In the last 20 years, most Latin American countries have taken significant steps to improve their higher education institutions (HEIs), but major challenges remain, such as unequal access to education, high dropout and repetition rates, poor teacher quality, and uneven assessments and accountability systems. Insufficient qualifications of academic teaching staff is another major concern, while our partner countries Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico are committed to aligning themselves with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is no systematic attempt to infuse SDGs in our partners’ HEIs and most of the teaching methodology applied focuses on lecturing and limited use of i) problem-based and interdisciplinary learning; ii) placed-based pedagogy; ii) utilization of ICTs as enabling pedagogical tools, and other innovative teaching/learning strategies suitable to address the SDGs challenges. Clearly, academic teaching represents one of the strongest and most influential forces in ensuring equity, access, and quality of education (SDG4), but academic teachers are not yet ready to meet this challenge. Our SWOT analysis shows that there are strengths and opportunities that can facilitate the transformation of the 10 partner institutions to meet the UN 2030 Agenda for SDGs through the professionalization of academic teaching. By the end of the ACT4SDGs project, there will be the necessary resources and a significant cohort of (>1200) academic teaching champions and staff in our partner universities, who will drive wider changes in their HEIs and society by implementing SDGs in multiple academic disciplines in line with their National Development Plans and in alignment with the UN 2030 Agenda for SDGs and the European Green Deal.