A central challenge in higher education didactics for sustainability is the differences between distinct epistemic cultures, such as STEM and the humanities. In the STEM disciplines, sustainability is often approached through an emphasis on evidence, measurement, and technological innovation. These fields tend to focus on factual accuracy and the pursuit of objective, replicable knowledge, providing powerful tools for understanding environmental systems and developing practical solutions (Sterling, 2010). Such fact-oriented stances can sometimes overlook the social, ethical, and cultural dimensions of sustainability. The humanities, by contrast, approach sustainability as a deeply interpretive and value-laden enterprise that often becomes much more political. Here, sustainability is not only about what we can measure but also about how we ought to live, what we value, and which futures we consider just or desirable (Jickling and Wals, 2008). This opens space for reflection on power, ideology, and the moral implications of human action and is often critical of our current systems. This may introduce tensions, as teaching and research in the humanities can become entangled with political and formative positions (Wals, 2020). The interpretive and critical strength of the humanities may thus be perceived, especially from a STEM perspective, as overly subjective or ideologically driven (Leicht et al., 2018). To put this in a wider perspective, arts may add yet another perspective by focusing on affect, imagination, and sensory experience to the equation. Artistic approaches may invite emotional engagement expecting students to explore sustainability through creativity and expression rather than rational analysis alone (Inwood and Taylor, 2012).

A persistent challenge in higher education for sustainability lies in how institutions and governing bodies assess and demonstrate their own contributions to sustainable development. Universities are increasingly expected to document progress through sustainability reports, rankings, and performance indicators that align with global frameworks such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Rather than applying fragmented sustainability goals within rigid silo structures, action for sustainability needs to be coordinated among academic actors both horizontally and diagonally, which requires spaces for strategic thinking, concertation, open discussion and knowledge sharing. (Avery and Nordén, 2021). While these instruments aim to enhance transparency and accountability, they often prioritize measurable and standardized outcomes, such as carbon reduction targets, curriculum integration rates, or the number of sustainability-related courses offered (Tilbury, 2011). This emphasis on quantifiable data risks narrowing the understanding of what sustainability in higher education entails, favoring managerial and procedural indicators rather than “real” change (Adams et al., 2018). The push for measurable outcomes may inadvertently privilege disciplines and initiatives that produce visible metrics in line with predetermined goals. These institutional assessment practices are further shaped by global sustainability agendas that often reflect current policy logics, raising questions about how well they resonate with diverse regional and local contexts (Mochizuki and Fadeeva, 2010). Institutions in different parts of the world operate within varying social, economic, and ecological realities, making the application of global indicators both uneven and sometimes counterproductive. The tension between globally comparable benchmarks and locally meaningful action thus presents a major didactic and strategic dilemma. While global frameworks provide legitimacy and shared purposes, they can constrain universities’ capacity to develop sustainability strategies grounded in local knowledge systems, community partnerships, and place-based pedagogies (Leal Filho et al., 2018). Assessing sustainability outcomes in higher education requires more than collecting data; it demands critical reflection on whose definitions of success are being used.

Sustainability competencies in higher education form a crucial foundation for preparing graduates to tackle complex environmental, social, and economic challenges (Redman and Wiek, 2021). A wealth of scholarly literature offers invaluable insights which have evolved along two main strands: frameworks that establish foundational concepts, and critical perspectives that challenge and deepen understanding.

Among the most widely referenced frameworks in sustainability education is that of Wiek et al. (2016), which identifies six key competencies essential for advancing sustainability transformations. Building upon Wiek’s work Brundiers et al. (2021), expanded and refined these competencies through expert consensus, introducing two additional key competencies and emphasizing the integration of values-thinking. In brief, this framework identifies eight core competencies: systems thinking, anticipatory, normative, strategic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, integration, and implementation of competencies. These competencies equip students to understand complex interactions across systems, envision potential futures, engage in ethical decision-making, collaborate effectively, reflect on their own roles, integrate knowledge, and translate ideas into action. Complementing this, (Nordén, 2024) emphasizes how higher education should foster future-oriented competencies that enable students to navigate the uncertainties and complexities of sustainability transitions. She advocates for pedagogical approaches that move beyond knowledge acquisition towards cultivating transformative capacities in learners.

