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SEE050 – Systems Interventions for Sustainability Transitions

Course name:	Systems Interventions for Sustainability Transitions	Academic year:	2022/2023
Course code:	SEE040	Study period:	SP2
Credits:	7.5	Programme owning the course:	Industrial Ecology
Teaching language:	English	Department giving the course:	Space-, Earth- and Environment

 

Examiner:	John Holmberg, john.holmberg@chalmers.se
Course leader:	Johan Holmén, johan.holmen@chalmers.se
Staff:	Gavin McCrory, mccrory@chalmers.se Lola Nacke, lolan@chalmers.se

 

Student representatives

TBC

 

Course purpose and aim

Many of the technical systems in society that engineers engage with throughout their career are facing large changes related to technological development trajectories, infrastructure, markets, legislation, culture, norms and user behaviors. In response to ambitious sustainability demands, it is no longer a question of marginally adjusting existing systems but rather about replacing existing systems with new configurations. This need is emphasized in the United Nations Agenda 2030 "Transforming our World" with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. There is a need for professionals with the capabilities to understand systemic challenges and lead sustainability transitions. The purpose of the course "System interventions for sustainability transitions" is to create space for and support in building systems leadership capabilities in the process of formulating a master thesis topic:

• You will integrate different perspectives to map out and create in-depth understandings of complex socio-technical systems (e.g. systems for energy, mobility, food, healthcare).
• You will explore ways of challenging existing systems and structures, and through dialogue with relevant societal actors and researchers also identify leverage points where interventions can contribute to desired change in the systems. One selected leverage point will form the basis for a master thesis related to understanding and engaging with a complex sustainability challenge and transition process in context.
• You will practice your (self-)leadership and systems skills by actively co-creating the course journey in collaboration with your peers and teachers.

In this course, you have the opportunity to engage with systemic sustainability challenges together with stakeholders and researchers in a local/regional context. The course aims to result in an output (grounded leverage point) of relevance for a future master’s thesis in line with Challenge Lab. This leverage point will be phrased as a research question with sustainability transition potential, aligned with your personal interests and connected with an ongoing local/regional process with associated stakeholders. It will also be (if decision is made to further pursue the leverage point during a thesis process) connected with a potential supervisor and plan for a master’s thesis. It is strongly recommended that you intend to further your leverage point into a master thesis topic when entering the course. The course is held in the spirit of ‘Challenge Lab’, and doing your master thesis within this context includes additional supervision support and a series of leadership reflection circle meetings throughout the following master thesis semester.

The course also aims to foster learning on a level of theories, concepts, methods and tools throughout the process whilst working towards the final output. In that way, the course builds upon a “learning-by-doing” approach where concepts are introduced, practiced in a case and reflected upon and so integrated in your internal process of “becoming a systems practitioner” in dialogue with your peers and staff, who also provide coaching support.

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to):

1. Apply basic concepts connected to systems innovation
2. Identify, analyse and discuss challenges within current socio-technical systems in relation to future requirements for sustainability with backcasting
3. Reflect upon choices of different systems tools, as well as their possibilities and limitations
4. Create conceptual models of complex systems
5. Identify and define systems boundaries and scales within a system
6. Analyse cause and effect from a systems perspective
7. Identify reinforcing and balancing dynamic feedback mechanisms
8. Make a stakeholder analysis and lead dialogues in multi-stakeholder settings
9. Find strategic and relevant leverage points where initiatives can have large effects on a system
10. Identify and formulate problems/challenges in complex societal systems

Course Design

Content

This course combines historical and conceptual developments of systems thinking with practical application in a multi-stakeholder case for regional socio-technical sustainability transitions. We propose an outline to the course and a progression along theories, methods and tools, but essentially, this course is co-created with students. This means that students can, and should, be involved in dialogue with the course staff to jointly learn about interests, needs and desired support to align the course with relevant learning ambitions. Students steer their own learning journey, and teachers and stakeholders provide knowledge, insights and inspiration.

Our proposed progression for the course is as follows: The course starts with a general introduction to systems interventions for sustainability transitions including systems innovation, backcasting, transdisciplinarity and multi-stakeholder co-creation. This introduction is followed by deeper engagement with systems thinking including its historical development and central concepts. These elements are then combined and practiced through a hands-on real-world case in West Sweden, running across the remainder of the course.

