Angelika Sharygina
Ladies and gentlemen! I'm very excited to welcome you to the very first World Higher Education Ranking Summit. And today, we are joined by leaders in their field, changemakers, innovators, people that care about the issue of sustainability, implementation of the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals into Life and Human Rights.

Today's topic is crucial for the world in troubling times, like today, "The Development of effective accountable and transparent institutions", meeting the Sustainable Development Goals 16, Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. And I'm very honored to welcome everyone here on this panel, because we have real experts in the field right now, that will be able to answer any of your questions if you submitted it to the chatbox. And we'll be given their excellent insights on meeting the SDG 16.

First of all, let me introduce our honoree panelists, Karina Gomes. Karina Gomes is the Executive Director of LocalChangeHub and an expert in local implementation of SDGs and human rights. With a master's degree in Human Rights. She applies human rights-based approaches to sustainable development related projects, working in the UN agencies, city administrations and International Research Center's. Karina is a member of the Local Pathways Fellowship 2022 Cohort, (UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network-Youth) and She's co-author of the book “Implementing Human Rights and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development at the Local Level: Key Issues and Examples.”

Welcome Karina! Where are you joining us from?

Karina Gomes
Hi, everyone! Thank you very much for the warm welcoming. I'm very happy to join this discussion and I'm joining you today from Germany.

Angelika Sharygina
Excellent! Thank you, Karina. I also would like to introduce you to Kristiana Kuneva, your academic background in Political Science and Human Rights law is outstanding. She holds a master's degree in Human Rights from London School of Economics. Professionally, she has done policy and advocacy work for various international organizations and intergovernmental bodies, including UNICEF, Council of Europe and the European Parliament.

Your current goal is to explore the in-depth the intersection [phonetic 03:24] field between Human Rights Protection and Tech Innovation. This is very interesting. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say Kristiana, Where are you joining us from?

Kristiana Kuneva
Hello, everyone, and thank you Angelika, for the wonderful introduction as well. I'm currently in the UK. I'll be joining from here today.

Angelika Sharygina
Excellent! Thank you very much, Kristiana. I would like to welcome to this panel another extraordinary panelist. His name is Ramon. Ramon is an Independent Accredited Lobbyist at the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. Thereby he is advocating empowering, educating young professionals to become part of the EU policy and decision making process in it for sustainable development, EU Green Deal, and digitalization. He's also a frequently asked public speaker. He's helping with digital skills to use acquired digital skills and sustainable development. And he's been working within the Erasmus Plus exchange programs helping students all across the world. Thank you so much Ramon. And please tell us more. Where are you joining us from?

Ramon Rahangmetan
Thank you so much for warm welcome, Angelika. I'm joining from Latvia Sacristy I look forward to this panel.

Angelika Sharygina
Excellent! Thank you very much. And Emily Schoof, I'm really honored to welcome Emily. Emily is a multi-passionate data scientists and data engineer with a bright background in immunology and neuro-oncology research, she has made it her life's work to empower others make strategic decisions to improve society with high quality data initiatives. And recently, Emily has been working in parallel with the ICTD system engineers, and Risk Analysis and Preparedness Section, Office of Emergency Operations teams at UNICEF to develop Data Pipelines that extract, transform and load global event data from open media sources that is used to develop and forecast models relevant to conflicts. This is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much, Emily, where are you joining us today from?

Emily Schoof
Hi, good morning! I'm joining you from Mexico City this evening, or this morning.

Angelika Sharygina
Wonderful, we have a very diverse and very extraordinary panel today because everyone today that is president is an expert in their field, and would be happy to share their insights, knowledge on peacekeeping building actual mechanisms, how we can guarantee the implementation of the UNSDG16. And it's very interesting, because as you know, today, we have our audience is mostly academics. It's academics, members of faculty, dean's, presidents of universities, and also we have a proportion of students joining press conference today. My first question would be; Could you please tell us why SDG-16 is fundamental, one of the most important goals to implement, and why it is so difficult to execute it?

