Transdisciplinarity for sustainability in engineering education

Tesi amb diferents seccions retallales per drets dels editorsThis research aims to improve engineering education in sustainability (EESD) through transdisciplinarity (td) learning approaches. The research comprised 3 phases. The first consisted of the analysis of how sustainability is approached in EE through a co-word analysis and characterization of the keywords networks of three relevant journals in the field of EESD over two decades. The journal networks evolution analysis suggested that the concern was growing to move to society. Td and related keywords constantly dripped along the ten years in all the journals and gained relevance, especially in International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education (IJSHE) and Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP). Additionally the IJSHE showed a will of reinforcing relationships beyond the university; the International Journal of Engineering Education (IJEE) gave relevance to real case studies with a North-South component and to students’ representativeness; and the JCLP contributed aspects on competences and educational strategies. The characterisation brought as relevant categories towards sustainability those related to cross-boundary schemes (i.e. td, ethics, networking), institutional aspects, faculty professional development training and learning strategies. Finally, keywords related to td and collaborative networking spread throughout all the areas of knowledge addressed by the journals, indicating a widening interest. The second phase studied how emergent EESD initiatives were approached from td as valued competence for sustainability. The research indicated that most of the initiatives fitted in the problem solving discourse, where co-production of knowledge and method-driven aspects are relevant. Deepening this discourse, most initiatives corresponded to the real-world argument promoting science-society collaboration to solve societal problems (EU contexts); others looked for convergence of all sciences (life, human, physical and engineering) in pursuit of human well-being (innovation argument, US contexts); and some initiatives brought together students and entities in a team-based learning process with social purpose (transcendent interdisciplinary research “tir” argument). It is noteworthy that none of the initiatives mirrored the transgression discourse, which attempts to reformulate the establishment, no longer for society but with society. The last phase consisted in the implementation of a td learning environment experience in the course Action Research Workshop on Science and Technology (Sci&Tech) for Sustainability (5 ETCS) of the UPC Master degree in Sustainability Sci&Tech. Civil organisations, public administration, students and educators undertook collaborative research on real-life sustainability case studies, following two cycles of action-reflection. While the course mainly fitted in the real-world argument of problem solving, service learning (SL) or CampusLab schemes also reproduced a team-based learning with societal purpose (“tir” argument). We addressed the transgression discourse by means of SL focusing on social justice, which enhanced the development of complex thinking. Afterwards, some students engaged as professional researchers-activists in the participant organisations. Challenges of their learning process were: problem formulation, process uncertainty, stakeholder’s interests and roles integration, and interpersonal skills. Additionally, a well-valued Emotional Intelligence module was developed by the author to help students face some process paralyzing uncertainties. Finally this work proposes a set of fundamental features to be considered for an effective scheme for a td approach in EESD, methodically framing the science-society discourse on the issue at stake: work in real-world complex problems; involve diverse disciplines and fields cooperation; involve science-society cooperation and mutual learning processes; integrate types of knowledge; rely on disciplinary and cross-disciplinary practice.Aquesta investigació té com a objectiu la millora de l'educació en enginyeria en sostenibilitat (EESD) a través d'un enfocament d'aprenentatge transdisciplinari, en 3 fases. La primera va consistir en l'anàlisi de com s'aborda la sostenibilitat a EE, mitjançant l'anàlisi de co-ocurrència i la caracterització dels mots clau d’articles de tres revistes rellevants en l’EESD, al llarg de 10 anys. L'anàlisi de l'evolució de les xarxes de revistes va suggerir una preocupació creixent per a traslladar el focus a la societat. La transdisciplinarietat (td) i els mots clau relacionats van degotar constantment al llarg del període a totes les revistes, guanyant rellevància, especialment a la International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education (IJSHE) i la Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP) A més, mostrà la rellevància de: la voluntat de reforçar relacions més enllà de la universitat, a la IJSHE; els estudis de casos reals amb component Nord-Sud, i la representativitat dels estudiants, a la International Journal of Engineering Education; i els aspectes sobre competències i estratègies educatives, a la JCLP. La caracterització va aportar com a categories rellevants per la sostenibilitat les relacionades amb esquemes “cross-boundary” (td, ètica, treball en xarxa), aspectes institucionals, desenvolupament professional del professorat i estratègies d'aprenentatge. Finalment, els mots clau relacionats amb td i xarxes de col·laboració s’identificaren al llarg de totes les àrees de coneixement empreses a les revistes, indicant un interès creixent. La segona fase va estudiar com les iniciatives de EESD, eren abordades des de la td. Indicà que la majoria encaixaven en el discurs de resolució de problemes, que emfatitza la coproducció de coneixement i els aspectes metodològics. Aprofundint aquest discurs, la majoria de les iniciatives s’esqueien a l'argument del món real que promou la col·laboració ciència-societat sobre problemes socials (context UE); altres buscaven la convergència de les ciències (vida, salut, física i enginyeria) en la recerca del benestar humà (argument d'innovació, context USA); i algunes reunien a estudiants i entitats en un procés grupal d'aprenentatge, amb propòsit social (argument d'investigació interdisciplinària transcendent "tir"). És rellevant que cap de les iniciatives es va vincular al discurs de transgressió, que persegueix la reformulació de l'”establishment” ja no per a la societat, sinó amb la societat. L'última fase va consistir en la implementació d'un entorn d'aprenentatge td al curs Taller d'Investigació-Acció (5 ETCS) del Màster UPC en Ciència i Tecnologia de Sostenibilitat. Organitzacions civils i de govern, estudiants i educadors van investigar col·laborativament en casos reals de sostenibilitat, a partir de dos cicles d'acció-reflexió. Si bé el curs encaixa principalment en l'argument del món real del discurs de resolució de problemes, els esquemes d'aprenentatge servei (ApS) o CampusLab poden reproduir l'argument "tir" d'aprenentatge basat en equips amb propòsit social. El discurs de la transgressió s'abordà mitjançant l’ApS per a la justícia social i va resultar en la implicació professional d'alguns estudiants en les organitzacions civils participants. Els reptes del procés d'aprenentatge foren: formulació de problemes; gestió d'incerteses; integració de diferents interessos i rols; i habilitats interpersonals. Per això, l'autora desenvolupà un valorat mòdul d'Intel·ligència Emocional, animat a encarar punts paralitzants del procés. Finalment, aquest treball proposa un conjunt d'elements fonamentals a considerar en un esquema eficaç per a aplicar l'enfocament td a l’EESD, que emmarqui de forma metòdica el discurs sobre la qüestió social en joc: treballar sobre problemes complexos del món real; involucrar diverses disciplines i àrees; facilitar la cooperació ciència-societat i els processos. Finalment, aquest treball proposa un conjunt d’elements fonamentals a considerar en un esquema eficaç per a aplicar l'enfocament transdisciplinarietat a l’EESD, que emmarqui de forma metòdica el discurs sobre la qüestió social en joc: treballar sobre problemes complexos del món real; involucrar diverses disciplines i àrees; facilitar la cooperació ciència-societat i els processos d'aprenentatge mutu; integrar tipus de coneixement; recolzar-se en pràctiques disciplinàries i interdisciplinàriesPostprint (published version

