Meliora: a podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute
Welcome to the Green Gown Award winning Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability and Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton!
This podcast explores the greatest and most wicked problem that is sustainability, whilst looking at how we are collectively addressing this critical global challenge.
Sustainability needs to be addressed by understanding how the economy, society, culture, politics and environment intersect, and this is the focus that informs each episode of the Meliora podcast.
In each episode, host Professor Simon Kemp and guest hosts are joined by a variety of guests, including academics, students, staff, researchers, alumni, community groups and business leaders.
The aim of the podcast is to shine a light on the vast range of topics surrounding sustainability and to allow listeners to learn about the critical challenges we face, as well as how they can be part of the solution. We also ensure our fantastic students have the opportunity to share their brilliant work with the world.
Podcast host: Professor Simon Kemp, Deputy Director of the Sustainability & Resilience Institute, University of Southampton
Podcast editors: Jack Dinham, Ellie Howell, Mya Harvey, Lily Killner, Sophie Green, Libby Kale, School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton
Podcast communications: Tyler Domone-Hollands, Hannah Parish, Alexander Ayerst, Maya Stevens, University of Southampton
Please do get in touch to discuss this podcast and any of the issues we raise by emailing sri@soton.ac.uk
Follow us on instagram and X: @meliorapodcast
Meliora: a podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute
Stefania-Myrto Staiculescu: Sustainability Across Borders: Comparing student attitudes and behaviours at Southampton (UK) and Can Tho (Viet Nam)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Stefania-Myrto Staiculescu (BSc Geography) joins us to discuss her independent research project "Sustainability Across Borders: Comparing Student Attitudes and Behaviours at Southampton (UK) and Can Tho (Viet Nam) which is part of the Sustainability & Resilience Institute (University of Southampton) and Mekong Institute (Can Tho University) research collaboration.
In recent years, sustainability has become increasingly relevant, and universities are recognised as key to promoting and shaping students' environmental attitudes and behaviours. Students across all disciplines and international contexts should develop environmental awareness because they are future decision-makers who will determine the success of sustainable development. The aim of this study is to assess how sustainability attitudes and behaviours among students differ at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom and Can Tho University in Viet Nam. A qualitative research study using NVivo was conducted, with 24 semi-structured interviews. The results revealed overall high levels of sustainability awareness at both universities, but a gap between the awareness and pro-environmental behaviours. Students at Can Tho University reveal that their sustainable behaviour is strongly linked to university-led and collective initiatives that encourage student engagement. However, at Southampton, students showed less enthusiasm for university initiatives and described more individual daily changes, such as transport choices and waste management. Although these findings are useful, further research could expand participant selection and look at multiple participant groups, such as the public, to help develop sustainable behaviours for the whole community.
Contact Stefania on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefania-staiculescu-0744812a9/
Guest: Stefania-Myrto Staiculescu, BSc Geography
Host: Prof Simon Kemp
Producer & Editor: Jack Dinham
The Meliora Podcast Student Research Symposium is part of the 2026 Student Takeover Season where we celebrate the fantastic sustainability research work of our Undergraduate Students.