DE MONTFORT University collaborates with a whole series of organisations in tackling work on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The university’s volunteering programme is centred on the SDGs, researchers have to make a commitment to align their work to the Goals, and DMU’s Education for Sustainable Development centre provides a whole series of resources for students and staff on the SDGs.
The SDGs and sustainability are enshrined with the university’s long-term strategy as a cross-cutting theme that HAS to be taken into account when planning and delivering all aspects of university life.
Student volunteering
All volunteering run by the university has to align to the United Nations SDGs and give the students information and educate them on the goals, their aims and targets.
DMU’s SDG Impact Hub delivers a whole series of volunteering and student awareness events during November and December to coincide with the COP climate change talks by world leaders.
In 2025 during COP 30 in Brazil, the university ran more than 20 events concentrated on raising awareness of tackling the SDGs to both students and staff.
There are also volunteer project that run all year round through the university's Students Union (DSU) and Community Engagement programme.
The Project Atefa volunteer programme sees students work with refugees and asylum seekers in the city, sharing their often-harrowing stories to help change the negative narrative surrounding forced migration. The project was one of the cornerstones of DMU’s work as the global hub for SDG 16 and continued in 2025..
Student volunteers on the project also organised a Christmas Party in 2025 for more than 100 children from the families of refugees and asylum seekers.
The Football for the Goals programme sees student volunteers working with a local club, Leicester Nirvana, who are attempting to become the first net zero amateur sports club. Student volunteers attend events and talk to youngster at the club about the importance of the SDGs
DMU works with the United Nations, which hopes to harness the popularity of sport to tackle and raise awareness of the SDGs. The university has created an international network of amateur football clubs across Europe, Africa, and Asia who share best practice.
Research
All of DMU’s research programmes have to commit to the SDGs and align their work towards one or several of the goals.
There has been a particular emphasis on SDG 16 because of the university’s global academic hub status over the six years from 2019-2024.
One of the biggest programmes has been ImpleMendez, which is chaired by DMU Professor Dave Walsh, and by the end of 2025 involved more than 50 countries in helping to prevent miscarriages of justice.
It is an international project to improve the way in which suspects are interviewed and end unethical interrogations and now has more than 200 members since being set up in late 2023.
Educational resources
DMU has led the way in teaching sustainability for more than 40 years since its Masters programmes in the Institute of Energy and Sustainable and has now embedded the SDGs in a total of 220 modules across the university cirrciculum.
DMU collaborators with the SOS-UK (Students Organising for Sustainability) group for its annual SDG Teach-in, where universities across the world aim to make links to one or more of the SDGs within their taught courses.
In 2025, more than 94 institutions took part across 17 countries on five continents, 1,028 educators were involved and more than 118,00 students reached.
DMU won the gold medal and was the number one university in the world for the number of educators who pledged to include the SDGs in their course and the number of students reached by the sessions.
Students also get the chance to attend carbon literacy training and become Climate Ambassadors to raise the profiles of SDGs across the campus.