Tackling rural development challenges is essential for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The quadruple helix approach, encompassing academia, the government, industry, and the community, is crucial for promoting neo-endogenous rural development and sustainability through effective interventions. This paper utilizes a case study methodology and qualitative approaches, such as observation, discussions, and semi-structured interviews, to provide an overview of a quadruple helix rural revitalization program focused on sustainable rural development. The findings showed the following: (1) the quadruple helix collaborations initiated among the stakeholders are essential for promoting collaborative research, enhancing relevance, and stimulating neo-endogenous growth; (2) the program’s focus on agricultural science and technology, entrepreneurship, and tourism offers a holistic approach to sustainable rural development, representing a departure from a sectoral focus on agriculture and the move towards a comprehensive understanding of rural innovation, where agricultural production is incorporated as one activity among many; (3) the multidisciplinary approach of the program has facilitated the advancement of a total of 11 out of the 17 SDGs. The study suggests implications for practice, emphasizing the importance of context-specific and multidisciplinary approaches to address sustainability challenges that are not bounded by discipline.

The concept of “world-class university” has been there for some time, and everyone wants a world-class university, and no country feels it can do without one. This battle to develop world-class universities lies not only in the gained status but also in the symbolic role of such universities. Universities exist mainly for research and dissemination of knowledge, which have become critical drivers of economic growth. For this reason, world-class research universities are recognized as central institutions in the 21st century economies. This recognition comes with pressure for universities to rethink their research activities and with the need to raise their research status to that of internationally accepted world-class universities. However, in order to attain the world-class research status, there is a need to sustain the efforts being put in place at both national and university levels. This study analyzed university data over nine years, from 2008 to 2016. It examined how Nanjing Agricultural University has strived to sustain its efforts towards attaining world-class research status. The results reveal that consistency and sustainability have resulted in excellence in research and increased research production. The conclusion is that the sustainability of the efforts significantly increases research production and excellence.

The food system in Sub-Saharan Africa still faces challenges in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2, or Zero Hunger. This challenges the role of knowledge institutions in promoting food system transformation. This research examines the relationship between higher education and the reduction of hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. Using the food system and sustainability transitions perspective, the study looks at higher education institutions as food system actors and parts of agricultural innovation systems. It also asks whether higher education directly reduces hunger or if the link is due to structural differences. The research uses a balanced panel dataset from 60 countries, covering 2000 to 2023. Results from two-way fixed effects show that the negative link between higher education enrollment and undernourishment disappears after controlling for country-specific factors. In both models, the intensity of agricultural graduates is positively correlated with undernourishment, suggesting an “agricultural education paradox.” Here, knowledge generation fails to improve the food system. Unlike agricultural education, general higher education has no statistically significant effect on undernourishment within countries and instead depends on other conditions. This research contributes to the literature on food system transformation. It shows that Higher Education Institutions can drive transformation, but only within functional economic and institutional systems.