On the other hand, critical perspectives enrich this discourse by questioning the dominant competency-based paradigm. Propose applying critical lenses to sustainability education to avoid perpetuating unproductive or harmful attitudes. They call for awareness of the power dynamics and assumptions embedded in sustainability discourses. Lotz-Sisitka et al. (2015) argue that higher education should challenge the resilience of unsustainable systems by fostering transformative, transgressive social learning. They emphasize that sustainability education needs to go beyond building incremental competencies to actively dismantling systems that undermine social and ecological well-being.

Furthermore, and given the fact that education for sustainable development (ESD) seeks to shape pedagogies that are inclusive, participatory, and transformative (UNESCO, 2017; Biesta, 2011), it inherently promotes democratic values. These pedagogical priorities align with the essential dimensions of democracy by fostering critical thinking, dialogue, shared responsibility, and inclusive learning environments that empower learners as agents of change within democratic societies (Westheimer and Kahne, 2004).

However, bridging sustainability competencies and democratic dimensions requires acknowledging the institutional contexts that shape education. Between societies and schools lies an intermediate layer called the noosphere—an institutional framework guiding education’s organization and future direction (Bosch et al., 2020). The noosphere, understood as a sphere of reason, integrates scientific, ethical, and spiritual dimensions into education, fostering planetary citizenship, holistic thinking, and ethical responsibility beyond mere knowledge transfer (Samodryn, 2023). This framework situates schools within a broader societal and civilizational context, emphasizing that education must respond to localized cultural and historical realities while addressing global challenges.

These cultural and historical realities also can be related to both affordances and tensions in the learning environment. Thereby, we need a more holistic transdisciplinary approach within the HEDS implementation. Noospheres thinking for educational development of models and concept chains can be used in this development.

Systems thinking and values thinking facilitate re-consideration through a conceptual chain model catalyzing the visibility of noospheres thinking (consciousness, reflection, reason and mind). Various conceptions of the noosphere share the common thesis that together human reason and scientific thought have created, and will continue to create, the next evolutionary “knowledge formation” layer (Fuchs-Kittowski and Krüger, 1997). In the context of sustainability and higher education, this layered model helps us understand how educational practices, especially in mathematics and other disciplines—are shaped not only by schools and societies but also by overarching civilization values and institutional visions (noospheres). Teaching for sustainability, therefore, must be transdisciplinary and responsive to these multiple levels, integrating insights from various subjects to prepare students for complex global challenges.

Transdisciplinary teaching approaches have been investigated and proved catalyzing the implementation of sustainability didactics (Nordén, 2018) in Swedish upper secondary schools. The eight perspectives of higher education sustainability didactics in this study are explored and discussed with reference to transdisciplinary teaching approaches. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate two different transdisciplinary teaching approaches as interpreted in connection to the didactic focused data analysis (Nordén, 2018).

Figure 1 visualizes category 1 as an additive and subject-based teaching approach. The different disciplines/school subjects are experienced as part of sectors, undergoing a spiral process of a mutually enriching disciplinary exchange. Figure 2 visualizes category 2 as phenomenon-based, combined with holistic and transformational strategies.

Contributions from different subjects are experienced as interconnected perspectives on the same larger global–local phenomena. Subjects were in the latter case pedagogically conceptualized within an understanding of how teaching and learning, global dimensions and sustainable development are interconnected. This could diminish the disciplinary tensions and form the foundation for the transdisciplinary teaching experience (Nordén, 2018). By recognizing affordances of inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration as urgent and rewarding, in this time of uncertainty, self-efficacy and self-regulation based on the individuals’ commitment, could play an important role in teachers’ HEDS practices.

