Innovation, Resilience, Leadership and Sustainability in Higher Education

This open access book addresses relevant issues related to higher education and sustainable development goals (SDGs). The book has a high degree of originality and brings innovation to the contemporary solution for 21st century higher education, innovative contextualisation and conceptualisation of ICT-enabled critical thinking. It facilitates the achievement of the UN-defined SDGs and introduces a framework for SDG development that addresses both the national and international needs of current and future higher education.

Addressing all 17 SDGs from different perspectives, the book provides a systemic view that enables students to increase their ability for transformative learning by developing a deeper self-awareness and a more open perspective, which may lead to a profound change in their worldview. Transformative learning combined with systems thinking are key to successfully educating future generations in innovation, resilience, leadership and sustainability. The activities proposed in the book embrace and strengthen active (non-traditional) pedagogy.

Dr. Jesús Martín-Vaquero is Professor at the Salamanca University, Spain. He finished his BSc degree in Mathematics at this University and got his PhD at University Rey Juan Carlos. He is co-author of over 50 papers, and numerous contributions to conferences. He is member of the Editorial Board of several journals and participated in various funding projects. His research interests include the study of numerical methods for solving PDEs and ODEs, approximation theory, and mathematical education.

Dr. Luis Hernández-Álvarez works at the Spanish National Research Council. He finished his Biomedical Engineering degree at Universidad Carlos III, as well as a master's degree in Health Information Engineering and PhD. His area of research is cybersecurity, studying the combination of Artificial Intelligence and biometry to develop new user authentication and cryptographic key generation schemes. He is also researching the use of AI tools to test the security of the novel postquantum cryptographic algorithms.

Dr. Antonio González Sánchez graduated with a BSc in Physics from the University of Salamanca in Spain where he earned his PhD with a dissertation on Statistical Physics of Liquids. He is currently part of the Research Group on Energy Optimization, Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics at the University of Salamanca. He has participated in many research projects and authored a number of research articles. His current interests encompass Thermodynamics, especially the production and management of renewable energies, and the teaching of Physics.

Dr. Deolinda M. L. D. Rasteiro holds degrees in Mathematics (University of Coimbra), Statistics and OR (University of Lisbon), and a PhD in Network Optimisation (University of Aveiro). She is Coordinator Professor at ISEC - Polytechnic University, teaches Statistics, Applied Mathematics, and Decision Support Methods, and chaired its board. She chairs SEFI's Maths SIG and co-leads SPEE's Maths Group. Author of 74+ papers, she leads locally at IPC/ISEC the Erasmus+ projects MATH-DIGGER and GIRLS, promoting innovative teaching of mathematics.

Dr. Ion Mierlus Mazilu is Associate Professor at the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest. He holds a PhD in Mathematics and Informatics from the University of Bucharest. He serves on editorial boards and has coordinated national research projects. Author of several books and papers, his research focuses on probability, statistics, operational research, numerical analysis, and digital approaches to mathematics education.

Miguel Ángel González de la Torre graduated in Mathematics from the University of Salamanca in Spain. He obtained a Master's Degree in Teaching MAES specialising in Mathematics and another Master in Mathematics at the University of Granada. He is currently working at the ITEFI, contracted in the ORACLE project by the research group GiCSI of the Information and Communication Technologies department. He has enrolled in the PhD programme at the University of Salamaca.

Dr. Araceli Queiruga-Dios is working at the Department of Applied Mathematics at Universidad de Salamanca in Spain where she finished her BSc degree in Physics and got her PhD in Mathematics. She collaborated with the Department of Information Processing and Coding of CSIC, working on Public Key Cryptography. She has participated as collaborator in several research projects at regional, national and European level. Her current research interests include public key cryptography and information security, as well as mathematics education in engineering, in particular with active methodologies and sustainability.