Ramon Rahangmetan
Well, if I can answer that question from you. And yes, for me, it's really important, because in terms of the projects that I managed to do with, for example, Erasmus Plus with different universities, the ties between strong institutions, for us is very important. Why? Because they host students and teachers as well. For example, Erasmus Plus project is focused on bridging the gap between those two, students and teachers and peace is therefore, needed as a fundamental thing, to bridge that gap in strong institutions that need to be transparent in that topic, as well.

I'm talking about from an academic point of view, what our organization is doing, is organizing this topic in a way that it makes more sense for the students as well, because we work with youngsters, we first need to focus on What does peace mean to you. In terms of a bottom up perspective, let's say for more community point of view, we want to first teach the students on what peace means to them, and then create a stability for them to enable them to educate them in a better way. From a bottom up perspective, that's my opinion, to really have that first fundamental thing of what does peace really mean to that young person?

Karina Gomes
To talk about peace, justice, and strong institutions, it is crucial to understand the core message of agenda 2030, which is leaving on behind, and why it is the most prominent link between the development agenda and the human rights framework.
I'm a UNESCO consultant and also, as you have mentioned, Director of LocalChangeHub, and I've been researching the inter linkages between sustainable development and human rights and practically translating the guidance provided by these global agendas and international commitments into implementation of programs and policies. And this practice has shown that the SDG framework defines development targets and indicators that measure development, but do not give a specific information or guidance on respect protection or fulfillment of human rights and do not address directly the dimensions of equality, equal opportunities, participation, equal treatment. So addressing anti-discrimination, inclusion and accountability instruments is key to develop effective, transparent and accountable institutions.

So in the book, you mentioned, “Implementing Human Rights and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development at the Local Level", which is co-authored by me and published by UNESCO. In this book, the researcher, Markus Möstl and I together with our series editors, we explore how to operationalize the Human Rights phased approach as to effectively implement the Sustainable Development and Human Rights Agendas, and then I can break this down into at least 3 core actions. That means putting people at the center and developing human rights centered approaches that promote the wellbeing of every person and respect and protect their human rights. And that also entails identifying those left furthest behind.

Also deliberately combating racism, discrimination and prejudice, identifying existing practices that lead to exclusion, and incorporating considerations of race, disability, color, religious background, age, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, and so many others, also promoting gender equality and diversity with specific diversity policies. And later during this discussion, I will be happy to bring this down to the university environment.

Kristiana Kuneva
Building up on what Karina, Ramon have said, I've been working in the section of children's rights for the past few years. For me, it's really critical to address the issue of building up transparent and justice brown institutions on an international level. Because when it comes to protecting the rights, and providing safety and providing for the well-being to the vulnerable communities, as children or children from excluded groups are, it is very crucial to always take into account how important the building of such transparency institution is for the protection of those rights. Because when proceeding from the region that I've been working for, which is mostly in Eastern Europe, when it comes to dealing with institutions that provide for the safe placement and allocation of children that come from excluded groups or that suffer after family separation, it's very important to provide our children conflict with the law is very important to provide those children with access to justice and transparent institutions, and peacebuilding institutions are the primary place that we should turn to in order to secure their safety and well-being.

Emily Schoof
Yes, so as I was listening to everyone speak especially in the medical community, getting the information to the right person at the right time, is always vital in terms of making a really important decision or intervention. And I think that perspective has really held true within the humanitarian environment. And so that's kind of why transparent institutions allow for the development of projects that allow us to get information to people faster. And so while I don't work directly on the side, where directly with the people who work with children, I work directly with the people who use that information, to set up those channels and to set up those dynamics and interventions that allow a place for children to be displaced safely, if there's a war zone, where they're from. Transparency within an institution is absolutely vital in terms of getting the information to the right people at the right time.

Angelika Sharygina
What would you guys recommend to actually encourage and to get the information to the vulnerable groups? How can we do that? How we can promote this for people who do not speak English in the crisis region? Because there are many, many, many crisis regions where they do not speak English. And how do we promote this, how we promote the information to those areas that are quite far away? Where there is no internet, let's say that have very difficult facilities, very broken facilities, I would say, What is your opinion on that?

