Abstract:

One of the main challenges in achieving Agenda 2030 lies in implementing its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the local level. For this, it is necessary to have qualified human capital. Local agents need to be trained, both in public sector and civil society, with competencies in areas such as professionalization and programming of local sustainability initiatives, and especially in the verification of SDG goals achievement through coproduction.

In Brazil, over the last three years, a network of universities, funded in cooperation between the federal legislative and executive branches, created the CEURS Program – National Program for Training and Research in Urban and Regional Sustainability. The main objective is to create a national network of Municipal Agents for the implementation of Agenda 2030 at the local level.

Based on digital education and competency-based learning, CEURS Program has produced a technological platform for offering courses, where learning is based on challenges related to professionalization and programming local sustainability initiatives. CEURS has the following constructs:
- Sustainability and Urban Development: Content focused on urban sustainability, global agendas for sustainable development, participatory municipal management, and digital education.
- Participatory Municipal Management: The contents and learning objects created are based on participatory municipal management and the principle that a city is a common good of collective responsibility, encompassing all public, private, and civil society sectors.
- Competency-Based Digital Education: large scale professional training, based on active teaching-learning methodologies aiming to provide competencies demonstrated in practice, combining individual certification with multisectoral training for teams.
- Transdisciplinary Coproduction: to scale, CEURS uses collaboration, cocreation, and coproduction among its academic, governmental, and civil society organizations. These actions are based on a transdisciplinary coproduction method, involving multiple sectors in planning, execution, and evaluation activities.

In its third year, CEURS has reached over 1,300 students from 215 cities in 24 states in Brazil, as well as the formation of teams in 7 cities in the pilot state (Santa Catarina), bridging the gap between universities and society, where academics find research challenges and opportunities for knowledge production and dissemination. Public managers find a free-of-charge training program, and a potential to associate training with other investment actions in cities.

In this article, we first present the international scenario of knowledge production in the localization and municipalization of SDGs from Agenda 2030. We then detail the process of conception and development of the digital education technologies in CEURS Program and how these technologies are applied in individual and collective courses for municipal agents. Additionally, we present the transdisciplinary coproduction approach used to form the network. Finally, we highlight examples of the impact of digital education offered to municipal sustainability (including institutionalization actions like the creation of municipal sustainability committees as an initiative promoted by agents of the CEURS Network).

Keywords:

Competence-Based Digital Education, Transdisciplinary Coproduction, Sustainability and Urban Development.