The case is done in smaller groups and starts by approaching a regional, thematic socio-technical system where there are sustainability challenges. A particular system is selected for deeper analysis and engagement. This system is conceptually mapped through static representations to understand both dominant socio-technical configurations and promising alternative systems configurations (niches). Throughout this process dialogues are held with stakeholders in society to iterate and anchor the systems representations in real-world contexts. Here tools such as actor analysis and participatory methods including facilitation and dialogue techniques are central to illuminate not only ‘outer’ societal/technical issues but also ‘inner’ organizational/governance issues.

Based on the static systems representation and stakeholder dialogue, the most interesting dynamics in the socio-technical systems are further analysed with its relations to niches and emerging alternatives, and, if applicable, related governance systems. Rough areas are selected where there might be potential for transformative change (systems innovation), either within the dominant systems configurations, for accelerating niche development, or on a level of capacities for leading and governing transitions. A detailed mapping and reflection is iterated to catch feedback mechanisms and other dynamics, and to eventually identify leverage points where a small change can have larger effects in a desired direction. The selected leverage points are also based on stakeholder interests and larger trends in society (landscape level) to ensure the societal relevance and feasibility of the leverage point. The leverage points are then formalized into research questions with a selection of appropriate methods within a backcasting framework that can be brought further for a flying start of a master thesis in line with Challenge Lab.

Organization

This course is a natural continuation and deepening of the course SEE040 “Leadership for sustainability transitions”. It is organized based on a combination of:

• Theory and Tools: Interactive lectures and literature with introduction of tools.
• Case Work: A hands-on case where the tools are applied in real-world sustainability challenges in West Sweden.
• Reflection: A reflection paper on systems thinking encompassing the whole course where you will reflect upon the tools and their use in the case.

In comparison to SEE040, this course focuses on deepening and application of systems-related tools that are used in an extensive case that also can lead towards a research question for a future master thesis.

In SEE050 you will have a different role compared to what you may be used to in your previous educational experience. As a student, you will be designing your own learning journey with coaching support from the staff. You will have room to control the course content, as well as a more active role in the ongoing design and reflection of the process and progress of the course. The staff assist by deepening the knowledge and learning through guiding theory, concepts, tools and methods, and connecting with suitable stakeholders. 

Literature

Core readings will be posted on Canvas at course start and can be found on Canvas under Modules.

The literature should be seen as providing perspectives to the interactive lectures and workshops, not as a substitute to them. Hence, concepts might be presented during a lecture or workshop but not in the literature and vice versa. In addition, resources will be added as the course progresses related to student’s learning journeys.

To support you in engaging with literature, there will be reflective sessions throughout the course. Here, we reflect together over the quality of what we have generated so far and share experiences from the processes of doing so.

Examination including compulsory elements

The course is examined through a group case and individual reflection assignments. Please scroll to the scheduling section at the end of this document for a list of all deadlines.

Case: The case spans the entire course. You work together in groups which may change throughout the course depending on how your interests evolve. You can also find information on this in the Content section above, and we will provide further guidance during the course introduction. Accompanying the casework are a series of submissions throughout the course. There will be one hand-in for each of the suggested five modules, due on Fridays (noon), where you will present and reflect on your progress and potentially present outputs you have created. The case hand-ins allow us to follow your progress, support your learning, and allow you to practice reflecting on your progress as a group, and develop self-leadership and management skills by deciding what support you may need, and what steps you need to take. Handing in these assignments is mandatory. They are graded on a pass/fail basis and passing all hand-ins leads to passing the case.

Weekly individual reflection assignments: Starting in week two, you will upload a brief reflection assignment every week (up to two pages). You will also have the opportunity to engage in the reflections of eachother during the course. These uploads are mandatory but are not graded. We want to ensure that you continuously reflect on three aspects:

• The theories, concepts and tools you are introduced to in the literature and interactive lectures and workshops.
• The quality of the outputs you produce, such as static or dynamic systems maps, leverage points, etc.
• The processes of learning about theories, concepts and tools and of creating these outputs. You should upload your weekly reflections on Canvas every Thursday (23:59).