Emily Schoof
I'll at least start this one. It's a bit of a less technical answer, but from my experience working within UNICEF and other institutions, it's almost having fresh blood. It's allowing for new people to come into the institutions with new perspectives, and those perspectives to be valued and taken into account. Because when you work on a new project, you get to know a new dynamic and a new team, you see things differently. And there's a new fresh perspective. And I think that's something that is starting to happen within these institutions. But there's a lot of systematic, this is how we do things, methodologies that are happening internally, and if there is the freedom and the flexibility for new perspectives and new implementations to be kind of taken seriously. And applied very quickly, that would reduce a lot of the friction that's with the data movement, information movement right now, just because you see somebody, you kind of can see what needs to be changed, when you're a new person versus if you're too steep within it, it's kind of hard to see the improvements, the small little improvements that can really make a vast difference.

Angelika Sharygina
Goal 16 is not about only peace giving organizations, it’s also about institutions, and it doesn’t say directly higher education institutions, but let’s assume that it is. What do you think is the importance here, why higher education institutions must collaborate with peace giving initiatives with organizations that focus on transparency, inclusivity, peace promotion, what do you think?

Karina Gomes
I think Ramon can complement me as well. Institutions need to specifically implement SDG targets and indicators doesn't matter what nature they have, what role they have, and always under a human rights based approach. That means fulfilling the role of knowledge generation educational activities, but also developing tools programs to support justice, peace and human rights within the institution, and also to the local communities that you're serving. Promoting peaceful, inclusive societies, by building collaboration, partnerships to develop practical solutions to help build and strengthen the communities where they are present, involving these communities in these processes, also creating communication channels through which students can report cases of racism, prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, and any kind of human rights violation. These offices, like the establishment of a human rights office, for example, can also serve the local community. And it's also very important to have access to information and the existing accountability policies and mechanisms that needs to be effectively communicated in different languages also to address incoming migrants, and also Refugee Seekers, Asylum Seekers, as I said, anti-discrimination internal guidelines, they need to be established to prevent the situations and diversity inclusion and human rights offices are also very effective instruments, and of course, creating effective arrangements for reporting of institutional performance and with participatory and transparent decision-making processes.

Emily Schoof
In terms of the perspective that universities can really add value is understanding what problems are happening currently outside of the academic field and setting up their students to already be thinking in that perspective, while they're learning these new methodologies, essentially, because students are empowering themselves with more information and perspectives and people who go to universities, we're hungry to learn, we want to learn. And I think most of us want to make a really big impact in the world. And so actively having that perspective, while you're learning makes you a very powerful person, when you're actually within the realm of working with UNICEF, or working within any of these institutions. And you have these fresh ideas and these optimized ideas and real improvements have happen very quickly, when the generation of students become the workforce. And they're highly educated and very aware of what's currently happening so that they can actively have those improvements on hand and be a part of the change, really!

Ramon Rahangmetan
Yes, I've also wanted to react on Karina and Angelika, like you mentioned as well, the word leadership comes in mind. And when you want to communicate the message clearly, we need to communicate with leaders and the way how we transfer that message to a specific target audience or group in order to, let's say, focus on that topic of peace and justice. But it doesn't always come as easy as possible, right? We need to educate youngsters how to communicate them, because most of them, as I talked about it, from a bottom-up perspective, don't know how to express themselves more clearly about this topic. And if we don't have that as our core value, how can we express ourselves in this way, there's no communication, there's no dialogue. And we need that kind of dialogue within the institutions to also raise our voices and also come up with better policies and regulations. So like you mentioned, it starts from the inside, but also how the outside is going to be communicated towards the inside, let's say from an institution. I completely agree with also ladies here. Yes.

Kristiana Kuneva
Reading up on what Emily said, I think it's very important to understand that students, studying at such higher and excellent high-level institutions, it's important to know that students going there are the next workforce. Speaking from a personal perspective, and personal experience, when I was attending really excellent schools, giving these kinds of opportunities for students to express themselves to have access to information, not just from the inside, but from the outside world to know what's happening, how we can address that, where is our actual place is into transferring this information further, and to actually communicating what are the possible ways to achieve such a change for society. Speaking from this personal perspective, I can really say that this is the way forward. And it's very important to actually address the challenges with students, and to give them access to such opportunities at such a stage. Because-- I mean, I cannot speak for everyone. But for many of those students, they didn't probably have these kinds of opportunities before entering such entities and such establishment.

