From No. 1 in SDG17 to One Shared Future
This year Universiti Malaya is jointly ranked No. 1 in the world for SDG17: Partnerships for the Goals in
Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2025.
But let’s be honest, this isn’t just about rankings. This is about people. It’s about our students, staff, researchers, alumni, neighbours, and partners who believe that meaningful change is possible when we do it together.
At UM, partnerships aren’t just about paperwork. They’re about deep collegiality, shared lessons, and trust built over time, across teams, communities, and borders.
🤝 Partnerships That Cross Borders and Sectors
Whether in meeting rooms, by rivers, lecture halls or kampung community halls, UM’s impact is real, grounded, and far-reaching.
Our researchers contribute to shaping national and regional policies through platforms like the Climate Change Advisory Committee, Social Wellbeing Research Centre (SWRC), Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies (UAC), UM Community Engagement Centre (UMCares), HICOE-Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences (IOES), and HICOE-UM Power Energy Dedicated Advanced Centre (UMPEDAC).
And we don’t do this alone. Through global networks like the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), and the ASEAN University Network (AUN), we collaborate across borders and disciplines.
We learn from each other, share what works, and move the SDG agenda forward.
🧩 Real Conversations, Real Change
If you’ve ever joined a sustainability forum on campus, you’ll know the energy and the tension. Academics, policymakers, businesses, civil society, students, and corporate leaders don’t always agree. But we show up, listen, and engage.
At UM, we’ve created spaces where tough questions are welcomed and bold ideas take root through the UM Sustainability Festival 2023, inaugural National Climate Governance Summit’s University Satellite Event and the EU-ASEAN Youth Diplomats Program on SDGs. These platforms remind that progress begins when we lean into differences and commit to working through them together.
🌍 From UM to the World and Back Again
We don’t just participate in global conversations, we help shape and grow them.
Initiatives like the Indo-Pacific Research & Outreach Project, we engage in meaningful dialogue around regional cooperation and shared sustainability challenges. Programmes such as the UK–MUC Intercultural Dialogue and the AUA Deep Dive on Asian Civilisation connect our students and staff with peers across cultures and continents, creating opportunities for mutual understanding and shared values
These engagements enrich our teaching, research, and community work bringing fresh perspectives home to benefit our own backyard.
🌱 Our Students Don’t Wait to Graduate to Make a Difference
Our students don’t just learn about sustainability, they put it into practice in real and meaningful ways.
estoring our precious water bodies with UM Water Warriors, conserving campus biodiversity through The Rimba Project, reducing waste through the UM Zero Waste Campaign (UM ZWC), turning final-year projects into practical solutions via the Campus Sustainability FYP Programme, these efforts are helping to shift how our campus thinks and behaves.
It starts early. Even during orientation, new students are introduced to Sustainability@UM-WOW, a reminder that they’re part of a larger community working toward positive change. Not only that, courses included under the Student Holistic Empowerment (SHE) under the theme “Global Issues and Community Sustainability: Making the World a Better Place” take this further, linking SDG learning with reflection, values, and everyday action.
👐 With the Community, Not Just For It
At UM, learning neither stops at the campus gates nor does our commitment to sustainability. We communitize.
Not just planting mangroves, feeding the hungry and restoring riverbanks, our students and staff work hand-in-hand with partners like the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS), Soup Kitchen Jinjang KL, and the Global Environment Centre. Through SULAM’s initiative with the Chow Kit community, they helped children strengthen their reading and writing skills. Through the REFAman project, short for "Refugees and Malaysians", they collaborate with refugee youth in a community project that fosters integration into Malaysian society through cultural understanding and the arts. On the other hand, through UMCares’ Pulse of Lembah Pantai, they walk alongside local communities in workshops on financial literacy, composting, and urban farming.
These activities are more than just volunteer hours, they are moments of shared learning, empathy, and trust. Because at UM, we believe real change doesn’t just happen when we work for the community, but more so when we work with them.
🕊️ Honouring Culture in Sustainability
Sustainability at UM goes beyond science and policy, it’s also about values and worldviews.
Through the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue and the Academy of Islamic Studies, we explore how cultural and spiritual wisdom can guide modern sustainability thinking. The Kitab Tafsir Mawdu’i Sungai, for instance, merges Quranic principles with environmental science to promote river stewardship rooted in both faith and reason. Meanwhile, The Dialogue on Inclusivity and Peace fosters partnerships with interfaith and regional networks. This strategic programme strengthened our collective efforts in promoting tolerance, equality, and peace with UM as a catalyst for cross-sector cooperation in advancing inclusive and sustainable societies across South and Southeast Asia.
By connecting reason with reflection, and science with spirituality, we hope to foster a deeper, more inclusive path toward sustainability.
🎓 Teaching with Heart across Every Faculty
Be it engineering, social sciences, natural sciences or the arts and humanities, sustainability lies at the heart of UM’s learning experience.
Undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on Sustainability Science, Renewable Energy, Environmental Management Technology, Ecology and Biodiversity, and Environmental Management equip students with both the technical know-how and the sense of purpose to address real-world challenges.
Beyond the classroom, initiatives like SULAM (Service Learning Malaysia – University for Society) and the UM Living Labs provide hands-on learning experiences that connect knowledge with impact.
Here at UM, sustainability isn’t just a subject, it’s a shared mission carried forward by every faculty.
🎉 A Milestone, Not a Finish Line
This No. 1 ranking for SDG17 isn’t the final destination. It's a checkpoint on a much longer, shared journey.
It reminds us that we’re moving in the right direction. That we’re growing not just as a university, but as a living, breathing ecosystem of doers and changemakers.
So to every student who chose to reduce plastic waste, every lecturer who integrated the SDGs into their lessons, every researcher who pursued knowledge to drive real-world solutions, every staff member who went the extra mile to support sustainability efforts, and every partner who welcomed us into their journey, this win is yours too.
Let’s keep showing up. Let’s keep working hand in hand with humility, creativity, and care for a better, kinder, and more sustainable world. 💚🌍
#HomeoftheBright
#LandoftheBrave
#UMisOne
#UMSustainability
#InspireBeInspired
Special acknowledgement to all UM SDG Champions and Sustainability Coordinators at each PTjs for their dedicated support and contributions in driving the enculturation of sustainability on campus.
The UM SDG Champion for SDG 17 for the 2023 Sustainability Report was Pn. Vigneshree A/P King
(Current Faculty Manager @ Faculty of Engineering & Former Director of Strategic Global Alliances Division, International Relations Centre)
