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Purpose: The purpose of this paper aims to discuss the outreach strategies of higher education institutions (HEIs) to promote the inclusion of refugees, focusing on two case studies of programs in southern Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes two outreach programs of Brazilian universities: the Welcome Program for Immigrants (Programa Acolhida ao Imigrante) of the University of South Santa Catarina, a private higher education institution and the Support Center for Immigrants and Refugees (Núcleo de Apoio ao Imigrantes e Refugiados), sponsored by the Federal University of Santa Catarina, a public university. The activities of the two institutions were compared with the targets of the sustainable development goals to discuss the outreach strategies of HEIs aimed at promoting the inclusion of refugees, through descriptive research, with a qualitative approach based on documentary and bibliographic research. Findings: The results show that academic participation in research and outreach programs provides refugees with an education but also represents a social contribution far beyond qualifications and technical training, by mitigating local and global problems. The practice of inclusive education allows a reduction in historically existing inequalities. The findings of this study indicate that the results are much more effective when universities, government and society work together to reduce inequalities. Originality/value: This study addressed how universities can and should ensure life quality (SDG 3), including an equitable education and fostering lifelong learning opportunities for everybody (SDG 4) and gender equality (SDG 5), to reduce unemployment (SDG 8) and inequalities among people (SDG 10), through outreach projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Higher education institutions are regarded as forerunners and pioneers of sustainability. However, it is to question whether they actually fulfill their role model function. This paper aims to reveal whether selected universities in Australia and Austria meet the reporting expectations about their activities on sustainability in very heterogeneous environments.Design/methodology/approach Annual reports of selected universities in Australia and Austria are screened by the qualitative text analysis suggested by Mayring to identify their information policy on sustainability. Following the standard definitions, sustainability comprises economic, environmental and social aspects as main categories, which are supplemented further by specifically adapted eight subcategories.Findings The results reveal that the universities concentrate on economic information, preferably on accounting, whereas social aspects are of second importance. Environmental activities that essentially shape the image of sustainability for the majority of the stakeholders are mostly unattended.Research limitations/implications For further research, the authors suggest analyzing the reports of additional countries to get a bigger picture on the role of sustainability information in university reporting. Possible limitations are because of language use and time requirements, as each report must be encoded manually.Practical implications The results reveal the gaps that standard setters should fill by enforcing sustainability content in universities’ reports.Originality/value This paper is the first to analyze the annual reports of international universities in respect to sustainability. Hereby, we further fill a gap by applying a qualitative text analysis on the basis of individually derived categories to reveal the sustainability aspects more precisely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]