I was in Sydney on Monday to address the Annual Presidents’ Meeting of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities – a grouping of major centres of learning and research from right around the Pacific Rim. I spoke on the relevance of the SDGs to the Asia Pacific, noting that income inequality has been rising and that the “grow now, clean up later” approach to development has left the region with major environmental challenges. That makes a focus on SDG 10 on significantly reducing inequities and on the three environment SDGs on climate change and on ocean and land based ecosystems especially important.

I suggested that universities could help drive progress on the SDGs through their dedication to education (SDG 4), through cross disciplinary research to support meeting the complex and interlinked goals, through support for evidence-based policy making and monitoring and evaluation of progress, and through advocacy. Universities have high status in society, and their voices are listened to. <a href="APRU 26 June 2017APRU 26 June 2017