In Norway, as in other countries the world over, to ensure sustainability education is to move beyond an ‘add-on’ approach (Scott, 2013; Sterling, 2004), a shift in what, where, how, and with whom students learn is required. For sustainability education to move beyond the traditional classroom setting, and proactively engage learners with real-world issues and solutions, engagement with multi-stakeholders is also required (Leicht, Heiss & Byun, 2018; UNESCO, 2017).

In 2017, a multi-stakeholder school-university partnership was established consisting of four upper-secondary schools, the school district, and a teacher education department situated in the southeast of Norway. The aim set was to improve professional practice between campus-based and school-based understandings of sustainability-oriented education. The third-space concept (Lejonberg et. al., 2017), was employed, where researchers, teachers, leaders, students, and pupils collaborate and co-construct knowledge (Daza et, al., 2021). Originally set to end in 2022 the partnership agreement was then renewed until 2025. This paper is situated in this renewal process, a point of reflexive transition within the partnership, where understanding the following is essential; to reflect on the challenges, tensions, and opportunities experienced in establishing a partnership from a third-space perspective; to understand better why systemically embedding sustainability education is challenging; and to explore if, and or, how collective capacity building can support and provide structures to overcome these challenges in future practice.

To examine the collaborative frameworks and conditions for cross-institutional collective capacity building developed in this partnership the research questions this paper addresses are:

1. How does a School-University partnership structure and evolve collective capacity building for supporting sustainability-oriented transitions?

2. How can the partnership itself navigate and evolve to support each of the partner's own whole-institution process?

 A Whole School/Institution Approach (UNESCO, 2017; Wals & Mathie, 2022) frames multiple stages of this research; the development of the school-university partnership over time; informing co-developed and reflexive professional-development content creation; and the field of research, that the PhD study this artilce is situated in, aims to contribute to theoretically. As part of this theoretical contribution, this paper's theoretical framework builds upon and is informed by two publications; 1. Mathie (in press), where a broad understanding of a Whole School Approach as a reflexive thinking tool for general quality educational change processes is proposed and in turn a composite Whole School Approach model detailing "Overarching principles, processes, and strands of a Whole School Approach to Support Educational Change Processes" (Mathie, in press, p.24) is presented; and 2. Hugo & Iversen's (in press) Whole School Alignment Model, where, in a school-university partnership context "[...] the liminal space of collaborative inquiry processes assumes the central role of navigating and attuning inherent tensions and aligning structures, programme design, space and pedagogies to co-create coherency" (Hugo & Iversen, in press, p.15). 

Situated within a larger PhD research design, Education Design Research (EDR) is chosen research method of enquiry. EDR is a participatory approach that combines scientific enquiry with systematic development to co-develop with stakeholders’ practical solutions to issues educators face in real-world learning contexts (McKenney & Reeves, 2018). EDR provides design processes whereby multiple stakeholders aims to; co-design innovative solutions to a specific challenge; ensure developing collective usable knowledge remains relevant and valuable to the stakeholders themselves; and contribute to theory building in a specific field (Barab & Kurt, 2004; Lagemann, 2002; McKenney & Reeves, 2018). This paper focuses specifically on analysing qualitative data sources collected between 2021 and 2023 (video and audio-recordings from interviews, workshops, and meetings, alongside visual content, for example, visual timelines generated through these interactions). The data is critically examined to gain insight into how a ‘School-University partnership’ perspective can evolve, structure, and develop collective capacity building to support and stimulate whole-institution engagement in sustainability-oriented education and related transitions. To systematically transcribe and process the multiple data sources, NVivo and the six phases of Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021), are employed for data analysis.

Preliminary findings: To varying degrees all participants involved commit to moving from an ‘add-on’ to a ‘built-in’ (Scott, 2013; Sterling, 2004) approach to sustainability-oriented education. Specific conditions are identified as ways to support authentic integration of sustainability-oriented education, such as the need to; have a flexible structure to adapt to each specific institutional context; anchor commitment throughout the whole institution to avoid dependence on individuals; establish arenas for collaboration and reflection across all institutional levels; create multi-actor resource and development groups at each institute to mobilize distributed leadership and sync-up institutional and educational development; establish clear, tangible, short and mid-term goals that link to a `living´ long-term vision and overarching institutional plan; create a model for distributing continuous competency and capacity building involving all staff; to build up the culture of collaboration and sharing between all local education providers by developing an open-access resource/knowledge base platform. Challenges encountered include, for example; shifts of project identity in relation to the institutions as the needs and direction of the partnerships evolve; shifts in roles and staff-turnover amongst all partners; and the need to be conscious of underlying power relations. Preliminary conclusions: The findings indicate that participatory methods that encourage ´learning from and with each other´ became a pivotal mechanism and overarching principle in the partnership development process for establishing mutually supportive, non-hierarchical capacity building for all stakeholders. Establishing a ‘third room’, of shared ownership to shared questions, is seen to provide an applicable non-hierarchical space to navigate these challenges, where inquiry-based research and practice, alongside professional and institutional development, can simultaneously be developed.

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