RUS - Italian University Network for Sustainable Development

The Italian University Network for Sustainable Development (RUS) is the first project for coordination and sharing among all Italian universities committed to the issues of environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

It was formally established at the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) in July 2016 and the University of Bologna was one of the organising universities.

The main purpose of RUS is to spread the culture of sustainability and good practices with the aim of increasing the positive impact in terms of environmental, ethical, social and economic actions which are currently implemented by each university. By sharing expertise and experiences, it also aims to strengthen the recognisability and the value of the Italian experience on an international level.

The RUS is also intended to be a model of good practice to be extended to other sectors of public administration, education and the general territory, incentivising the development of partnerships between universities and cities, spreading social innovation throughout the territory and providing cultural stimuli for the entire country system.

The main institutional objectives of the network are:

• training and continuing professional development for all the staff of Italian universities (teaching and professional staff) as well as for teachers and professors from different levels of education;
• creation and sharing of initiatives on the issue of campus sustainability and new planning ability, in the field of scientific research and technology transfer, and in university leadership and management (e.g. research on implementing the Sustainable Development Goals);
• dissemination and transfer among members of best practices and inputs provided by international networks;
• creation of an inter-university community that can adequately represent Italian universities at international level;
• promotion of projects that have already been successfully tested both inside and outside the universities in other organisations (e.g. living labs for cities);
• implementation of a common and shared system for monitoring the environmental and social performance of universities;
• development of the educational dimension of university programmes in order to guide students towards a positive lifestyle.