This paper addresses the symposium’s topic drawing on Masschelein and Simons’ (2009) concept of ‘world university’ and investigating its potential for empirical research through a case study of Ghent University’s (UGent) sustainability policy and initiatives. UGent formally adopted an ambitious sustainability policy. Since 2012, a think-tank – ‘Transition UGent: towards a sustainable university’ – engaged over 200 staff members, students, experts and university management representatives. They suggested actions and objectives for the sustainability policy which is now part of UGent’s Strategic Plan. The university formally stated that it ‘wants to be a leading knowledge institution for an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable future in a local and global context’. Therefore, it will stimulate opportunities for research with a view to a sustainable future, offer services to society in the area of sustainability on a solid scientific basis, and substantively and systematically integrate sustainability in the full range of education programmes. Taking into consideration scholarly criticism about burdening educational institutions with the responsibility to solve societal problems like sustainability challenges (Masschelein and Simons 2013; Ferreira 2009; Van Poeck et al. 2014), it is worthwhile to critically examine such policies and the initiatives resulting from it from a pedagogical perspective, that is, focusing on universities’ roles as pedagogic institutions. Why does UGent commit itself to these ambitions? Does it want to change the world through ‘greening’ the campus or the student? Or is it, first and foremost, another way of engaging in research and education, one that takes important societal concerns seriously? A nuanced and thought-provoking concept that can theoretically inspire such investigations, is the notion of ‘world university’. This is a conceptualisation of the university where ‘the world is at stake’ (Masschelein and Simons 2009). The university, then, becomes a place where people are exposed to matters of public concern (Simons and Masschelein 2009). A world university functions as a kind of ‘laboratory of experience and thinking’, within an experimental and attentive ethos which creates a place that interrupts the status quo, where the self-evident common sense is questioned, making new things possible. In this paper, we analyse UGent’s sustainability policy and discourse and exploratively examine concrete practices (a pilot project on curriculum transformation and the design of a course) through the conceptual lens of the world university. The aim is to find out how this theoretical construct can be operationalised for empirical investigations.

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