Course syllabus

Course-PM

TEK760 Innovation and sustainability transitions lp1 HT22 (7.5 hp)

The course is offered by the department of Technology Management and Economics.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the course Innovation and Sustainability Transitions!

We are delighted to work with you on this course, which is a project-based course that will give you an opportunity to collaboratively engage as an engineer in sustainability transitions and gain important experiences and skills to help prepare you for work life.

We have developed this course in dialogue with the city of Gothenburg. The government is responsible to address critical challenges related to the water infrastructure in this time of accelerating climate change. They are our main stakeholder and partner. As a coastal city with an important harbor, our city is facing an increasingly uncertain water situation, where projections suggest we will experience more extreme weather that puts pressure on our water supply systems. As you will learn a lot about in this course, the city is already trying to adapt to more common droughts, heavier rainfall, storms and raising sea levels that threaten to flood the low-lying parts of Gothenburg. These climate change-related challenges come with health risks, infrastructural damages, environmental degradation, and the need for adaptation measures. Engineers have an important role to play, but as the challenges transcend established sector boundaries and grow with time they demand interdisciplinary teams and ability to analyze the relationships between infrastructure, governance, finance, social aspects, well-being and environmental concerns.

Our city planners are working to adapt Gothenburg and the wider region to climate change, combining measures of prevention and adaptive response. As students of the Global Systems program, we believe you are well placed to work with these types of difficult societal challenges and make a relevant contribution.

 

Teacher team and contact details

Our multi-disciplinary teacher team combines practical and theoretical expertise and will guide you in this process, but you will take lead and be given much freedom and responsibility to develop the projects in a meaningful direction. Along with Helene who is the main teacher, we have Sam and Barbara from the Division of Environmental Systems Analysis. To complement us with key skills, we have a colleague from Building design and Architecture, Catarina, and Oskar from the University of Gothenburg, previously a staff at Chalmers Communication and Learning in Science. Last but not least, we are extremely please to have an experienced climate change adaptation strategist from SWECO amongst us, David, who will both teach and supervise.

In addition, we have a number of guest lecturers who will make important interventions, amongst them senior engineers from the city authorities who work with Gothenburg's water infrastructure planning and adaptation. 

Main teacher and supervisor: Helene Ahlborg, Associate Professor at Environmental Systems Analysis, helene.ahlborg@chalmers.se

Course assistant, teacher and supervisor: Samuel Unsworth, PhD student at Environmental Systems Analysis, unsworth@chalmers.se 

Project supervisor and expert on team work processes: Oskar Hagvall Svensson, researcher at GU, oskar.hagvall.svensson@efd.gu.se 

Project supervisor and Climate adaptation strategist: David Hirdman, SWECO, david.hirdman@sweco.se 

Teacher in design thinking: teacher at Building Design and Architecture, Catarina Östlund, catarina.ostlund@chalmers.se 

Teacher for valuation exercise: Barbara Hedeler, PhD student at Environmental Systems Analysis, barbara.hedeler@chalmers.se 

Examiner (please contact Helene first): Anna Bergek, Professor at Environmental Systems Analysis, anna.bergek@chalmers.se 

 

Course purpose and why we work on projects

With this course, we aim to give you experience of working with research and practice related to innovation and sustainability transitions. We do so by working on a real case of adaptation in the city where we live, study and/or work. Engineers have many roles to play in processes of change and there are specific competences that are required for dealing with uncertain and complex situations. Securing access to safe, reliable and affordable water for all is one such complex challenge where the global meets the local, and climate change affects daily life in myriad ways. 

At the more aggregate level, we will introduce key concepts and ways of understanding processes of societal change towards "Sustainability" through the lens of complex systems. At the more detailed level, the course introduces methods and approaches to addressing concrete challenges related to such systems. Innovation is a key aspect of this and we will introduce you to ways of working with innovation in the face of uncertainty. The course applies project-based learning and provides an opportunity to collaboratively engage as an engineer in sustainability transitions. 

Projects: We will work with real, challenging problems that need investigation. In the first two weeks, you will gain a broad overview of the complexity of water-related challenges and meet with our stakeholders. As you start on your project it allows you to engage in exploration of and addressing a more specific and narrow problem. Each group is given a supervisor and our teachers and guests support your research of the problem at hand. We wish to take steps in the direction of not only understanding what the problem is, but also thinking about ways of addressing it, which is expected to result in a suggestion from each group on a strategy for how the city may handle it. You will play the role of strategic advisors to the city authorities, and develop a report for them.

The course ends with a stakeholder conference in which you will present your project work to our stakeholders and to each other. The plan is for the students next year to learn from what you have done and continue to further explore challenges and possible solutions. Over time, we hope to make a real impact and help adapt our city to climate change. 

 

About language

We have chosen to work in English in this course for two reasons: we have international teachers, and we are working on a collaboration with the University of Cape Town to carry out the course with them from next year on. Helene tried to set this partnership up already this year, but it proved challenging so we need a bit more time. Hopefully, next year's students will work with South African students and teachers in teams, and they will then need to read your final reports. Therefore, we produce materials in English already this year. Teachers and supervisors can still chose to speak Swedish this year, and we can interact in Swedish when it doesn't exclude anyone. Many reports and online material are in Swedish, but of course there is a lot of international material in English. We will be pragmatic when it comes to language, but written examination will be in English. 

Schedule

As this course is given for the first time, there is likely to be some updates along the way. We use TimeEdit but also keep Canvas updated (look at the Modules) with date and time, and will use Canvas to announce any changes such that you can be aware of them. 

