4TU.Responsible Sustainbility Challenge (2022-2023)
The 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge is an initiative of the 4TU.Centres High-Tech Materials, Energy and Ethics & Technology. It is a 15 ECTS project for Master Honours students (or students on a similar track). This challenge started as a pilot in 2022-2023, with Master Honours students from TU Delft, UTwente and TU Eindhoven. Industrial stakeholders were ProRail and KLM.
The Kick-off of the second track of this course is on 16 November 2023. If you are interested, please contact us via 4TU.HTM, and check the general information.
Video by Bas Schollaardt, De Verbeelding Videoproducties
Live events 4TU.RSC 2022-2023
Kick-off event, UTwente
The announced pilot of this 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge had its official kick-off on the 19th of November 2022, at the University of Twente. Read the news item about the kick-off!
Live event at Delft University of Technology on Sustainability, and Ethics & Technology
On the 11th of February the 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge had a second live event at Delft University of Technology about Ethics, Sustainability and Technology.
Live event at Eindhoven University of Technology on Entrepreneurship
On the 13th of May, the third live event of the 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge took place at the campus of TU Eindhoven, a workshop on sustainable energy and entrepreneurship.
Professor David Smeulders (TU/e) delivered a keynote presentation on 'The challenge of sustainability'.
Final event 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge (2022-2023) at ProRail, Utrecht
On the 22nd of June 2023, the talented master students participating in the 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge (2022-2023) got their certificates, after presenting their project results. Congratulations!
Core team
Course motivation
From a student’s perspective, this module fills a current need for a practically oriented educational programme that highlights multidisciplinary collaboration. In particular, excellent Master (Honours) students want to improve their leadership/teamworking skills and gain real-life project-based experience in a structured and guided way. This module allows students to step outside their own university and study fields and to put theoretical knowledge into practice. The course is built on the challenge-based learning principles and asks students to drive their own education to gain the knowledge and skills that fit with their individual needs. The module focuses on the topic of sustainability, which is a topic that unites students from all different backgrounds and which sparks tremendous enthusiasm within the student community. The module also brings together staff, student assistants and experts from the four technical universities to increase further collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
Core elements
Within the 4TU.RSC track, the focus is on providing students with a structured approach to implement or improve sustainability efforts within organisations. Students work together with their peers from the other participating universities (Twente, Delft and Eindhoven) in multidisciplinary groups. The challenge consists of the following core elements.
- The central challenge to implement or improve sustainability at a company/organisation. Within this challenge, you work within a multidisciplinary team of 5-8 students to understand the underlying principles and issues at hand and to formulate an appropriate respond that addresses these points. This challenge follows the Challenge-Based Learning methodology, which provides students with a structured but free approach to learning by gaining real-life experience.
- Workshops and lectures are provided to help structure the challenge and to provide key insights into relevant project management techniques and sustainability efforts that broaden the students' view and help determine creative and motivated methods to address the key issues of the challenge. The workshops extend throughout the modules in online sessions, and on live events organized with our partners. Additionally, due to the small-scale education, we can aid the students during their individual investigation with micro-lectures and additional expert sessions from our diverse network across universities.
- Coaching for each group to support the learning process and improve the personal development of each student.
- Peer review support from your fellow students to learn both with and from one another, to meet like-minded people and to shape each case by the shared knowledge of the group.