The reasoning above can be compared to the noosphere thinking, and a noosphere can be understood as a postulated sphere or stage of evolutionary development dominated by consciousness, the mind, and interpersonal relationships, according to Teilhard and Vernadsky (Fuchs-Kittowski and Krüger, 1997). As scientists, they “overstepped” the boundaries of the natural sciences and attempted to create all-embracing theoretical constructions founded in philosophy, the social sciences and authorized interpretations of the evolutionary theory. They also argued that human activity becomes a power and that how it is directed can influence the environment (seen in a wider and deeper meaning including geo-, atmos-, bio- and noospheres), according to Fuchs-Kittowski and Krüger (1997).

This study was driven by a bottom-up approach and empirical interests that were discovered during a course on sustainability in higher education. Overall, the study was conducted to understand how different disciplines approach sustainability in higher education. To paint a full picture, we needed to understand different layers regarding the participants, since there are three main aspects to consider: our individual motivations and thoughts, our disciplinary background and the topics that were taught to us (see Figure 3). By looking at these and then the main learning outcomes, which we identified, we can show in practice how different types of individual and disciplinary approaches shape what we consider important learning outcomes from the course. To better understand these aspects, we utilized collaborative auto-ethnography as an approach (Ellis et al., 2011), since it allowed us to express our individual perceptions as well as position ourselves as learners among our disciplines (cf. Chakraborty et al., 2024). It is also important to realize that not all our colleagues share their thinking with us, so it was first important to position ourselves regarding our motivation. Furthermore, we also explore how affordances and tensions shaped our thinking, when we worked as a multi-disciplinary group together.

As can be seen, the paper approaches the disciplinary differences from two aspects; first on the overall effects of disciplines and their role in shaping the learning outcomes, second the multi-disciplinary aspects, which also helps in developing varying views to ESD, which enabled new types of learning among the group participants.

The subjects of the study formed a mutual learning group for the Higher Education Didactics for Sustainability, or HEDS-course (2025) and originally the group consisted of more than eight members. However, some of the early participants gradually left the course without completing it and therefore their role has not been studied. From the eight participants (who successfully completed the course), three represent the STEM disciplines (Civil and Transport Engineering and Economics, Mathematics Education, Surgical Sciences Functional Pharmacology and Neuroscience) and five participants represent the SHAPE disciplines (Business Administration, Communication Sciences, Humanities, Language, Science Education and Educational Sciences, Regional Studies). The participants in this study come from Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden. The course participants were originally picked into the group at random, so the group did not choose the participants, nor decided between focusing on certain disciplines. On the contrary, the idea of the HEDS course was to learn in multi-disciplinary setting, which meant mixing different disciplines together.

All the individuals were motivated to join the course, since it offered them no credit, nor other benefits, except for learning from the course contents together with others. This means that for all the participants the course was both voluntary and presented them with additional tasks. This shows that the individuals were motivated to engage with the topic.

The course lasted from January to April in 2025. During those 4 months the course had five topics: (i) Connecting to the world and each other, (ii) Competencies, frameworks and curriculum, (iii) Didactic approaches to teaching and learning in ESD, (iv) The role of university and (v) Lessons learned and future practice. Each of these sections consisted of lectures for all course participants, related reading material, as well as individual and group assignments. The materials focused on UN sustainability teaching goals, like sustainability (by Brundiers et al., 2021), inner development goals (by Nordén, 2024), and climate emotions wheel (Climate Mental Health Network, 2025).

In this paper, a collaborative auto-ethnography approach, a qualitative research method, was used to capture eight stories from eight researchers’ personal experiences taking part in the HEDS course. Sometimes an auto-ethnographic approach (Ellis et al., 2011) receives critics for ethical reasons which the collaborative auto-ethnography approach may resolve (Lapadat, 2017). Since, in contrast to traditional auto-ethnography, it leverages dialogue and multi perspective analysis.

