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The first phase of ‘A Rounder Sense of Purpose’ (RSP) was funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme from 2015 to 2018. The project partners developed and tested a framework of competences for educators – of any discipline – who wish to educate for sustainable development. This was already an important contribution to the international debate on educator competences. Calls for a more sustainable model of development have become ever more urgent and there is wide recognition that education will have a pivotal role to play in achieving this. Many teachers and other educators are, however, ill prepared for this role. What it means to be an educator for sustainability has not, until recently, been defined in clear terms. An earlier framework developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) defined 39 educator competences for education for sustainable development (ESD) but this proved too unwieldy for most educators to work with, hence the significance of developing an accessible and workable competence framework. The second phase of this project (RSP II) set out to: - Develop and implement the RSP framework for different phases of education aligning it with the SDGs and related international development;- draw upon and contribute to research to tackle deep-rooted that could not be addressed fully in Phase I;- provide a tangible and accessible legacy in the form of a book that would include the theory and practice behind the RSP framework.Each of the project’s eight partners became immersed in the task of implementing the RSP framework in a range of contexts. These include: -Student educators (UK; Netherlands; Switzerland)-Higher education tutors (Spain; Germany; Netherlands)-Tutors of student educators (Netherlands; Switzerland)-Community educators (Italy)-Primary school teachers (Netherlands; Cyprus)-Primary school principals (Cyprus)-All teachers via a national programme of compulsory continuing professional development (Hungary)In this way, the RSP framework has become permanently integrated, either whole or in part, into a range of programmes that have reached several thousand individual educators. This work, together with an extensive mapping exercise using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), led to the creation of a large database of activities linking RSP competences and specific SDGs that could be used with different age phases. All of this is searchable and feely available through the RSP website: https://aroundersenseofpurpose.eu/ This constitutes Intellectual Output 1. Alongside this work, partners conducted research that has led to a string of publications in line with our proposed Intellectual Output 2. This exceeded our expectations of ten peer-reviewed papers and/or conference papers several times over (see dissemination list). Thirdly, the production of the book (Intellectual Output 3) provided an opportunity for partners to showcase their work alongside other key researchers in the field. The book, being published by Springer, forms part of their series on the SDGs and promises to make a significant contribution to the field. The book is in English with French and Spanish versions available in PDF form via the RSP website. In Phase I we realised that it was currently not possible to create a Europe-wide qualification so in Phase II we have worked to embed RSP into accredited programmes so that it underpins qualifications in each partner country. This has led to every partner finding ways to embed RSP into modules or whole programmes while in Hungary and Cyprus it now underpins national professional development programmes for all teachers. Our aim in Phase II was to broaden and deepen engagement with the RSP competences among new audiences both within our partner countries and beyond. Again, we have been pleased to see how our efforts have been rewarded with widespread recognition of the framework. As RSP has continued to be disseminated across the EU and beyond, various translations have been made in support of programmes external to our own. The basic framework has so far been translated into 17 languages (Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Catalan, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian). Finally, the work of RSP was showcased across the higher and further education sectors by becoming the winner of the 2020 Green Gown Award and the International Green Gown Award in the category ‘Learning and Skills for the Next Generation’.
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