Search

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on methods developed, within a three-year Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) project at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, to achieve a higher degree of embedding of ESD in engineering programmes. The major emphasis is on methods used, results achieved and lessons learned from the work. Design/methodology/approach – The basic idea that methods and activities were built on was that the only way to achieve long-term changes is to increase the motivation and capacity of lecturers and program directors to perform the required changes. Findings – Activities that were developed and tested focused on coaching discussions and on workshops for teachers, gathering teachers from one programme at a time. These activities aimed at starting learning processes in individuals. Special care was taken into keeping the feeling of responsibility and initiative in the faculty members within the programmes. A special "resource group" of experienced ESD teachers was available as support for programme directors and lecturers. Originality/value – The methods reported on are further developments of a method that has been used in Delft University of Technology (the Individual Interaction Method) in the Netherlands. The experiences from Chalmers are discussed in such a way that they provide useful insights for others aiming at similar changes at university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The aim of this study is to contribute to the quality improvement and long-term strategic development of education for sustainable development (ESD) in engineering education curricula. Design/methodology/approach – The content in 70 courses in environment and SD were characterized and quantified using course document text analysis. Additionally, two questionnaires were sent to students and alumni at Chalmers, and interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with representatives from 16 Swedish companies and five organizations. Findings – It was found that industry demands a broader range of competences in SD amongst engineers in general than what is currently provided. In total, 35 per cent of alumni claim they encounter sustainability issues from sometimes to daily in their work. However, only half of them believe they possess enough competences to make decisions from a sustainability perspective. Quantity, coverage and the level of integration in the educational programme all appear to be important for the students' perceived competences on SD and for the importance that they put on achieving SD. Originality/value – Earlier research has reported on how to further develop the idea and design of ESD and on competence needs in general. Few attempts have been made to assess industry's needs of competences in SD. This paper sheds light on how engineering universities educate for SD and benchmarks this to industry's needs in an exploratory case study, using Chalmers as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]