The study explores the themes of innovation and sustainability in the context of

universities, aiming to study the barriers to innovation and sustainability in universities. For

the development of the study with specialists in the field, the quantitative method was

adopted, following the precepts of Hair et. al. (2014). A questionnaire was applied with 25

questions; it was made available online (via the Internet, from September 10 to October 15,

2017). The questionnaire was created using Forms in Google Forms® and an email link was

sent to invite: Rectors and Managers from the Sustainability Office of participating Green

Metrics Universities; Rectors and Managers of the Sustainability Office of the Universities

participating in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education

(AACHE); Representatives of the Universities (rector, sustainability office manager,

researcher / professor) participating in the Inter-University Program for Sustainable

Development Research (IUSDRP); Representatives of Universities (rector, sustainability

office manager, researcher / professor) participants of Alliance Copernicus (Transformation of

sustainability of science systems); Specialists (experts) with the greatest number of

publications on the subject in the database Web of science; and Professors and researchers

with publications impacting the literature on the subject - were selected by the software

researchgate.