University of Tasmania
IN-47: Innovation A

Global Climate Change Week (GCCW) is a global initiative that facilitates engagement between tertiary education institutions around the world on issues relating to climate change. Held annually in October, GCCW provides an open-ended framework for voluntary activities aimed at raising awareness, inspiring behaviour change, and driving political transformation in relation to climate policy.
In 2014, a group of academics and students at the University of Wollongong (in Australia) formed a committee to turn the GCCW idea into reality, and GCCW was officially launched in 2015. After five years of leadership from the University of Wollongong community, the stewardship of GCCW transitioned to the University of Tasmania in 2020. UTAS was a logical choice because it had been a very active organisation in past GCCWs, it had become carbon neutral in 2016 and had just passed a new and more vigorous Strategic Framework for Sustainability.
In 2020, the UTAS GCCW Engagement Committee developed an inward (Tasmania) and outward (other universities in Australia and around the world) facing approach to supporting engagement with GCCW and its activities. At the global level, there were 215 participants (champions, event organisers) in 2020, the highest participation since 2016, putting GCCW back on an upward trajectory. The Tasmanian program included 10 events, with a combined attendance of over 400 people and received positive feedback. Additionally, GCCW was used strategically to house the announcement of UTAS’ divestment from fossil fuels – demonstrating the value of GCCW as a discursive device for generating meaningful change in higher education institutions.
In 2021 a new logo and vibrant website were developed in-house by UTAS, demonstrating the University’s support for this initiative, and a blog feature was added to the website. COVID-19 continued to seriously impact academic staff and university capacity to run events both at UTAS and elsewhere. However, opportunities were taken to host virtual meetings and several of these were planned and implemented with considerable success.
Over the next three years, while under the stewardship of UTAS, GCCW will pursue a long-term objective of becoming a calendared annual event well supported by the top 500 universities globally. Furthermore, a series of strategic documents are being developed to ensure a smooth transition between UTAS and the next institution responsible for stewarding GCCW from 2025 onwards.