Amritapuri, August 29, 2025 — On the second day of the International Conference on Sustainable & Resilient Futures: Bridging Science, Policy, and Practice (ICSRF 2025) at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, leading global experts came together to discuss how universities can integrate sustainability into education, research, and practice.
Dr. Bhavani Rao — Dean of the Amrita School of Social and Behavioural Sciences and UNESCO Chair on Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment — spoke on the high-level panel “Embedding Sustainability in Education, Research, and Practice.” The session was chaired by Dr. Joost Monks, Senior Expert in International Development and Humanitarian Affairs at the Université de Genève, Switzerland.
Joining her were Dr. Maneesha V. Ramesh, Amrita’s Provost and UNESCO Chair on Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation & Development; Dr. Prema Nedungadi, Director of AmritaCREATE and Associate Dean of the School of Computing; and experts from UNESCO, TERI – The Energy and Resources Institute, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and other international institutions.
The discussion emphasized the need for universities to embed sustainability, ethics, and innovation into curricula in ways that extend beyond theory and into real-world application.
In her address, Dr. Bhavani highlighted how Amrita’s School of Social and Behavioural Sciences has restructured its curriculum based on five guiding principles articulated by Amma, Chancellor of Amrita University:
Education for a living
Education for a sound mind and good mental health
The ability to repay one’s debts
Cultivating an attitude of gratitude
Understanding one’s place in the universal scheme
She also underscored Amrita’s efforts in integrating UNESCO’s Ethical AI framework, India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Education for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF) into academic programs.
Concluding her talk, Dr. Bhavani stressed the role of values — which she referred to as the “missing SDG” — in shaping education that can nurture not only knowledge but also compassion and responsibility for a sustainable future.
ICSRF 2025 continues at Amrita University, Amritapuri campus, until Monday, bringing together thought leaders, policymakers, and practitioners to drive forward conversations at the intersection of science, policy, and practice.