 

We will provide more information on the reflection assignments during the introductory days of the course.

Final individual reflection assignment: At the end of the course, you will write a final assignment where you will reflect upon the whole course. This will give you an opportunity to take a step back and reflect on what you learned and achieved during the course. You will submit the final assignment by January 13th (23:59). This final submission will be graded and determine your grade for the overall course.

We will provide more details on the content and format of this assignment during the course.

Mandatory attendance: All sessions are mandatory, and you are expected to attend the sessions. Please contact the course coordinator if you cannot attend a session for some reason. Sessions will be held on campus.

If you cannot attend the first lecture, inform the course coordinator (lolan@chalmers.se) via email in advance of this lecture.

Submissions, revisions and re-examination: All submissions in the course should be done through Canvas. Submissions by email to the course team will not be accepted. Late case submissions may result in supplementary assignments. Any revisions to the case or the written assignment should be submitted as soon as possible, but no later than two weeks after having received the feedback. “Plussning”, attempts to increase an already passed grade, is not available for any part of the course.

Last year’s course evaluation: When we held the course for the first time two years ago, we received valuable feedback that has helped us structure the current course design.

• We now place an emphasis on the fact that the leverage points developed throughout this course should be formalized as a research question for a Master thesis project in line with Challenge Lab.
• We have adjusted the balance between theory-driven lectures and practical, case-oriented workshops.
• We will engage more directly with stakeholders in this course occurrence.

We highly value the feedback and input of students and believe that it does not only make for a better course and learning experience, but also that it helps students develop their (self-)leadership capabilities. We thus place an emphasis on co-creation in this course, meaning that students take the lead in their learning experience, and communicate their needs and expectations for support from the teachers.

Schedule and location

The course will be provided on campus. Please see the course homepage on Canvas, or TimeEdit,  for an updated course schedule with information about location and specific times. We always start sharp in the morning (e.g. 8.00).

General scheduling: • Mondays: 8-12 • Wednesdays: 10-17

A full schedule will be published upon course start, below is an overview of all events:

Date	Time	Module
Oct 31	8-12	Module A: Setting the scene: expectations
Nov 2	10-17	Module A: Setting the scene: expectations
Nov 7	8-10	Module B: Choice of thematic area: interests and opportunities
Nov 9	10-17	Module B: Choice of thematic area: interests and opportunities
Nov 14	8-12	Module C: Conceptual models: understanding systems
Nov 16	10-17	Module C: Conceptual models: understanding systems
Nov 21	8-12	Module C: Conceptual models: understanding systems
Nov 23	10-17	Module C: Conceptual models: understanding systems
Nov 28	8-12	Module D: Levers for change: transformative interventions
Nov 30	10-17	Module D: Levers for change: transformative interventions
Dec 5	8-12	Module E: Suggesting interventions: research question
Dec 7	10-17	Module E: Suggesting interventions: research question
Dec 12	8-12	Course wrap-up
Dec 14	10-17	Course wrap-up

Deadlines:

Case (in smaller groups):

• Hand-in Module A: Friday, 4th November (12.00/noon)
• Hand-in Module B: Friday, 11th November (12.00/noon)
• Hand-in Module C: Friday, 25th November (12.00/noon)
• Hand-in Module D: Friday, 2nd December (12.00/noon)
• Hand-in Module E: Friday, 9th December (12.00/noon)

Weekly reflection assignments (individual):

• Week 2: Thursday, 10th November (23.59)
• Week 3: Thursday, 17th November (23.59)
• Week 4: Thursday, 24th November (23.59)
• Week 5: Thursday, 1st December (23.59)
• Week 6: Thursday, 8th December (23.59)

Weekly peer reviews (individual):

• Week 2: Friday, 11th November (23.59)
• Week 3: Friday, 18th November (23.59)
• Week 4: Friday, 25th November (23.59)
• Week 5: Friday, 2nd December (23.59)
• Week 6: Friday, 9th December (23.59)

Final reflection assignment (individual):

• January 13th 2023 (23.59)