El ciclo de materiales en la UPC: aproximación a la percepción social de los residuos y su gestión en la ETSAV y la ESAB

La enorme producción de residuos, y las consiguientes dificultades para su eliminación, es un problema central de las sociedades modernas económicamente desarrolladas. Es central por estar incrustado en la propia naturaleza del sistema económico de producción y consumo de masas, que genera una ingente cantidad de residuos y en continuo aumento, con el consiguiente riesgo para la salud de las personas, los animales y vegetales, y el medioambiente en general. El presente estudio El ciclo de materiales en la UPC: Aproximación a la percepción social de los residuos y su gestión en la ETSAV y la ESAB, se ha realizado dentro de una investigación más amplia que tiene en cuenta otros ejes: el estudio y análisis de la gobernabilidad y el análisis y evaluación de los flujos de materiales en el ámbito de los residuos, en las dos escuelas, en el marco estratégico en sostenibilidad en la UPC es el Plan UPC Sostenible 2015. La aproximación a la percepción social permite revisar las formas de pensar presentes en la organización de los procesos de gestión de los residuos. En ese sentido se ha explorado y analizado las percepciones, visiones, perspectivas y comportamientos de la sociedad relativos a la generación de residuos y sus modelos de gestión, enfocando el estudio en la comunidad universitaria de dos centros de la UPC. Se ha puesto énfasis en la perspectiva de valorar las capacidades de estas visiones para afrontar cambios hacia modelos de generación y gestión de residuos más sostenibles. El proceso de investigación se ha realizado en diferentes etapas. En una primera consistente en una revisión documental temática sobre residuos, buscando la perspectivas de la prevención, así como una revisión de los antecedentes en relación a la conducta medioambiental y su prospección social. En una segunda fase de sondeo se ha realizado entrevistas en profundidad a personas relacionadas con la gestión de los residuos o expertas en el tema. Por otro lado se ha generado una encuesta cerrada, organizado según un modelo de dimensiones psicosociales de la conducta ambiental, que se ha pasado a una población reducida de estudiantes de las dos escuelas. Durante la revisión se han identificado algunos debates sociales desde el punto de vista de la prevención de los residuos, que se han tenido en cuenta en el sondeo y en la posterior interpretación de los resultados aportados por éste. En el momento de tratar los datos, la triangulación de información cuantitativa y cualitativa ha permitido superar limitaciones inherentes a cada una de las metodologías. Mediante un análisis de clústering, se han identificación grupos de individuos con opiniones parecidas. Las opiniones de estos grupos se han contrastado con algunas características de los mismos, según el ámbito universitario. Se ha encontrado que algunas opiniones dependen de características como la titulación, el espectro político o la edad. Se ha concluido que es necesario profundizar en las capacidades de la comunidad universitaria para afrontar cambios hacia modelos de generación y gestión de residuos más sostenibles, realizando procesos participativos en la generación de la información (investigación integrada, focus grup). Resulta importante profundizar en el ámbito universitario en la prevención, la separación en origen y tratamiento de la materia orgánica, la educación en valores y la cocreación de conocimiento junto con los grupos sociales, para comprender y profundizar en la significación del residuo en nuestra sociedad

