The UNESCO Chair on Sustainability was established at the Technical University of Catalonia in 1996, with the purpose to develop an integrated system of research, education and documentation activities focused mainly on analysing the relationship between sustainability, technology and humanism. During the 90’s, most work was carried out on the analysis and modelling of sustainability, starting the international extensive mobility students and the important undergraduate work on the UPC. During the 2000 and 2010’s, the chair began to become an important stakeholder to articulate and implement some of the research knowledge on transformation projects developed at a local/regional basis. All that work turned the UNESCO Chair on a pole of excellence and innovation as shown by the letters of commitments from 63 institutions in 11 countries, and the impact of our activities summarized in Table 1, with more than 650 students per year, and the 14 transformation projects at local/regional scale carried out during the last five years (2012-2016), some of them awarded with different prizes. Our activities are clearly focused on participatory community development approach oriented to SDG, integrating research, knowledge generation and transfer, capacity building and global cooperation to promote innovative technologies to meet social, environmental and economic needs. We want to prepare students from different cultures for the careers and lifestyles of the XXI century global society, in a context characterized by an increasing uncertainty, applying appropriate and contextualized management tools and strategies with sustainability principles.