What inspired the UAS Board’s annual topic of 2017/18 – “Ethics” – was the idea of the Board addressing and focusing on a socially relevant topic for a certain period of time, thus assuming social responsibility and contributing to an educated society. The Board decided to continue their work with a related topic in 2018/19, namely “Sustainable Development”.

“Sustainable development” is a suitable topic to follow the previous year’s focus on “ethics” as ethics is a crosscutting theme and therefore remains a topic of discussion in the future. In order to emphasise the process nature of the topic, the term „Sustainable Development“ (SD) was ultimately chosen. A strong impetus for choosing this topic came from the development and adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (September 2015) as well as the general tendency to consider sustainability from a social, economic and ecological point of view.

The aim of this year’s topic (which does not exactly correspond to a calendar year or an academic one) is to stimulate, implement and use activities at different levels.

The St. Pölten UAS Board

In accordance with Art. 10 FHStG (University of Applied Sciences Studies Act), the St. Pölten UAS installed a UAS Board which takes care of the implementation and organisation of the teaching and examination activities. At the last Board meeting before the turn of the year, the members of the Board were influenced by the current socio-political discourse which led to the decision to address a topic that goes beyond the tasks stipulated by the FHStG.

The UAS Board is comprised of the Academic Directors, deputies of the research and teaching staff, student representatives and the Chairperson of the Board and her/his deputy.

More information on the UAS Board can be found here.