Abstract:

Contemporary education faces challenges to provide broader knowledge and to build new way of culture, civic thinking and behaviour including environmental and social responsibility. The issues related to sustainable development need to be incorporated in every curriculum to guarantee proper understanding of obligation of current generation to “live and meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. From the other side sustainable development goals must be considered during the process of regional development planning and management at all EU regions at different NUTS levels. There is a need of knowledge and proper understanding in specialists from public administration about all issues related with these processes to apply the principle “think global, act local”. Therefore, there is a need of understanding how the sustainable development issues shall be incorporated in higher education for preparation of future experts in public administration. The paper presents an analysis of curricula in 5 faculties in University of Ruse for bachelor programs and presents a methodology for incorporation of sustainable development fundamentals in training of students in Faculty of Business and Management in University of Ruse for discipline Regional research and strategies for students in Public administration and Digital management and innovation specialties. The proposed methodology received evaluation from regional development experts from a local government (municipality of Ruse).

Keywords:

Sustainable development, regional development planning, methodology, education.