ABSTRACT
As this Handbook readily demonstrates, the last 10-15 years have seen the emergence of higher education for sustainable development as a vibrant field of policy, practice and research. Over a similar time span, research synthesis has become far more prominent in debates around enhancing the quality of education research and strengthening its influence on education policy and practice (e.g.Davies 2000;Oakley 2002;Gough et al. 2013;Hattie et al. 2014;AltonLee 2014). The purpose of this chapter is to explore whether and how these two trends might be connected, focusing on the role that research synthesis has played in the field of higher education for sustainable development thus far, and the roles it could play in the future. The chapter, however, is not a guide about how to do research synthesis (see, for example,
Cooper and Hedges 1994; Petticrew and Roberts 2006; Sandelowski and Barroso 2007; Borenstein et al. 2009; Major and Savin-Baden 2010a; Gough et al. 2012). Nor does it provide a synthesis of previous research (or previous research syntheses) in the field of higher education for sustainable development. Rather, it draws on selected examples of methodological writing about research synthesis and explores their relevance to synthesising research about higher education for sustainable development, in order to highlight how the latter might be better informed by the former.Our aim then, is to show how future research in this field could benefit from greater involvement with and targeted investment in research synthesis. In so doing, we highlight the need for research and researchers in higher education for sustainable development to consider:
• strategic commissioning of synthesis projects • varied types of synthesis projects and methodologies • fuller involvement of research users in synthesis projects • targeted uses of synthesis to inform policy, practice and research.
