Challenges to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) arise from many sources, e.g.: Changes of the body of knowledge – which is the very own subject of HEIs; Changes of the body of knowledge touch teaching, the second column of HEIs; Economy – which is under lasting pressure to informatize ever more; Students who have to cope with increasing, rapidly changing, ever more interdisciplinary knowledge; Necessity for both scientific cooperation and competition on all scales, i.e. local, regional, national, international. All of these issues have an impact on the management of HEIs and on outside support of HEIs, in particular from governments. In these fields of tension ‘global climate change’ arises as a comprehensive challenge to all societies and to all sectors of societies. We will concentrate on the challenge from climate change due to its high importance and the potential key role of HEIs in this problem area. The first issue in addressing climate change is that present technologies in the energy sector cannot increase much in efficiency due to natural laws: very different new technologies are needed. Even the conservative International Energy Agency says: “A revolution in energy supply is necessary”. Such a revolution needs so “breakthrough technologies”, also called “disruptive technologies” or “radical (systemic) innovations”. The first term simply expresses what is needed now: breakthroughs. The second term is more revealing: At present, many new technologies, products, and services exist or could which could help in overcoming the climate problem. However, almost everybody is afraid of the manifold disruptions such “disruptive technologies” would bring, in particular, winners and losers in society, winners and losers among companies, as well as among countries, and other foreseeable and mostly unforeseeable difficult constellations. If society wants to successfully cope with climate change, a revolution in attitude might be necessary to accommodate large-scale radical change. Naturally, HESs would have to play a large role here. Actually, education would have to integrate radical innovation in its curricula, from K to Grey, both societal and technological innovation. Also revealing of impending changes is the analysis by Bin & Dowlatabadi (2005) showing that consumers are responsible, in the US, for 85% of all energy use, if direct and indirect energy consumption from use and production of products are added. If, however, consumers are responsible for almost all carbon emissions, then emissions can only decrease dramatically (to less than 10% of their 1990 value) if radical changes of lifestyles, and of society, are considered. Again, and here even more urgently, HEIs would have a major role to play. We will provide a brief summary on the present state of the climate challenge and then analyze HEIs and HE systems from this viewpoint, and then draw conclusions, which changes might be adequate and how HEIs might benefit from such changes also with respect to the other challenges mentioned above. The perception of a core of common beneficial changes, for climate change as well as for those other challenges to HEIs, could be highly valuable for many HEIs in their present considerations how to cope with challenges and change. Bin, S., Dowlatabadi, H., 2005. Consumer lifestyle approach to US energy use and the related CO2 emissions. Energy Policy 33, 197–208