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The world of higher education is changing and the world in which higher education plays an important role is also changing. Sustainability studies at universities are a rapidly emerging field. Whereas in the 1980s only a few universities considered sustainability to be relevant to their activities, there are currently thousands of universities around the world that regard sustainability as relevant or even central to their activities (Lozano, 2011). The international dimension of higher education is becoming important, complex, and confusing. International mobility is perceived as an important tool and is an obvious must in the current globalized world (Jonkers & Tijssen, 2008). Internationalization is also an important index by which the educational quality of universities can be measured and a fundamental feature of the world's first-class universities (Deem, Mok, & Lucas, 2008; Olcay & Bulu, 2017). Therefore, the challenges facing colleges and universities arise from external environmental factors as well as the expectations associated with the internal interests of the university. Universities are often referred to as one of the oldest structures in the world, with it being commonly recognized that the first universities were established around the 11th Century. It would, however, be ill sighted to suppose that university structures had not changed at all over the past millennium (Pryds, 2000).
It would also be unwise to compare society with merely 27 universities worldwide to today's reality with more than 26,000 universities. Even if we only go back hundred years, scholars globally by and large agree, that three particular stages can be identified in the development of universities and university structures in the past century, with a fourth one emerging. A first stage is the pre-war stage of 'old school' universities that are in most cases self-regulated and self-financed; a second stage is a post-war period that was marked by the democratization of higher education and proliferation of government-subsidized universities alongside private initiatives; and a third stage started in the 1980s following financial crises and austerity programs on the part of governments, urging universities to rethink their funding (and their spending) and subsequently their (management) structure. We argue that a fourth stage has begun to emerge since the beginning of the new millennium, induced by digitalization and globalization. Contrary to the first three stages, which were largely triggered by government policy, restructuring in this fourth stage is mainly the result of global and technical evolutions. Therefore, to assume that universities are old, long term institutions that have persisted through many different regimes, contexts, and situations before would be ignorance. After all, many different changes have occurred in universities as institutions over some time. Critics of current trends in university governance indeed tend to look back to a utopian traditional model that existed, but the evidence suggests that the internal balances were always to a considerable extent contingent on external conditions and fluctuated accordingly (Shattock, 2010).
This study intends to explore some of these issues about universities to enhance practice; hence the study adopted a mixed-methods approach, due to its suitability. Further, a framework is proposed for university planning and development to ensure sustainability in higher education. The paper is organized as follows. After the introduction above, the background is given. The next section deals with the origins of the universities, understanding university and its form as an organization, genesis of planning followed by the discussion of strategic planning as a core element for sustainable development of the university. The last part of the paper deals with recommendations and solutions, future areas for research, and ends up conclusion.