Building upon this progress of them during their attendance of their studies, at these higher level institutions, it's very important to them to actually grasp the opportunities and built on these opportunities. They can continue with delivering a very impactful change afterwards in their life building, like being within communications with other entities or working on the development of the transparent institutions. It's all very crucial for this purpose.

Angelika Sharygina
It is very important, what you've just mentioned. And also I just wanted to address everyone's attention to ranking systems, because when we rank University, usually, it's not asked to rank not students. I mean, I'm not a student anymore, but I'm also a recent graduate. And I know that universities they do get higher ranking if there is great research, if there is citation in place, if they're well known, however, we need to also have the ranking methodology that includes accountability and importance of accountability in higher institutions. What do you think about this?

Karina Gomes
Well, I think we are all here very passionate about bottom-up and participatory approaches, and the changing role that universities have and rankings should definitely include and measure the positive impact that universities bring to society. Not only at the international or national level, but also at the local level, it's very important that they involve their communities and that they have an eye open to the local challenges they face. And also special attention to the needs of the student community, to their profile, what they need, are they being heard or not? And investing participation and communication it's definitely a good investment to increase the profile of the university and at the same time, bring change to society.

Ramon Rahangmetan
So basically, indeed, if an institution is rated in the most best way, there's also more chance that if this institution is partnering up in a Consortium, for example, funding for projects, then there's more chance that projects get approved. And that's what we also noticed, within our proposals from Erasmus Plus, for example, with the Armenian State University of Economics because we help them with these projects, they also ask, could you rank us in the university ranking. If you partner up with different kinds of institutions, and also with different organizations, you get a much bigger way of implementing these projects more efficiently and effectively in each local community. Because each university has its own data and indicators, mentioned before. And with these indicators, you can actually ask for proposals for funding for doing projects. That's more from a top-down perspective, instead of a bottom-up perspective. And that's what I'm really excited about to see more universities in these rankings, also proving that they can do these projects and also educating students in the right way. I'm really looking forward to have more of these rankings in the best way possible for universities, definitely.

Angelika Sharygina
That is crucial for everyone. And the collaboration here is the key. At UniRanks, there is a new methodology, a new ranking system that allows Sustainable Development Goals, be part of the ranking methodology, and allow students to review university based on their satisfaction, and inclusivity, non-discrimination, this is very important. I would like to address this to everyone on this panel, what do you think needs to be done? Practically, let's say we see the situation where there is institution that does not promote peace, for example, does not promote equality, or if it's an individual at that institution what should be done, first of all, by number, by students, and by civil society, anyone who can get involved, let's say, we are talking here about violation of SDGs. We know this framework of SDGs. But as Karina has just said, we didn't have the exact implementation mechanism on what to do if this has been violated. This is an open call for answers here. Thank you.

Emily Schoof
I'll take the first part of that, in terms of the actual punishment, or the call of action that needs to happen. I'm not exactly sure what that would be. But in from the perspective of the student, if that is happening at their university, there needs to be a discussion about it, it needs to be addressed within the institution and talked about why this doesn't work with the actual, why this rule matters, and why we need to make some sort of corrective action to fix this because I think too often as a former student at a university, when things would happen that were scandalous within the university, it was more of a rumor or you would hear about it through news articles externally, instead of actually being addressed within the institution. And as a student that gives you the perspective of is this allowed in my institution, but they just got caught? What is the circumstance here? I think that being actively discussing these violations with students is really important because then that teaches the students who are there as a sponge to say, okay, things are going to happen, things that are not okay are going to happen within institutions with my work or within the scope or career that I'm within. How do we address this and this is how we deal with it, if that makes sense. It gives those probably on resolving skills in real time.

Angelika Sharygina
Karina, do you think there is anything from human rights perspective, and also from the perspective where we can actually let's say, this institution or this organization doesn't have to be higher institution, but let's say any organization doesn't meet your own Goal 16. In fact, they do quite the opposite. What should be done?