In our research, the accounts of personal experiences were followed by a process of meaning-making carried out both collectively and individually. We found this especially effective for our research aims as its collaborative and iterative nature helped us explore the methodological and ethical issues linked to researcher reflexivity including the subjectivity inherent in solo auto-ethnography (Chang et al., 2013). Each researcher wrote a story based on their own perspective in their own discipline with its activities. As inspiration the following questions were used (Figure 4).

The analysis was conducted in two steps. The first step was inspired by Gioia et al. (2013). Gioia et al. underlines the importance of giving “voice to the informants in the early stages of data gathering and analysis” (Gioia et al., 2013, p. 17). The goal is to demonstrate “the connections among data, the emerging concepts, and the resulting grounded theory” (Gioia et al., 2013, p. 17), but without losing qualitative rigor. To do this, we considered 1st and 2nd order analysis which means that in the 1^st level codes emerge from the terms used by the informants, while at a second order analysis it will be possible to identify concepts, themes and dimensions by the researchers. Finally, these themes were aggregated in the 3rd stage of the analysis, as seen in Figure 5 as an example of this process.

We chose two themes for this analysis: (i) ‘Motivation’ for taking part in the course HEDS and (ii) ‘Starting values’ which represents what each researcher brought with them in terms of into the course. The data material is presented in Appendices I (‘Motivation’) and II (‘Starting values’).

Given the priority to explore the enhancing learning experiences among lecturers, these were analysed in two steps: the collective and the individual. The second step was carried out through a contextual analysis (Svensson, 2004, 2020) focusing on the individual perceptions of the content in the HEDS course. Similarities and differences were analysed to find qualitatively different ways to experience the HEDS course learning process (Marton and Booth, 1997). The analysis aimed to create understanding of these by abstracting the data into qualitatively distinct categories of content descriptions (cf. Svensson et al., 2007) and thereby comparing the different stories and individual learning experiences with each other besides relating them to all the categories of content descriptions recognized. An individual teacher might contribute to more than one category, while each category may be constituted from statements made by several teachers. The findings might be considered additionally sustainable, because of the critical reflection and analysis in the joint learning process, according to Svensson et al. (2007), who also argue that the inclusion of the participants in the whole research process is a way to increase the validity of the research.

The urgency in enhancing learning experiences among lecturers is highlighted by the recognized perspectives on higher education. The variation of ways in which contextual features were revealed affected how participants experienced their own learning and the affordances and tensions within the HEDS learning space.

This collaborative auto-ethnographic study is characterized by a continuous joint learning process between the participants at the same time individually appearing two different roles: (1) as a HEDS course participant, and (2) as an informant conducting auto-ethnographic research (Van Poeck et al., 2025). The design of this collaborative auto-ethnographic approach with inclusion of the participants in the whole research process is a way to increase the validity of the research, according to Svensson et al. (2007). Then, the outcome of the research in terms of new concepts or theories, didactical development and change processes might through the process of participatory action research (Kemmis, 2009; Kemmis et al., 2014) be experienced as owned by the participants, i.e., the researching lecturers. Consequently, the local context and the process for HEDS were characterized by the learner’s perspective and self-efficacy, including challenges, critical reflection and analysis in the joint learning process.

The analysis demonstrates that disciplinary epistemologies strongly shaped how participants approached sustainability education, particularly along the STEM–SHAPE divide. Participants from STEM-oriented traditions often engaged with sustainability through problem-solving logics, technical feasibility, and a desire for clarity in learning outcomes, reflecting what Becher and Trowler describe as “hard” disciplinary cultures with relatively stable epistemic norms (Becher and Trowler, 2001). In practical terms, this meant that several STEM participants initially struggled to relate the course material to their own teaching contexts, expressing uncertainty about how dialogical, reflexive, or normatively oriented pedagogical approaches could be meaningfully operationalized within their disciplines. By contrast, participants from SHAPE-related disciplines tended to approach sustainability as an inherently value-laden and contested field, emphasizing critical reflection, ethical considerations, and societal transformation. For these participants, the course material largely resonated with existing pedagogical practices and theoretical traditions, which was reflected in their early enthusiasm and active participation in discussions.

