Designing Innovations for Sustainability

URL study guide

https://vu.nl/en/education/honours/sem02-2023-2024-designing-innovations-for-sustainability-this-course-is-cancelled-for-this-semester/curriculum

Course Objective

The ultimate goal of this course is for you to learn to collaborate with experts, stakeholders and peers towards a more sustainable university and develop skills on how to apply the gained knowledge in a practical and professional setting. The course guides students through the process of designing such solutions.

Course Content

The course Designing Innovations for Sustainability intends to give you the chance to come into contact with the (practical) themes of sustainability by searching for innovative solutions in the context of universities as an organization.
Besides gaining a sound understanding of sustainability challenges, you will develop crucial professional competences and work together in diverse teams. You will design practical and innovative solutions for sustainability that can be implemented within the university (i.e. VU, UvA, AUC, VUmc).

The main challenge addressed in this interdisciplinary course is:

How to make the university more sustainable?

Teaching Methods

The course starts with a series of general introductions on sustainability-themes and transitions. In addition, during the first week, you will be asked to choose one of the themes mentioned above (i.e. energy, water, waste, food, green buildings) and teams will be assembled. The subjects addressed in short guest lectures will specifically address these different domains. Once the main sustainability challenge of the university in one of these domains has been defined and analyzed you will start a comprehensive process of designing possible solutions.

Throughout the process of analysis and designing solutions, you will receive guidance from the team of lecturers. This includes both academics and practitioners, ensuring the action-oriented focus of the course. The coaches, lecturers and fellow students will provide feedback on the possible solutions you come up with. You will work towards a final presentation in which you will present elaborate advice to the universities (i.e. VU, UvA, AUC, VUmc). These presentations are targeted to relevant people within and outside the VU who are in a position to implement the solutions you provide. By actively designing real solutions for sustainability at the campus, you will learn more about the complex and interdisciplinary nature of sustainability while grasping professional skills such as co-creation, design thinking, communication and teamwork. At the end of the course, you are invited to reflect on the design process of the solutions in a short essay.