Intermediary organizations and their role in advancing the SDGs in higher education

Figures & data

Table 1. Types of intermediary organizations according to their proximity to the government.

High Proximity	Medium Proximity	Low Proximity
IOs with high proximity can be initiated by the government, or partially funded by it. They are involved in shaping policy processes and often have a formal mandate. They frequently interact with the government and have their objectives closely connected to the governmental.	IOs with medium proximity often act as bridges between the government and various stakeholders, thus initiating collaboration. These could be consultancies, advisory projects or other types of interaction. Even though the focus of these organizations is not necessarily connected to the government, they are closely related in their main agenda.	These organizations have minimal direct involvement with government in their activities. They function independently and do not focus their efforts on implementing governmental agenda. Their interactions with the governmental agencies are not regular.

Table 2. Types of isomorphism depending on the proximity to the government.

Types of Isomorphism
IOs by Proximity to the Government	Coercive	Normative	Mimetic
High Proximity	likely	likely	unlikely
Medium Proximity	unlikely	likely	likely
Low Proximity	unlikely	likely	very likely

Table 3. Main intermediary actors.

IO	Scale	Type of organization^3	Proximity to the government	Funding	Number of employees	Year of establishment	The SDGS are main priority	Members
The GUNI	global	University network Cluster organization	Low	Private/ by UNESCO and the Catalan Association of Public Universities (The ACUP)	9	1999	Yes	291 members from 87 countries. The members include higher education institutions, UNESCO Chairs and research centers.
The ACUP	local	Association of public universities	Medium	Private	9	2002	No	Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Universitat de Girona (UdG), Universitat de Lleida (UdL), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
AQU	local	Quality assurance Efficiency agency	High	Public	53	1996	No	Accredited universities in Catalonia
The CIC	local	Cluster organization	Medium	Voluntary basis participation	Voluntary employment	2019	Yes	12 Catalan universities (also 4 private), representatives from the student community, AQU Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR), the CERCA Institute, the ACUP and the Secretariat General of the CIC

Figure 1. Causal mechanism.

Table 4. Data collection.

Organization	Interviewees	Documents of analysis
AQU	Head of Internationalization and Knowledge Generation Department Project coordinator	Webpages Standards and Criteria for the Institutional Accreditation of University Centres Internal presentations Newsletter Corporate social responsibility report
The CIC working group (the 2030 Agenda Woking Group)	Coordinator The CIC founder The CIC representative Student representative	Webpages 2nd Global Survey on Higher Education and Research for Sustainable Development Action Plan for the Catalan University System
The GUNI	Director Project officer	Webpages Conference presentations Reports on the SDGs Open access publications Newsletter
The ACUP	Project Officer Executive Secretary	Webpages Internal notes Declaration ‘The commitment of Catalan universities with the Sustainable Development Goals: towards a transformative education for a new world’ Information portal showcasing the examples of the SDGs in Catalan higher education.