Sustainable protein consumption is a key element in the transition toward more environmentally responsible food systems. Poultry, due to its relatively low carbon footprint and favorable health profile, holds significant potential to become an important component of the so-called “protein transition.” The aim of this article is to identify cognitive factors influencing consumer purchasing decisions regarding poultry and to formulate recommendations for marketing communication strategies that position poultry as a choice aligned with sustainability goals. This study is based on an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) conducted on a nationally representative sample of Polish consumers (AgriFood 2024). The results revealed three dominant decision-making determinants—taste, health, and convenience—collectively forming the original THC (Taste–Health–Convenience) model. This model provides a novel interpretive framework, showing how sustainability issues can be communicated through immediate, personally relevant consumer benefits, and subsequently expanded to include environmental and ethical aspects. The findings indicate that effective communication should emphasize tangible, everyday consumer benefits while also leveraging poultry’s lower climate impact compared to red meat. This article makes an original contribution to the debate on sustainable diets by presenting the THC model both as a tool for explaining the mechanisms of the attitude–behavior gap and as a practical instrument for designing campaigns that support the implementation of SDG 3 and SDG 12.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital transformation has significantly accelerated in many industries, including somewhat slow-changing higher education. The epidemic situation pushed students, faculties, and administrators to experiment to a much greater degree with online classes, digital cooperation, and virtual student services. For the majority of the academic community, this situation created a completely new reality. Indeed, the digital experience in higher education was for some community members quite challenging, if not traumatic. Fairly soon, however, the digital experiment proved successful in many areas. In some cases, even more effective than conservative practices. The Virtual University Concept (VUC) has been a topic of debate for quite some time, but only now has it found a receptive audience in all sectors of the academic community. In the following articles, the authors will attempt to conceptualize the virtual university as an innovative way to address contemporary challenges for Higher Education Institutions (HEI), specifically their ability to identify, create and capture value for students. The concept of the VUC is grounded in a literature review, the professional experience of the authors, as well as the student survey, which was conducted in one of Cracow’s private colleges. The authors have listed fundamental areas of focus that need to be addressed before attempting to model the VUC. They include the technical and technological capacity of a HEI, faculty development, cost management, innovation, and students' and employers' value perceptions. All this must be done with the goal of providing value to key stakeholders at a reasonable cost. All the authors' inquiry streams seem to suggest that if well designed and implemented, the VUC can be a source of significant value to students and therefore should be considered in HEI expansion and turnaround strategies.

Research on sustainable consumption has identified gender-related differences in environmental attitudes and consumer preferences, yet evidence regarding the magnitude and consistency of these differences remains mixed across cultural contexts. Poland provides a relevant context for examining these patterns in a Central European consumer market undergoing environmental and energy-related transitions. This study examines whether women and men differ in the perceived importance of purchasing criteria and in selected pro-environmental attitudes related to energy-efficient and environmentally friendly everyday products. The CAWI survey was conducted among 1068 adult respondents recruited by an external research provider, using a non-probability sample with equal representation of women and men. Gender differences were initially assessed using the Mann–Whitney U test with Holm’s correction and effect size estimation, supplemented by multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and Spearman’s rank correlation. Price and ingredient quality received the highest ratings in both groups, indicating significant similarity between women and men. After Holm’s correction, four gender differences remained statistically significant in unadjusted comparisons. Additional robustness analyses, controlling for age group, financial situation, employment status, and place of residence, showed that only two associations remained statistically stable: women reported greater concern about climate change and attributed greater importance to cruelty-free products. Overall, the observed gender differences were small and selective, and gender accounted for only a very small part of the multivariate response structure. The results therefore suggest that the overall similarity between women and men is greater than the magnitude of the observed differences and caution against treating gender as a strong, stand-alone basis for explaining or segmenting consumer environmental preferences.

Modern society presents young women with many challenges that require them not only to have high professional competencies, but also adaptive and entrepreneurial skills. The transition from school to higher education is one of the key moments in young women's lives. It involves a revision of previous plans and aspirations. It is a time when reflection on one's career aspirations and how to achieve them takes place. The study is part of a strand of research on factors supporting and inhibiting women's careers. Its main objective is to verify to what extent young women's attitudes towards careers change in two successive stages of their education (secondary school and university). Particular attention was paid to the changes that occur in respondents' expectations of the level to which work satisfies their basic needs (such as, inter alia, job stability, good pay, good interpersonal relations or opportunities for development). Furthermore, the study examined how the self-assessment of the surveyed women evolves in areas such as life activity, motivation, openness to change and willingness to take risks. Surveys conducted among female secondary school and university students revealed significant differences in the perception of one's own capabilities and career preferences between the groups studied. At the same time, they demonstrate that young women’s life priorities change with age. The results indicate that young women, as they enter adulthood and enter university, begin to focus more on their need for professional stability at the expense of their previously perceived needs for independence and challenge-seeking. As they gain academic experience, their professional expectations change, which can have far-reaching consequences for their entrepreneurship and future careers. The findings generate further areas of research that would aim to verify the factors influencing the change in attitudes. The results of the research may serve the developers of the core curriculum in secondary schools, study programmes, as well as employers interested in attracting young women into the workforce