Clean-up involved students, alumni and community groups working at several sites on Leicester’s River Soar and Grand Union Canal cleaning plastic and other rubbish from the waterways and its banks.
Dr Charlton added: “Everything we do here at the SDG Impact Hub and across the university generally is about educating people on the SDGs.
“The value of a physical space is important because community groups meeting at our SDG Impact Hub have their interest piqued by all the signage and literature and ask questions about sustainability and the SDGs.
“All our alumni events include an element of SDG education and the newsletter to the thousands of former graduates includes constant references to the SDGs and our global hub status.
“It is the same with asylum seekers and refugees we work with, all those cannot fail to be aware of the SDGs and their importance – we make sure of that.”
DMU has always worked closely with its local authority, Leicester City Council on the SDGs and that was recognised with the granting of global academic hub chair status for SDG 11 Sustainable Cities in December 2024.
The council has itself made a formal commitment of support for the SDGs and in 2024 issued its Climate Ready Leicester Residents’ Guide to its 400,000 citizens. The local authority had previously declared a Climate Emergency.
DMU student and alumni volunteers on the Big River Clean-up in Leicester
A youngster taking part in the SDG survey at Leicester Nirvana with DMU volunteers