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This case study explores different perspectives on integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in universities to achieve university transformations. This study recognises that university actors think differently about the purpose of universities, hold diverse perspectives on the SDGs, and, thus, prefer specific types of SDG integration.

Using Q methodology, 29 participants from one university expressed their perspectives by sorting 50 statements covering different types of SDG integration. Statements were based on academic and grey literature on SDG integration in universities, and interviews with university actors from a previous study. After the sorting task, participants were interviewed to understand the reasons behind the placement of particular statements.

The study identifies three perspectives held by the study participants. Perspective 1 emphasises the value of the SDGs and supports a deep integration of the Goals in their university. Perspective 1 also advocates for incorporating the SDGs into the university’s identity. Perspective 2 sees the university’s purpose as more comprehensive than the SDGs; thus, the university should develop knowledge regardless of its relevance to the SDGs. This perspective supports a pragmatic integration of the SDGs – favouring actions that benefit the university without introducing significant changes. Finally, Perspective 3 argues that the university should approach the SDGs through social justice and empowerment lenses. This perspective also questions the suitability of the SDGs for universities, arguing that the SDGs fail to challenge current structures underpinning the unsustainability of the world.

Although previous studies have analysed diverse ways of understanding the SDGs in universities, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to treat the SDGs as a governance framework of 17 goals and adopt a whole-institution approach to study universities.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly recognizing that their unique functions and expertise in research, education, and community leadership make them essential societal partners for helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the sector is not reaching its full potential, or acting fast enough, given the dire state of global progress on the SDGs. There has been a growing recognition that higher education’s (HE) ability to scale up action on the SDGs is hampered by a range of systemic and structural barriers within institutions, the HE sector, and the local and global contexts more broadly. However, many of these barriers and the potential solutions for overcoming them have been known for years, and a key challenge HE now faces is how to put these changes into practice. In this chapter, we build on insights from the work of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and others on system transformations for sustainable development, as well as our own work on HE engagement with the SDGs, to propose several ‘meta’ reasons that might be hampering efforts to scale up HE action on the SDGs, as well as some suggested approaches for addressing them. These approaches include treating HE as a system, defining better the outcomes we are aiming for, employing adaptive leadership approaches, and investing in genuine partnerships. While a detailed treatment of these approaches is beyond the scope of this chapter, we hope to encourage the HE community to look at this old problem in new ways.