The seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal is to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

2021 progress report

Cranfield has outlined its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and our activity to support them.

Universities have a crucial role in helping to address some of the most pressing issues facing our world today. Signing the SDG Accord makes clear Cranfield’s ongoing focus on bringing academic expertise, industry insight and new technological developments to government, business and wider society.

Cranfield delivers sustainability education programmes, including apprenticeships and master's courses (MSc Management and Corporate Sustainability and MSc Sustainability).

We have direct involvement in governmental policy setting, for example, regionally, the MACRO cyber security programme is a collaboration with the Universities of Kent and Bath, Oxfordshire County Council, Kent County Council, South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership, Transport for the South East to develop tools and models to address low carbon mobility, data sharing and cybersecurity threats.

Conferences have included hosting an online round table on our Resilience Grand Challenge at the UNGA76 Science Summit, part of the 76th UN General Assembly in New York.

We have also participated in international collaboration in gathering data for the SDGs, for example, Cranfield partners with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science to host the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM), a world-class research facility dedicated to gathering data to advance atmospheric science.

As part of our student volunteer programme, Cranfield students run Silsoe Aid for Appropriate Development (SAFAD) which sends mostly Cranfield, graduate and postgraduate, student volunteers to almost 40 different countries in the developing world. Volunteers work with local organisations to provide technical assistance and expertise.

We are taking part in The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings for the first time in 2021.