Service learning for engineering education for sustainability

Sustainability issues are widely recognized as wicked problems, which should not be considered as problems to be solved, but as conditions to be governed. There is a general agreement on the need to reform scientific expertise to deal with sustainability challenges, by developing new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. In that sense, Sterling maintains that the nature of sustainability requires a fundamental change of epistemology and education. Transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge emphasize phenomena complexity, disrupting and transcending epistemological structures to progressively reflect and gain understanding. In relation to engineering education, the Barcelona Declaration highlights the sustainability competences, that engineering students should achieve. The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC Barcelona Tech), aware of the new sustainability competences that engineers should have, offers a master degree in Sustainability Science and Technology that trains students to become agents of change for sustainability. Transdisciplinarity (Td) and Service learning (SL) are approaches applied. Learning environment, challenges and lessons learnt when applying such learning approaches are explained in following sections.Postprint (published version

Transdisciplinarity Action Research workshop for sustainable technology communities

The Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology under the Master degree in Sustainability Science and Technology organises the course Action Research Workshop on Science and Technology for Sustainability (5 ECTS). The authors have been coordinating the course during the academic years 13/14, 14/15 and 15/16. The purpose of the workshop is to put together civil society organisations, local administrations, students and educators to collaboratively undertake responsible research, using transdisciplinary Action-Research methodologies, to answer questions such as: Who are we researching for? Who profits from our research? What are the impacts of our research? Which methodologies and tools should be used? While dealing with socio-technological sustainability challengesPostprint (published version

Action research workshop for transdisciplinary sustainability science

The Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology under the Master degree in Sustainability Science and Technology organises the course Action Research Workshop on Science and Technology for Sustainability (5 ECTS). The authors have been coordinating the course during the academic years 13/14, 14/15 and 15/16. The purpose of the workshop is to put together civil society organisations, local administrations, students and educators to collaboratively undertake responsible research, performing transdisciplinary learning environments and by using an action-research framework, to answer questions such as: Who are we researching for? Who profits from our research? What are the impacts of our research? Which methodologies and tools should be used when dealing with sociotechnical sustainability challenges? Students work on real projects, related to local sustainability problems, represented by a community entity (Service learning and Campus Lab). Action research methodology is used with a two-cycle approach. In each real-life project, students, faculty and stakeholders are asked to follow the action-reflexion process of action research projects: Action 1- Jointly defining: Project purpose; Customer and interest; Involved actors; Reflexion 1- Students define: research question, initial situation, needed additional information, action Strategy, Tasks planning and distribution: Action 2 - Items returning and discussing with stakeholders, Reflexion 2 - revising and reformulating. Having now run the workshop three times, we can conclude that: First, students realized the significance of framing an investigation under a research methodological framework that allows bringing research to the community, enhancing transdisciplinarity in any initiative or action in sustainability science. They set out the importance of some topics and the difficulty to hold them. Second, the formulation of the problem became one of the most arduous tasks in the process; difficulties were mainly related to the perception of the problem from distinct community group motivations. Third, interaction and communication with stakeholders and the recognition of their role was problematic as engineering students are not usually trained to work in wicked problems nor accompany stakeholders during the whole process. Finally, it is relevant to highlight that during the process students faced conflict and frustrating situations both within their team and with stakeholders. To help tackle this problem, an Emotional Intelligence module was introduced in the workshop which proved useful in helping students to solve some paralyzing situations, which could otherwise have stopped the progress of the project. We suggest that engineering students need specific training in transdisciplinary research and in conflict resolution, to avoid collapsing in frustration when dealing with real transdisciplinary sustainability transitions.Postprint (author's final draft

