Sustainable Development — a Competence for the Future

The third edition of the Fundacja HumanDoc programme, supported by Erste Bank Polska S.A., is underway. Its goal is to integrate sustainability education into higher education curricula in Poland.

Sustainable development does not have a single, simple definition. It resists rigid frameworks because it spans multiple areas at once: the environment, the economy, human rights, quality of life, institutional responsibility, governance, and everyday decision-making. Treating it as a slogan is not enough. It requires understanding, analysis, and the ability to translate it into concrete action.

This is the premise behind the HumanDoc Foundation’s programme “Sustainable Development from a Humanities Perspective.” Following its pilot phase, the project has been steadily expanding, and sustainability is becoming an increasingly established element of academic programmes at participating universities.

The third edition has welcomed new partners: Poznań University of Technology, Higher School of Logistics in Poznań, Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, and State Academy of Applied Sciences in Krosno.

New institutions bring new fields of expertise, different research experience, and additional perspectives that strengthen the programme as a whole. Academics work alongside practitioners, examining how businesses, organisations, and public institutions operate, and testing how environmental and social responsibility functions beyond formal declarations. This link between research and practice remains one of the programme’s key components.

A new, expanded textbook coming later this year

As part of the third edition, a new and expanded version of the multimedia textbook “Sustainable Development from a Humanities Perspective” is being developed. The publication will include additional chapters prepared in collaboration with experts from the participating universities.

The textbook is designed to support students, lecturers, and educators in understanding sustainability as practical knowledge—relevant to professional work, management, communication, service design, social engagement, and decision-making that affects both people and the wider environment.

The project creates a space where sustainability education is not treated as an add-on, but as an integral part of preparing for real-world challenges. Future leaders, employees, public officials, entrepreneurs, teachers, and policymakers will be making decisions in a reality that is increasingly complex—socially, environmentally, and economically. It helps if they have more to rely on than intuition.