Responsible Sustainability Challenge

a 15 ECTS project for Master Honours students (or students on a similar track)

The 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge is an initiative of the 4TU.Centres High-Tech Materials, Energy and Ethics & Technology. This course will start as a pilot in November 2022.

A 15 ECTS multidisciplinary project for 4TU. Master Honours students (or students on a similar track).

For specific information about this course at the University of Twente, check the website of the UTwente Honours Programmes. This includes info on Application and Admission.
Information for students at Eindhoven University of Technology: this programme can be followed in the professional development component of the Honours Master. More information and registration via Osiris: HA012
For questions, contact 4TU.HTM.

Kick-off

The announced pilot of this 4TU.Responsible Sustainability Challenge will officially kick-off on the 19th of November 2022, at the University of Twente!

Highlights

This project aims to approach the development and implementation of sustainable technology in a multidisciplinary manner, with an emphasis on energy, materials and ethics.
Each group (multidisciplinary, 5-8 students) chooses a topic that is related to developments in technology aiming at increasing sustainability in society; topics in this project relate to the Green Deal of the European Union.
Leadership skills: students formulate their own challenge and look for their own experts.
External stakeholders adjust the challenge to the real-life casus, ensuring relevance to the here-and-now, non-academic context.
Academic experts safeguard the quality, scope, and feasibility.

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.
Additional workshops 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. These workshops also include a matching event (in which both students and the organisations select their preferred challenge) and on-site events at each university to get a behind-the-scenes view of the other university's research into sustainability.
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.

Aside from these core elements, we are working with (student-driven) organisations at the three universities to create a broad network to support the different groups and to provide engaging and inspiring sessions throughout the track.

This course will start (as a pilot) on the 14^th of November 2022 (Q2) and conclude with a central symposium in July 2023 (Q4).

“For students, it’s becoming more and more important to learn and to show that you are able to work in a multidisciplinary team on subjects that transcend your regular education. In addition, the current work environment is asking young professionals for skills that can only be gained through practical work experience. That is why this module is particularly interesting for ambitious and excellent students. There’s a student-driven setup to the entire module with the flexibility to let you work on a project within a real-world setting. In the project, you will have a stakeholder to satisfy and a team to bring together in order to solve the problem, and it is great to practice these skills in a guided and structured way. Finally, working on the topic of sustainability together with a group of enthusiastic peers will certainly be a valuable and rewarding experience!”