The last months have no doubt been a new experience for us all. Also Higher Education institutions around the world are facing a number of significant challenges due to this outbreak. The sudden change has impacted on many institutions ability to undertake learning, teaching and research. It certainly impacted our schedule and activities in the framework of the University Alliance for Sustainability. Our core understanding of providing personal networking experiences for sustainability professionals in research, teaching and management is challenged by the current circumstances. At the same time, we have been thinking and working for a long time on a digitalization strategy for our network. The question on how to best build resilient international network structures has been a focus of our thinking in the past years. Our main event the - UAS Spring Campus Conference – has become more and more digital in recent years, including live streams and virtual keynotes. Yet, we had not yet dared to take the plunge and go fully digital. Personal interactions, the facilitated exchange of stakeholders who would normally not meet (e.g. science and management; different disciplines) are at the heart of our networking conference. But our motto is: Say Yes to New Adventures!

Behind the scenes we are currently working full steam to design a virtual event that is more than just a series of webinars. Our conference will focus on ❶ Knowledge & Content ❷ Network & Community ❸ Transfer & Outreach. To this end, we are planning a mix of digital content and smaller, regional events, and get-togethers at our partner universities. Stay tuned!

We are committed and enthusiastic to make the conference happen in 2020 – it is at the heart of our cooperation and we want to continue our fruitful networking activities in 2020. We will share a concept for the digital conference with you in the near future and look forward to co-create the event with our partners and the UAS community!

For now mark the second half of October in your calendars and check our UAS Conference Website of continous updates.