Responsible Futures

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Responsible Futures is an Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK) whole-institution supported change programme and accreditation mark to embed sustainability across all aspects of student learning. Ulster University has engaged with Responsible Futures programme since 2022 and is currently in the second year of the programme and working towards Responsible Futures accreditation mark in 2025. This mark is a demonstrable commitment to embedding sustainability across all aspects of student learning.

Responsible Futures approaches the institution as a whole, enabling partnership working to embed education for sustainable development (ESD) into the formal, informal and subliminal curriculum. Ulster University has established a working group, made up of educators from across all four faculties and student representatives to engage with the comprehensive framework of criteria that maps out the organisational innovation and enhancement required, spanning top down, middle out and bottom up level change, to achieve whole institution engagement with sustainability learning.

Their view is to support an education system which equips graduates with the necessary competencies to face and address the climate and ecological emergency and deliver on climate justice, to avoid repeating mistakes of our past. By following the Responsible Futures framework, partnerships are signposted towards and supported to realise institutional changes needed to develop a learning experience which supports graduates to develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, and attributes to actively contribute to a socially just response to the climate crisis.