This course needs your presence, and the scheduled Tuesday and Thursday afternoons provide key content, necessary for your progression in the course. It is not wise to miss out on scheduled activities, and we will write down who is present at "critical sessions". It is expected of you that you spend in total 15-20 hours per week on this course. That said, we understand that you all read one or two other courses at the same time, and there will be inevitable conflicts in the schedule. We must deal with this as a team and professionally. You are primarily responsible towards your project team and figuring out how your schedules conflict and how to help each other out to solve this is your responsibility in the team. 

TimeEdit

Course literature

Below you can find the list of compulsory course literature. Students are expected to read the literature each week ahead of any scheduled meetings with Supervisors. Supervisors may ask students about the reading as part of scheduled meetings. The selected literature is intended to provide an introduction to the concepts and ideas discussed in the course, and can be used to support both the group and individual assignments. 

Compulsory reading list Aug 22.docx 

Please check the module pages for all weekly lectures and activities at the beginning of each week. There may be some other resources listed by lecturers to accompany the lectures. Teachers can upload slides and materials on the module page, so check these also afterward. 

A wider database of optional readings and other resources for those students and groups who want to explore certain ideas more deeply will also be added when the course begins. Since you will be doing research on different problems, this database will be compiled and will grow for everyone's benefit. You can also add relevant materials that you find here - access it in "Modules" on Canvas.

Course design

The course is structured around lectures, exercises and a bigger team project focused on a complex sustainability challenge. You will be assigned into groups and given a problem to investigate and a supervisor. The project includes a variety of forms of collaboration, tasks and deliverables. The project is led to a high degree by you and provides experience of working with multiple approaches to problem formulation, data collection and mixed methods, analysis, innovation and communication. The project involves interactions with stakeholders in society.

Stakeholder interactions

Since our main stakeholders are very busy we have a code of conduct for how we communicate with them. You will be assigned a contact person from the relevant city authority and all inquiries go through this person. It is really important that the stakeholders do not feel overwhelmed and stay committed to work with us. Therefore we kindly ask you to not (!) take own initiative on contacting government officials. You may however contact other actors, like relevant researchers, experts, private organisations and members of the public as part of your research investigation. Your supervisor will help guide you around interactions, so there is no need to start making inquiries ahead of the course.

 

Content

The course consists of: 

• 10 lectures with two more guest lectures to be confirmed
• 11 interactive sessions, including supervision, exercises, workshops and peer feedback
• A boat trip with water experts
• A final conference with the stakeholders

Since it is the first time the course is running, we may need to make small adjustments to the schedule along the way. Also, we are currently finalising two extra guest lectures.  

You will need your own laptop for the course, and many sessions are interactive so please bring it with you to class. 

The Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are typically structured with a lecture followed by an interactive session. We have also scheduled some group work time later in the course as you are finalising your projects. You will need to spend time working with your group outside of class. We have scheduled some time for group work without supervision. That time is used flexibly by the groups and for them to decide on what they need to work on.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

Account for the course's main concepts (sustainability transitions, innovation, technology and complex systems) and use these in analysis of and reflection around specific sustainability challenges

 

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.

Study plan

 

Examination form

The course is examined by evaluating a combination of individual and group performance. This is undertaken through a four-stage process to reach a final individual grade. We use the scale F, 3, 4, 5. 

 

1. Determine student has not failed the course 

In order to gain an overall grade of P or higher, the student must have done the following: 

• Attend and actively participated in at least 6 of the 10 sessions labelled as “critical” in the Canvas modules. 
• Submit all written assignments. There are three individual and four group assignments. Some of these are scored Pass/Fail and some are scored F, 3, 4, 5. 

If individuals or groups submit scored assignments after the deadline, they can only get a Pass (3) on that assignment (see weighted scoring in stage 2 below). Failure to attend a critical interactive session where participants carried out a written task (this concerns 6 sept and 29 Sep) results in an additional written assignment. This will be specified for the sessions concerned on the Canvas page. 

Since the course is built around a large group project, presence at all scheduled activities is important for your learning and the progress of the group. 

 

2. Determine student’s weighted score for both group and individual assignments 

For all those students who have not failed the course at stage 1, the assessors will calculate a weighted score (F,3,4,5) for each student based on their submissions, using the following weighting: 

• Project plan (group assignment) - weighs 20% 
• Final report (group assignment) - weighs 30% 
• Presentation (visual and oral) at final conference (group assignment) - weighs 10% 
• Individual written assignment on innovation approaches - weighs 20% 
• Individual reflection at the end of the course - weighs 20% 

Under this weighting, the group assignments have the greatest weighting (60%) followed by the individual assignments (40%), reflecting the course’s emphasis on group work. 

 

3. Use peer feedback to determine whether student’s weighted score should be adjusted up or down by 1 point 

The assessors will review how each student’s contribution has been perceived by their group members, using the peer feedback document “Contributions to project work”. 

The expectation for the majority of students is that this third step should not typically alter the student’s project grade. However it is possible that under specific circumstances, such as exceptionally positive or negative peer feedback, an individual student’s weighted score may be increased or decreased by 1 point. For example, a student who gained a weighted score of 5 but who received very poor peer feedback may be adjusted to a 4.

 

4. Set final grade for student 

In this final step, the assessors will take the weighted score (adjusted if necessary in step 3) and then set the final grade from this. The assessors will confer with each other to agree whether to round students with marginal scores (for example if a student’s score is 4.5) up or down for their final grade. This will be informed by their overall impression of each student’s performance. 

 

Absence

About planned absence or absence due to cold symptoms: Communicate with the supervisor and your group members if you know you cannot participate in critical sessions. Hybrid participation maybe is possible for good reasons, so please communicate with our course assistant Sam Unsworth if you need to participate digitally.