These contrasting orientations illustrate how sustainability education is interpreted differently depending on disciplinary cultures and knowledge traditions. Sustainability appeared, for some, as a set of solvable challenges requiring better tools and methods, while for others it was primarily understood as a question of meaning-making, power, and responsibility in complex social systems. Such differences echo longstanding debates in sustainability education regarding instrumental versus transformative approaches to learning (Sterling, 2004; Wals and Jickling, 2002). Importantly, our findings suggest that these divergent understandings are not simply obstacles to be overcome but constitute distinct disciplinary affordances that shape what sustainability education can achieve in practice. Making these affordances visible, both to oneself and to others, emerged as a crucial step in enabling transdisciplinary dialogue and mutual learning.

The affordances of the transdisciplinary learning context included enhanced reflexivity, deeper critical engagement, and more effective professional learning than that typically achieved through interaction among colleagues within the same discipline. It is worthwhile mentioning here that, this multi-disciplinary group, not only encouraged active engagement with others’ knowledge and perspectives in order to develop a shared understanding but also introduced uncertainty about one’s own beliefs and practices leading thus to opportunities for learning and expanding understanding. Each participants’ contribution unfolded as if before a mirror with other group members with diverse disciplinary backgrounds facilitating reflexivity since issues brought up were examined through constructive feedback, at times critically scrutinized, and often triggered meaningful discussions that generated valuable insights. The interaction within the PBL group participants helped in creating self-reflection for the individual, and they experienced transdisciplinary learning as efficient and rewarding.

The epistemic differences between disciplines are also manifested as tangible tensions, particularly at the beginning of the course. Several STEM participants described the experience as akin to “visiting another planet,” struggling to relate both to the course material and to discussion formats that prioritized open-ended reflection and normative questioning. During this initial phase, participation was uneven: SHAPE participants were generally more positively vocal, supportive of the pedagogical approach, and comfortable engaging with the underlying assumptions of the course, while STEM participants often adopted more cautious or distanced positions. These early tensions can be understood as a form of disciplinary boundary work, where unfamiliar epistemic assumptions challenge established ways of knowing and teaching (Gieryn, 1999; Klein, 2010).

Over time, however, these tensions became increasingly productive. As the course progressed, and particularly through the collaborative auto-ethnographic work conducted after the course, participants began to explicitly articulate their disciplinary standpoints, assumptions, and constraints. This clarification helped create a shared language for discussion and reduced misunderstandings. Gradually, communication improved, and the different disciplinary “cultures” moved closer together. Notably, despite pronounced differences in political views, values, and teaching experiences, discussions did not become more polarized. Instead, repeated interactions, especially through synchronous online meetings, enabled participants to listen more carefully, acknowledge the validity of alternative perspectives, and incorporate elements of each other’s arguments. While no overarching consensus was reached, the group developed more nuanced and interconnected lines of reasoning. This process aligns with research on boundary crossing and transdisciplinary learning, which emphasizes that learning across differences often results not in agreement but in increased mutual recognition and epistemic humility (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011; Star and Griesemer, 1989). The findings thus suggest that sustained dialogue in sustainability education can transform initial feelings of alienation into opportunities for deeper understanding and more robust pedagogical practice.

Based on our experiences we see our process combining the different perspectives (affordances), which lead to tensions and this allowed us to learn from each others, which added deeper understanding on the issues, roles and challenges witin HEDS’ teaching approaches. A new teaching approach mirroring our processes and findings, i.e., affordances and tensions in enhancing the HEDS learning experiences were discovered (see Figure 6) and interpreted as a future-oriented teaching approach established, catalyzing a further adapted and developed hybrid of Figures 1 and 2.

In this study we have not included all types of disciplines. Still, there are several disciplines related to the STEM and SHAPE areas included in the study. Further, participants are representing only European countries, and the majority of participants included in the study came from the Nordic countries. The constellation of the study group depended on which teachers were participating in the HEDS group, and the participants could not affect this beforehand.