Sustainability and the SDGs has been identified as a key commitment for the university as set out in the Empowering University strategy. This commitment builds upon DMU’s status as one of only 17 global academic hubs across the world – and the only one in the United Kingdom.
DMU is the lead university for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and was appointed in 2025 for a three-year term. The university works with the U.N. as the chair of SDG 11 with three other universities, who lead as vice-chairs on teaching and education; outreach and partnership; and research.
As sustainability is a strategic commitment it is extremely important for us to understand the views and expectations of our students around this important issue so we can support the development of their knowledge, understanding and competencies around sustainability.
Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK) has been tracking student views on these issues since 2010 . Through the research SOS has developed a clear national picture that approximately 80 per cent of students want their institution to be doing more on sustainable development and around 60 per cent of students want to learn more about sustainability.
These results have remained constant; despite changes such as the rise in fees, and the crash of the jobs market, the demand for action by their institutions and desire to learn about sustainability has remained constant.
The research is conducted through an annual sustainability skills survey which is run nationally and promoted by individual university. The survey asks students about a range of issues related to sustainability.
Where a university achieves over 100 responses to the survey the SOS-UK share the data of those responses. DMU has been participating in the survey since 2016 and has 10 years’ worth of data on student attitudes and expectations around sustainability.
The findings of the 25/26 survey show that DMU students continue to have high expectation of the university on sustainability with 70% of students agreeing or strongly agreeing that institutions should actively incorporate and promote sustainable development.
The 2025/06 figures for this question show a slight drop from the previous year of 85% which a large increase in the students who did not answer this question (15%). Through the survey 71% of students indicated that they thought that all course should include sustainable development issues. The responses also showed that 61% of students through that the university takes action to limit negative effect it has on people and the environment. This is a decrease from the previous year (78%) and the average of the previous 4 years (74%).
There were also lower responses to the questions ‘Being a student at my university / college encourages me to think and act to help the environment, and other people’ (57% in 2025 compared to 77% in 2024) and ‘Sustainable development is something all course tutors should be required to incorporate within their teaching’ (61% in 2025 compared to 78% in 2024).
However, there were higher responses for the questions ‘Sustainable development is something which I would like to know more about’ (63% in 2025 compared to 67% in 2024) and ‘To what extent, if any, do you agree that universities / colleges should be obliged to develop student’s social and environmental skills as part of their course?’ (86% in 2025 compared to 89% in 2024).
There was also a comparable response to the question ‘Sustainable development is something which I would like to know more about’ (63% in 2025 compared to 67% in 2024).
The information from the survey provides a very rich and comprehensive picture on student attitudes to sustainability and shows that there is more work to do on engaging students on sustainability and clearly demonstrated that sustainability is a priority for DMU. An overview of the results of the survey when compared to previous years is attached.