ASPECTS OF SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF EIGHT UNIVERSITIES IN EUROPE

Sustainability is the ability to develop without depleting natural resources for future generations. In European universities, especially in English-speaking countries, students have been able to participate since 1970 in addressing some functions of sustainability: reinvention, reduction, reuse/replenishment/repeat, redesign, recycling, rethinking, repair, reconditioning, remanufacturing, recovery, rejection, refusal, registration, reuse, composting, return and recovery. The paper aims to present the identification of indicators such as: academic prestige, reputation among employees, the number of citations related to the number of teaching staff, the share of teaching staff from abroad and the share of foreign students and their impact on knowledge and universities. 8 sustainable universities in Europe were selected for evaluation in 2023. The research methodology consists of the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the sustainability reports, the selected rankings and some answers obtained based on a short interview. The assessment of implications for sustainable development was carried out by consulting public reports for 8 international universities. The results show that internationalization, sustainable development, and research are among the main areas that can contribute to improving a university's position in international rankings. The limitations of the research refer to the number of selected universities and the lack of transparency of the university rankings.