This paper explores how universities can promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as part of their 'Third Mission'—the social contribution beyond traditional teaching and research—within the educational context. Being aligned with the Whole Institution Approach (WIA), which advocates for the continuous optimization of all university activities based on sustainability criteria (Holst, 2023), it examines the potential and challenges of Service Learning (SL) in advancing higher education in this respect (Backhaus-Maul & Jahr, 2021, Rieckmann, 2021). The research addresses: What are the opportunities and limitations of SL for ESD in universities? Using a multi-method approach, the study investigates SL's impact on regional and university transformation. By analyzing SL projects in collaboration with external partners, the study seeks to understand how these initiatives facilitate sustainability practice transfer and development, aiming to determine how these collaborations contribute to regional transformation by linking university teaching, student education, and societal endeavours. At the university level, it demonstrates how SL empowers students to engage in institutional sustainability transformations, fostering a culture of sustainability. The call for both conceptual and practical integration of sustainability into education draws on significant contributions from scholars like David Orr (1995, 2020), who critiques the traditional educational structure for the unforgivable failure to produce ecologically responsible citizens. Orr advocates for transformative education that centers ecological intelligence and responsibility. Understanding oneself as part of nature and recognizing the interconnectedness of everything in the environment should form the core of education. It is essential to foster awareness of our embeddedness in both human and ecological systems, and to emphasize the importance of caring for both. Understanding that societal actions are linked to our view of the environment is crucial. In the discourse on transformative education, theorists such as Arjen Wals (Wals et al., 2016) advocate for learning approaches that encourage students to critically engage with the relationship between humans and the environment, fostering sustainable solutions. Similarly, Stephen Sterling (in press) calls for the comprehensive integration of sustainability into educational processes and advocates for a paradigm shift towards an "ecological" approach to learning and teaching, emphasizing holistic thinking and systemic integration of sustainability. The question of how SL can be utilized as a means to implement the WIA in higher education and to promote sustainable local or regional change remains a significant area of research. However, it is undisputed that the so-called Third Mission expands the academic mandate beyond teaching (First Mission) and research (Second Mission), to actively participate in societal transformation as a university. This involves knowledge transfer applicable in practical contexts and aligns with Haraway's (2016) concept of societal responsibility.

Yet, it is the creation and utilization of interfaces between universities and society that allow for the generation of societal benefits through partnerships with businesses, public institutions, and NGOs. These can also include grassroots initiatives and social movements, which, as Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor (2010) highlight, provide valuable insights into the integration of sustainable practices that usually seek hard to gain widespread societal recognition. However, the approach of SL has so far been used only to a limited extent. It involves collaborations between external partners and stakeholders within educational institutions, who typically hold responsibilities outside of teaching for key institutional functions, and works by integrating various knowledge areas for sustainable development (Böcher & Krott, 2016). As such, it aims to develop the competencies of the participants through joint learning processes (Nölting, 2024). Ultimately, it still needs to be demonstrated to what extent SL can function as an effective path of transformation towards a sustainable university and contribute to the sustainability of the surrounding regions (Rieckmann et al., 2024).

At a small German rural university, qualitative guided interviews (Flick et al., 2022) were conducted with practice partners from university courses over four semesters. This involved 13 participating partners, including four internal and nine external, with seven follow-up interviews conducted with the external partners. The interviews took place at the beginning and end of joint projects to investigate the extent and quality of knowledge transfer in relation to the university's third mission. Designed to capture the practice partners' subjective views and assessments of their collaboration with students, they focused not only on immediate experiences and satisfaction but also elicited deeper insights into student contributions to the partner organizations and mutual goal achievement. Partners discussed student's achievements and reflected on the cooperation, noting both positive outcomes and challenges. Early data analysis indicated the need for more specific questions, prompting a guide revision to uncover insights from the collaboration and assess expansion of the partners' system knowledge on regional sustainability issues. It is crucial to detect the changes in the partners' view of sustainable practices (target knowledge) and how new ways were found for implementation in their organisations (transformative knowledge). The interviews also explored to what extent the project aided partners in progressing towards sustainability goals and identified necessary steps for integrating project results into their operations. Simultaneously, four focus groups (Lamnek & Krell, 2016) were held at the end of each semester in the established SL course to collect student perspectives and experiences, providing data on individual and collective learning experiences. Integrating the perspectives of the 41 students involved ensures that the evaluation of the SL approach is conducted appropriately. Additional surveys with students and planned future assessments from the instructors' perspective, based on evaluations of submitted examination results and focused on the supplemental non-graded project reflections (Adomßent et al., 2014; Hofer, 2019), will provide further insights. Thus, the documentary method (Bohnsack et al., 2013) is used to extract implicit meanings from these reflections, forming hypotheses about student learning processes. All participants gave informed consent and could withdraw at any time without any disadvantages. Finally, to complete the single-case study (Yin, 2018), consisting of the aforementioned sub-studies, a qualitative content analysis of the seminar logbook, maintained by instructors over all five semesters, will be conducted and integrated. These notes provide a long-term view of project progress and dynamics, track process changes and strategic adjustments, and inform the interpretation of other data.

This study posits that, to effectively fulfil their Third Mission, universities around the globe must transcend traditional and embrace transformative education that models sustainable practices and fosters integrated, interdisciplinary approaches. Through service learning, universities aim to empower students and engage with external partners to drive not only regional and institutional sustainability transformations but also align with broader European and international sustainability goals. Applying a complex and comprehensive research design ensures a robust examination of the course and its SL approach, providing a deeper understanding of the educational processes at play. The initiative supports the transformation of higher education institutions themselves, drawing on the WIA. The goal is to actualize their potential as catalysts of societal progress. This study is intended to discover the best ways to achieve this and thus strengthen the role of higher education institutions as drivers for a sustainable future worldwide. It is furthermore part of a multiple case study that includes other case studies in different institutional contexts with teaching programmes from varying disciplines. The present study is based on data collection within a specific geographical area, which may limit the generalisability of the results to other environments or contexts. In addition, the limited number of courses and low numbers of students participating narrows the data collection and thus the possibilities for a more in-depth analysis, especially as fluctuations in participant engagement and external factors can strongly influence perceptions and thus introduce bias or variability in the responses collected. Future Research could rely on a larger number of courses and students and directions to assess the impact of SL on students and communities could also include comparative studies across different cultural contexts to gather diverse insights.

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