Karina Gomes
Well, from a human rights perspective, it is crucial to establish specific offices or institutions that will follow up on accountability and human rights implementation. If the institution itself doesn't have the power or is not willing to open this channel, for reporting on human rights violations on discrimination cases, within a university environment, for example, it's up to the students to advocate for that in their student unions and create their own reporting mechanisms. And that can be brought to the management of the university. And that can be also communicated to the community that there is this kind of approach, I'm kind of transferring the research I've done with human rights offices in cities across Europe, and also the Americas. And these offices, they are independent from the city hall, they are not a political office, they are formed by civil society members, by the population by people interested in human rights implementation. And this is a form of discussion of reporting, of analyzing data, and that can be brought to the responsible authorities. And this is also an accountability mechanism coming from the bottom up, that can be institutionalized and gaining authority and visibility if the involved people are willing to bring about change.

These are instruments that are used by civil society in different contexts, that can also be translated into the university context, of course, observing the institution the possibilities. Of course, we need to look specifically at each specific case of what is the local demand? What are the main violations that have being placed, and based on that diagnose, on those outcomes can students or the civil society or involved authorities or even the management if they have the commitment to do so they can design their own accountability mechanism that is suited to that local specific reality. I think this is the main idea behind it, the main approach the main methodology.

Ramon Rahangmetan
You brought up an interesting point to Kristiana about the way education should be ruled regulated from a staff member point of view, like a university committee, because if there's no synergy in learning from student to committee to teacher, then this whole university can lack behind their, let's say project and schedule and also policies that are being implemented from the top-down perspective, because let's not forget that part, SGS, for example, in European perspective, is regulated from the EU Green Deal, The Union Green Deal in Europe. If universities and corporates that are working with universities don't know about these policies that are coming their way, then they're behind, and also, at the same time students don't know if they think they know that the corporates know what they're doing, universities know what they're doing. But internally, they just focus on what they need to do. This needs to be a synergetic way, holistic way, holistic approach, and how these SDGs should be implemented the right way, and also communicate in the right way. Because this top down bottom up perspective, it sounds really good and really effective. But we still are humans, we still need time, we still need to take our responsibilities, and we still have other things to do as well, we need to take time to really enhance that learning of what these SDGs actually mean in a local level, but also how it's being implemented from a top down perspective, if that makes sense. What Kristiana was saying, as well.

Karina Gomes
Add on the press media issue, I'm also a journalist, such a recent perspective on that, to get journalists attention to a very specific issue within an institution, depending on the level of violation, on the level of gravity of a specific act, it perhaps won't get their attention that easily, it would have to be a massive action that would affect most of the students and also the society somehow, also the local community.
One very interesting instrument is to have inside University media project. We had newspapers in the past, but now we are talking about social media, about social media led by students who can be influencers, in their universities and in their communities. This is also an interesting instrument to be explored in terms of requesting for accountability from institutions.

Angelika Sharygina
The country that doesn't promote human rights, what can be done in that area? What can be done? Where should the students go? Where should the citizens go? What should they do?

Emily Schoof
It's a really big question. There are a lot of different dynamics that are involved within that. I think that from the external perspective, we don't really accepting the reality that we actually don't really have that much control in the situations. And we can only intervene to a certain degree, directly in those institutions, externally, but in terms of being part of the UN, or being part of these communities of education, I think that a really good idea would be to offer students who are in schools like that, and in countries like that, to give them priority, or to give them some sort of weighted admission into a different school or with different scholarship options, or paying for the entire education, just to allow those students to have a ability to go to a different spot. And I know this is a really complex question. And this is even a complex answer. That sounds very simple base level. But I think that that would be much more of a globalized perspective of how can we create opportunities, external from that endure that country that allow those students to get educated in a different ways so that they can implement the changes to their country, depending on what the situation is? But yes, I think, to be quite honest, I think we could talk about all sorts of ideas, but it would be very specific, based on which countries we're talking about in which level of censorship we're talking about.

Karina Gomes
Yes, and also opportunities for them to exchange with students abroad in other countries, who can voice their demands and voice their human rights violation situation locally. And if we're talking about very restrictive alternative environments, we cannot say, Let's organize a protest, or let's use social media to combat these violations in some countries, or in some contexts, the reality is very restrictive. But then I think it comes as Emily says, the role of being of international students are looking at the situation of other students in other countries where there are alternative regimes, and how they can support the students who are living this kind of situation. Yes, I think it would be a good reflection for universities in democratic countries, to also think about how to establish communication channels, with universities where the situation is very restrictive.

