In its activities, the University of Maribor places the emphasis on the principles of social responsibility and sustainable development. In its objectives, the Strategy of the University of Maribor pursues an inclusive, innovative and interconnected higher education environment, which will educate active, critical and responsible citizens, provide quality in education and research, academic integrity and ensure sustainable development of society.

We strive for sustainable, socially responsible and high-quality development of sciences and arts, research fields and subfields that the University is developing, while considering the smart specialization principles, with emphasis on tackling societal challenges.

The University of Maribor is the only Slovene university ranked in the Times Impact Rankings 2021, which evaluates how universities ensure and include sustainable development objectives into their work. The University of Maribor is monitoring and introducing an increasing number of sustainable development objectives in its operation. This year, it participated in the rankings with eleven sustainable development objectives.

The University of Maribor is an internationally recognised research and educational institution respecting human rights, implementing the equal opportunities policy and aiming at upgrading such conduct in the future.

 In 2021, the University of Maribor therefore adopted the Gender Equality Action Plan, with which it undertakes to promote equal opportunities and to combat discrimination in all areas of work, among both employees and students, regardless of their gender, citizenship, national origin, language, religion, functional abilities, sexual orientation, sexual identity and age. The Plan covers a series of measures for a university of equality, from amendments of statutory provisions, courses and raising awareness through various events to guidelines on gender-inclusive language use as well as additional surveys investigating the range of inappropriate practices related to gender or sexual orientation.

The University of Maribor also takes part in the international GreenMetric World University Ranking, and is thus joining universities that will actively follow and plan their environmental impacts on a long-term basis. The ranking promotes the green campus concept and efforts of universities for efficient use of energy, fight against climate change and sustainable transport.

In the coming period, the University will strengthen knowledge transfer to the environment and social activities as well as continue to perform activities for further development of quality culture which is based on responsibility and ethics. The University of Maribor is also implementing the human resources strategy of the University of Maribor for researchers (HRS4R), whereby it is monitoring the implementation of the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers.