Sustainable development
The introduction and inclusion of Sustainable Development into the teaching curriculum is a key issue. There is an assumption that engineering as a discipline will take a leading role in this.
Sustainable development is also sometimes called Sustainability, or can be designated as ESD (Education for Sustainable Development), to demonstrate the approach and to ensure its inclusion into the curriculum.
Sustainable development is a process of developing (land, cities, business, communities, etc) that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” according to the Brundtland Report, a 1987 report from the United Nations.
What the Engineering Subject Centre offers
The Engineering Subject Centre has been strongly proactive in establishing sustainable development as a part of the engineering curriculum since early 2004, when it commissioned its first teaching resource. As a result of this commitment, the Centre is able to offer a knowledge-base to support engineering academics in the introduction and inclusion of sustainable development within their teaching curriculum.
The first resource was a Centre funded mini-project for the development of a tool box (available as a CD-ROM or download) for teaching sustainable design. There was a Workshop hosted by the Centre on Teaching Sustainable Design to launch the resource, a series of Briefing Papers, and subsequently joint events with the Maths Stats and OR Network, ICS, and Materials Subject Centres.
As further resources are developed, the Engineering Subject Centre adds them to the growing number of resources available for their use in the teaching of sustainable development. We recommend that you search under several terms, including Education for Sustainable Development.
Continuing to Support Sustainable Development
The Centre is committed to ongoing discussions with the Royal Academy of Engineering to offer case study materials developed under their Visiting Professors scheme in Engineering Design for Sustainable Development. The Centre participates in the Higher Education Academy's Planning Group on ESD, working collaboratively with Subject Centres from other disciplines to develop a common approach for the inclusion of Sustainable Development into the curriculum. From this, both individual and collaborative projects, events to assist in the professional development of academic staff, as well as specially-commissioned pedagogical research are becoming available. Examples include:
- "Employable Graduates" from StudentForce
- The Academy's Sustainability pages contain information on funded projects, resources (inc. from other Subject Centres), events, news items and links from the webpage and in particular, its bi-monthly e-Newsletter.
The latest newsletter is also directly downloadable and includes specific news from the UK regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Centre remains committed to supporting and encouraging the inclusion of sustainable development into the teaching curriculum and in supporting the academic to achieve this through access to resources from the Centre, other Subject Centres and from the wider community. Examples include:
- Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng)
- Forum for the Future
- the Engineering Council
- the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC)
- Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement (HEEPI),
- and regional groups in the UK (East Midlands RCE, and RCE Severn).
The Centre is also keen to encourage student-working in sustainability, in particular the work of students engaging through Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK), and with like charitable organisations such as Engineers Against Poverty (EAP) and RedR-UK.
A summary of the Centre's work in Sustainable Development was showcased at the Academy's ESD Planning Group Development Day, held at York in April 2010, and is also presented in a contributed book chapter to the Earthscan publication "Sustainability Education: perspectives and practice across higher education". The focus of both is on students' engagement into the sustainability agenda toward globalisation.
Search our resource database for sustainable development
Related links
Related resources
- Tool Box for Teaching Sustainable Design
- Delphi consultation
- Behavioural Change
- Socio-centric Sustainability
- Student Perceptions
External links
- Forum for the Future
- EAUC: SORTED website (new)
- OpenCourseWare (OCW): TUDelft courses - Water Management; Sustainable Development
- RAEng: Guiding Principles
- Engineering Council: UK-SPEC; Guidance on Sustainability
- HEFCE: Strategies and Action Plans for Higher Education; HEFCE-funded projects
- Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK)
- UNESCO: UN Decade of ESD
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