Emily Schoof
Let me just add in one more thing. This is kind of what I alluded to earlier, where I talked about fresh blood and new perspectives. The students who are in those environments or been through those environments, have the best perspective when it comes to this kind of question. We can talk about it and hypothesize it all we want. But we actually never lived that. And so there are certain perspectives that we just don't have. And from the global perspective, it's our job to be able to find people who we can give the mic to. And they can kind of help offer these suggestions and implementations. And I think, as lifetime learners and invested in education, that is our role as educators is to hand the mic to the right people. And to empower those people with the perspective they have to have the tools to actually implement these changes.

Angelika Sharygina
Ramon, what would be your recommendation to the organizations across the world to keep up with the SGs, Implement SDG-16 in action, and be accountable?

Ramon Rahangmetan
Yes, that's a great question. I always say to my students, the best thing to have in life is an open mind. And to me that it all starts with open minds. It all starts with an open mind on what tactics strategies you use to implement those SDGs. But also the courage to do within your community, to connect with people on a humane way, what are the stories, listen to them, listen more to people in your local communities? What can you do? And what are your own goals, combine it with your own goals that you have, and do projects with those goals. That's what how I started as well in my community. I was thinking, how can I be more value? How can I contribute to what I can do? I think my recommendation to everything in life when you're young, whether you're a lobbyist, whatever you're doing, have an open mind to new perspectives with new solutions, because we are living in an ever-changing time. And it requires dynamic minds to filter all these informations. And stay curious for that. Yes, thank you.

Karina Gomes
--Universality, divisibility, non-discrimination, these are shared principles, both of the development agenda and the human rights framework. It's very important that institutions, the academic community, establish inter linkages between the international human rights obligations, also from the International state, and policy frameworks of the SDGs. Bring them together, because this has really the potential to leaving on behind or identifying those which are being left behind. And it's a powerful approach to develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions, in line with SDG-16.

Kristiana Kuneva
I do believe that communication is vital for any kind of activity like this. For anyone who's out there and wants to make a change, and actually wants to work towards the development of actual transparent institutions, whoever that is, be the student, be a lobbyist, be as advocator, whoever it is, I would recommend that connecting to the right people and communicating sharing this message, whenever there's a validation or anything that's wrong, is observed, communicating and actually trying to get that message further and further to the right channels, and to the right people is very crucial. And also, I would say that being your own motivator, when you actually observe a violation that's wrong with you, is the most important thing that everybody should be doing at any point of life, and in any point of practice. I definitely think that inside motivation to actually go out there is pick your mind, communicate and get that message out. You can achieve that change is the most important thing that everybody should be doing. And I think this is the way forward.

Emily Schoof
Oh, yes, I essentially am echoing the same message that my three other colleagues have been saying. Curiosity, combined with communication. Curiosity, I think is the most fundamental aspect of education that sometimes gets undervalued. That's why we get into education. But sometimes within the educational environment, in the academic environment, we get fixated on being right for strong high grades. And shifting that perspective to being more curious, and to having the transparency and teaching your students and allowing your students to teach you when methods aren't working and when methodologies they see changes that they think should be implemented and making a conversation about that. There's critical thinking skills when looking at what is to see if it can be improved. And Academia is the perfect environment for that, and I think that's something that isn't exactly being implemented everywhere right now.

Angelika Sharygina
This is absolutely critical. Thank you so much, Emily. And I would like to thank everyone on this panel. It's been a very exciting roll, thought provoking and honest discussion, on accountability on UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals in particular Goal number 16. What we've have heard today was a truly outstanding because we've heard from leaders in their field, people that care about UN 17 Sustainable Development, goals, implementation, and care about human rights. And I urge everyone who is watching us and listening to us just make sure if you have any questions, submit them in the chat box and we will make sure that our honoree participants will answer those questions. I know that today's discussion has generated massive interest among academic students visionaries and everyone who cares about human rights. Thank you so much for your time today. It was my pleasure to interview you and I really hope to see you again. Thank you!