Transdisciplirity: A must for sustainable education

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Transdisciplinarity in engineering education. A must for sustainable development in technology education

Sustainability issues are widely recognized as wicked problems, which should not be considered as problems to be solved, but as conditions to be governed. There is a general agreement on the need to reform scientific expertise as it is required to deal with sustainability challenges, by developing new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. Transdisciplinary aspects of sustainability are widely acknowledged as a transformational stream of sustainability science. However, when entering transdisciplinarity, also encompassing social sciences and humanities, engineering researchers enter unfamiliar grounds. Advancing sustainable engineering science requires creating new long-term, participatory, solution-oriented programs as platforms to recognize and engage with the macro-ethical, adaptive, and cross-disciplinary challenges embedded in professional issues. Furthermore, the difficulties to change engineering education are broadly analyzed: anachronistic pedagogy, mismatched incentives, insufficient expertise, lack of personal commitment, familiar and comfortable patterns for scholars, overcrowded curriculum, etc. Nevertheless, in spite of any old pattern, operationalizing the goals of the field, developing the necessary competencies, and seeking partnerships between society and the academy will position academic institutions to impact on the transition towards sustainability. We have performed a literature review on different ways of applying or bringing transdisciplinarity approach to higher education, in particular in engineering and technology fields. Deepening the argumentation provided by Julie T. Klein on the three discourses on transdisciplinarity -transcendence, problem solving, transgression- we have analysed the different published initiatives under those discourses to approach transdisciplinarity initiatives in engineering education for sustainabilityPostprint (published version

Transdisciplinarity in higher education for sustainability: how discourses are approached in engineering education

Sustainability issues, as unwanted results of not fully respecting natural cycles, are widely recognized as wicked problems, which should not be thought of as problems to be solved, but rather as “conditions” to be managed, as if they were a chronic disease (Seager et al., 2011). There exists a general agreement on the need to reform scientific expertise by developing new ways of knowledge production and decision-making able to cope with the challenges sustainability poses. In this sense, transdisciplinary aspects of sustainability are acknowledged as a transformational stream of sustainability sciencePostprint (author's final draft

Education for sustainable development in higher education-introduction to a special issue

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is essential for humanity to overcome the immense challenges it faces as a result of human actions on nature. For many students, higher education is the last step before they pursue a professional career. In a special way, the university experience can help students to become agents of change for sustainability. However, the opportunity to learn and adapt towards sustainability can also arise as a professional or active member of the institutions in which one works or collaborates. Lifelong learning, and in particular university education, should assist in the acquisition of competencies for sustainability as tools for facing the complexity of today’s world. This is an overarching goal that many universities, professors, staff and research groups are aiming for.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::4 - Educació de QualitatPostprint (published version

The Edinsost2-SDG project: introducing SDGs in higher education

The main objective of the EDINSOST2-SDG project is to introduce sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Higher Education. The project focuses on Engineering degrees, Education Degrees, and the Business Administration and Management degrees of the Spanish university system. The project has four main objectives: (O1) Identify the SDGs in the EDINSOST sustainability competency maps (SCM); (O2) Improve the learning outcomes of sustainability and SDGs in the degrees related to the project; (O3) Faculty training in Education for Sustainability and SDGs; and (O4) Analyse the students’ learning in Sustainability and SDGs during their training at the university. The current project began in 2019 and is scheduled to end in December 2022. This paper presents the main results achieved so far in the O1. SDGs have been included in the SCMs previously designed by the EDINSOST project. Each SCM learning outcome is related to a set of UNESCO learning objectives and UN indicators of the SDGs. As EDINSOST2-SDG results, the SCM has been simplified to make it easier for teachers. A pilot project is currently being carried out at the UPCBarcelonaTech to analyse ten engineering degrees using this simplified SCM. The results of the pilot project will be presented in June 2022, but the preliminary results show that the reduction in the number of learning outcomes has been a key aspect to motivate those responsible for the different degrees involved in the pilot project to use the SCM as a tool to introduce sustainability in their degrees