Institution(s) and Partner Organisations

• South East Technological University
• Georgia Southern University
• La Rochelle University
• Zadar University, Croatia
• Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)
• Waterford Lions Club
• EU-Conexus

Description

The Sustainability in the Arts Festival is a multidisciplinary initiative focused on embedding sustainability in the curriculum and contributing towards the creation of a culture of sustainability in the university and wider community.  It is largely student-led with learners exploring how the SDGs relate to them in their own discipline areas and producing outputs that reflects this. A wide variety of innovative approaches to showcase teaching and learning are evident in the festival including visual art and graphic design exhibitions, music performances, cooking demonstrations, language posters, research posters and presentations. The strength of the project lies in the collaborative approach and peer learning inherent in this both from a student and educator’s perspective. The level of learner engagement is notable as they take responsibility for their own contributions and engage in meaningful assessments with tangible outputs that are showcased and celebrated beyond the confines of the classroom.

The festival was established in 2023 in alignment with the university strategy to address the challenges of embedding sustainability in the curriculum and university community. This initiative was underpinned by the broader goal of raising awareness of the global SDGs in the context of Higher Education and an ongoing desire to enhance student engagement, create meaningful learning experiences, and positively influence the practices of peers. Funded by SATLE, the Sustainability in the Arts Festival was piloted in 2023 as a 1-day event on one SETU campus with the intention of learning from the experience and building on this the following year.

This expanded into a 3-day event in 2024 encompassing the Waterford, Carlow and Wexford campuses, additional subject areas, and local and international partners with funding from both SATLE and N-TUTORR. Further growth resulted from this, and the 2025 festival ran for a full week with new local, national and international collaborations. This exponential growth clearly exemplifies the impact of the initiative on learners, peers, and the wider community.  

 The festival platform was chosen as an ideal mechanism to promote inclusivity and collaboration, while encouraging student-led initiatives and ensuring broad impact. This approach also stimulated investment in their own learning and served to empower the students to lead specific aspects of the festival. The integration of creative disciplines including undergraduate programmes in visual art, graphic design, culinary arts, languages, and postgraduate studies in internationalisation formed the basis for a rich and diverse learning environment where students and staff could benefit from the knowledge and skills of others.  

This also resulted in the identification of specific modules where the principles of sustainability could be integrated and the development of projects that could be incorporated into the festival. For instance, art and design colleagues decided to focus on artefacts made from recycled materials or sustainable printing for student assessment portfolios, while culinary colleagues focused on sustainable foods in cooking practical exams, and music research students undertook projects exploring the connection between music and the SDGs. This innovative platform showcased learning to a broad audience far beyond the classroom, thereby leading to increased investment by learners and arguably a higher standard of work. 

The integration of international partners added further depth to the festival by bringing perspectives from other cultures and providing peers with an opportunity to experience different teaching approaches and explore possibilities for future collaborations.  This has been realised as initially Georgia Southern University was the only international partner, and now further connections have been developed with European universities including La Rochelle in France and Zadar in Croatia. 

The theme of “Land, People, Culture” was selected for the 2025 festival, and initiatives exploring cultural sustainability, indigenous knowledge, respect for the land, identity, and legacy were suggested by students. They examined the impact of people and culture on the land, and developed projects together with others, which led to reflective discussions and positive actions towards better use of resources, energy conservation and sustainability of the planet.

Intended Learning Outcomes

A key priority action is to provide opportunities to transform the learning environment by providing learners with the opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills, values and dispositions needed to promote sustainable development, and to experience sustainable development in action through a cross-faculty approach to ESD.

By including students in decision making processes, we build lively and engaging synergies across disciplines and highlight the value of interconnectedness between students, lecturers, their area of study and the wider world.

The festival sets out to empower and mobilise students to be agents of change for sustainable development, however, it has also helped to accelerate local level actions leading to enhanced collaboration with schools and organisations such as the Waterford Lions Club.

