We are pleased to announce that the 16th annual conference of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) will be hosted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in the Unidad de Seminarios, located at the Ecological Reserve of Pedregal de San Angel, at UNAM's main campus in Mexico City.

UNAM is the largest and one of the most prestigious universities in México and Latin America.

Aim of the Conference

The conference aim is the discussion and reflection on the roles that universities can play in the strengthening of socio-ecological resilience within their campuses and broader communities. The ISCN aspires to deliver exceptional content in highly interactive, engaging, and participatory conferences that focus on whole-institution sustainability in higher education.

ISCN Mission

The mission of the ISCN is to provide an international forum to support higher education institutions in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching.

Conference Concept and Overview

The 2023 conference will explore and reflect on the role that universities have played and can play to foster resilience within their campuses and communities, but also in their wider socio-ecological contexts.

Communities, institutions, and ecosystems are facing critical and urgent challenges because of the devastating environmental changes the world is experiencing. These challenges and threats are also related to increasing poverty, inequality, and political instability in many regions of the world. From a comprehensive perspective, resilience refers to the capacities of socio-ecological systems to address these challenges and reduce the levels of vulnerability in individuals, societies, and ecosystems.

Resilience building in higher education institutions, an urgent need in all regions around the world, is even more pressing in the developing world, where processes of environmental deterioration tend to be more extreme and where universities are often some of the most trustable and ecologically and socially committed institutions.

The conference will aim to discuss and share experiences on the strategies that institutions can implement to build resilience, considering the substantive functions of universities in teaching, research, campus management, and community engagement.

Call for proposals

We are delighted to invite interested parties to submit proposals for conference sessions and poster presentations. We encourage proposals that offer new and innovative approaches in terms of engagement and participation, in order to have a high degree of interactivity.

The submission deadline is February 28, 2023. The deadline has been extended to March 27 for Latin American universities.

Criteria for Selection

The following criteria will guide the selection process.

• ISCN Members are given priority to present
• Relevance to the ISCN’s mission
• Compelling and clear objectives, format and intended outcomes
• Sessions that are designed to give all participants the chance to contribute are strongly recommended