Teaching and Learning Approach

An innovative shared teaching approach has been adopted to facilitate the multi-disciplinary collaboration inherent in the festival. This involves colleagues from different disciplines bringing their students together for classes on specific weeks during the semester, e.g. music and visual art. The learning process is highlighted in the classes with peer feedback as an integral feature and discussions around expectations and indicators of high-quality work. Colleagues commented on how this ‘invigorated’ their module delivery and how much they enjoyed working collaboratively. Increased engagement by their learners in these modules was also highlighted.   

Targeted feedback events were held in venues espousing the values of sustainability in their practices, for instance in Grow HQ in Waterford where the focus is on zero food waste, and in Cooney’s Yard sheep farm in the Comeragh Mountains. These environments served to stimulate thinking about sustainability in action, creative interpretations, and potential collaborative projects. 

Assessment Strategy

Students expressed a desire to focus on achievable things they could do to make a difference in relation to the SDGs and for their activities to align with the assessed learning outcomes of their modules. This has been facilitated in the student-led approach and variety of assessments to capture the festival contributions including e-portfolios, reflective journals, creative installations, original compositions, live performances, cookery demonstrations, and research presentations. This innovative approach to facilitating a broad range of assessment types provides learners with the opportunity to take ownership of their learning and empower them to find their own creative voices.

Impact and Outcomes

Student engagement 

Qualitative feedback has demonstrated a positive impact on students’ learning, including growth in confidence, ability to drive change, and the value of innovation and creativity to create awareness and solutions. 

Community engagement 

Feedback from local schools’ engagement with festival outreach programme; positioning SETU as a welcoming university which promotes sustainability and SDGs while embracing real-world challenges in novel and inspiring ways. 

Student Skills development 

Through interdisciplinary projects students developed collaborative, problem solving and creative skills; e.g. culinary, language, design and art students worked together to create recipe posters for sustainable foods. 

Teaching and Assessment 

The festival has enhanced awareness of how students can demonstrate their learning through trans-disciplinary projects, thereby creating assessments that are both meaningful and relevant to students’ lives and futures.  

Collaboration, Partnerships & Student Participation

The Sustainability in the Arts Festival was the first of its kind in Ireland, and as such it attracted the attention of representatives from the SDSN.  This led to members of the festival team being invited to highlight the festival as an example of good practice at Reach ’24 in Queen’s University Belfast. Music and visual arts students installed and performed an immersive experience they created at Reach ‘24.  Schools outreach projects are integral to the festival, where music and visual art students engage with second level students to create performance pieces based on themes arising from discussion about the SDGs. Multidisciplinary collaborations have included graphic design students working with language students to design recipe cards in different languages for a recipe created by culinary arts students. A new collaboration with the Waterford Lions Club and SETU students took place in the 2025 festival where 60 years of the organisation sustaining the community was celebrated through spoken word, visuals, music, and research.

Student Engagement

c. 250 students directly involved
Overall reach – several thousand throughout the different university campuses, visiting students from local schools, and visiting international cohorts.

Disciplines

• Arts and Humanities
• Education
• Teaching and Learning

Programmes

• BA (Hons) Music
• BA (Hons) Visual Art
• BA (Hons) Graphic Design and Visual Communications
• BA (Hons) Arts – Languages, Dance
• PhD Research
• BA (Hons) Culinary Arts

Best Practices & Resources

Top Tips

• Student-led initiatives lead to better engagement and meaningful outcomes
• Multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches can reinvigorate your T & L environment
• Outward facing platforms can elevate the standard of student work

Funding Details

• HEA SATLE Impact Award funding
• N-TUTORR Funding
• Growth Hub Bursary

About the authors

name: Dr Hazel Farrell

institution: South East Technological University

Dr Hazel Farrell is the Academic Lead for GenAI and Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) Music at South East Technological University, and the Lead for the South East Technological University Sustainability in the Arts Festival.

name: Noeleen Dooley

institution: South East Technological University

name: Jackie Raftery

institution: South East Technological University

name: Susan Connolly

institution: South East Technological University

name: Susan Flynn

institution: South East Technological University

name: Michael Quinn

institution: South East Technological University

name: Denise McAllister Wylie

institution: South East Technological University

name: Nidhi Piplani Kapur

institution: South East Technological University

name: Ailish O'Brien

institution: South East Technological University