Course syllabus

Course PM

SEE040 Leadership for sustainability transitions lp1 HT24 (7.5 hp)

The course is offered by the department of Space, Earth and Environment.

Information about the course can also be found in the study plan.

 

Contact details

Examiner:

John Holmberg, john.holmberg@chalmers.se

Course administrator:
Primary contact

Caroline S.S. Franca,

Other staff:

Johan Holmén, johan.holmen@chalmers.se

Clara Saglietti clarasag@chalmers.se

Guest lecturers:

Göran Carstedt: goran@carstedt.se

Martin Sande: martin.sande@dialogues.se

Lotta Göthe: lotta.gothe@ecoplan.se

Communication with the staff should primarily go through the course administrator Caroline Franca through email.

Student Representatives

Selected by the student center and to be confirmed during the introduction session.

 

Course purpose and aim

The course aims to support you in becoming a leader for sustainability transitions. The course provides theoretical perspectives, methods and tools for leading sustainability-driven systems innovation in society. The concept of leadership within this course builds on backcasting as an overarching approach, where you develop leadership capabilities on three levels: leading yourself, leading together with others, and leading for humanity. These theoretical perspectives and tools introduced through literature and lectures, is applied in a real-world case, and is developed through individual and group exercises and reflection. Based on this foundation, you will in your future career be able to purposefully lead complex transitional processes involving stakeholders across societal sectors in society. Some students attending this course choose to deepen their leadership capabilities further by taking the course SEE050 "System interventions for sustainability transitions" which in turn prepares for a thesis in line with Challenge Lab.

 

Learning outcomes

After completion of the course you will be able to:

  1. Understand and describe challenge-driven innovation processes.
    • This includes understanding different innovation logics and the kind of leadership that is required for sustainability transitions as well as the ability to put knowledge into practice.
  1. Conduct future studies.
    • This includes reflecting on different approaches to engaging with futures, with a focus on backcasting approaches, testing robustness and handling critical uncertainties. Being able to formulate guiding principles for a system from different sustainability dimensions is also included.
  1. Apply systems thinking and mapping of socio-technical systems in order to identify sustainability transition strategies.
    • This includes zooming across scales, understanding systems dynamics and identifying root-causes, identifying leverage points in multi-level systems, understanding "lock-in" mechanisms, developing and critically appraising conceptual solutions (design thinking), iteration and experimentation.
  1. Apply tools to surface multiple perspectives and facilitate dialogue in a multi-stakeholder setting.
    • This relates to the abilities to learn about yourself and from others, to understand and respect needs, perspectives, and actions. This includes techniques for self-leadership and participatory problem-solving, dialogue tools, co-creation, perspective awareness, and active listening.
  1. Apply transition strategies and challenge-driven innovation processes.
    • This includes identifying leverage points in multi-level systems, understanding "lock-in" effects, developing and critically appraising conceptual solutions (design thinking), iteration and experimentation, and the ability to put knowledge into practice.
  1. Apply tools to enable and facilitate dialogue in a multi-stakeholder setting.
    • This relates to the abilities to learn from others, to understand and respect the needs, perspectives and actions of others. This includes techniques on collaboration and participatory problem-solving, dialogue tools, co-creation, perspective awareness, and active listening.
  1. Apply critical thinking.
    • This includes both critical reflection inwards (owns values, norms and actions) and outwards (phenomena in the outside world).
  1. Integrate problem identification and problem-solving frameworks.
    • This is the overarching ability to comprehend and integrate the abovementioned competencies/abilities.
  1. Lead oneself, lead together with others and lead for humanity.
    • This includes the ability to develop one's own leadership capabilities based on the abovementioned competencies/abilities.

 

Course design

Content

Backcasting from sustainability principles is a key methodology during the whole course. Backcasting is helpful to break free from path-dependency and free the mind by starting from a desirable sustainable future and consists of four steps:

  1. Formulate guiding principles for a sustainable and desirable future
  2. Analyse the present situation in relation to the principles
  3. Identify leverage point interventions for bridging the gaps
  4. Strategically experiment in leverage points

As well as in the backcasting approach, the course applies two perspectives for encompassing approach in dealing with complex sustainability challenges in society:

  1. Outside-in perspective; including system dynamics, transition, and design as tools to understand and deal with the external requirements global sustainability put on societal systems.
  2. Inside-out perspective; including methods and tools to understand and reflect on your own values, strengths and visions - as well as to understand and lead in the interaction with different stakeholders within complex systems.

In a case conducted during the course, you will, through group assignments, identify needs and possible ideas that can point the way for further interventions - bridging the gap between a sustainable future and the current situation.

 

Organization

For each of the steps in the backcasting approach, the two perspectives (Outside-in and Inside-out) will be addressed by three ways of learning:

  1. Theory and Tools: Lectures and literature with introduction of tools as well as literature seminars in which the theories and concepts from the literature are discussed.
  2. Case Work: A hands-on case where the tools are applied on a real-world sustainability challenge, selected with other classmates according to your interest.
  3. Reflection: An individual written assignment on leadership encompassing the whole course where you will reflect upon the tools and their use in the case. The purpose of the reflection is to digest the knowledge and experiences (double-loop learning) and relate it to leadership abilities and to your own values.

To apply the theory and tools to address sustainability challenges in socio-technical systems, you will chose a hands-on case. The case will draw from sustainability challenges in West Sweden as living laboratory for mobilising change. To be able to lead in a dialogue, while working on the case, you will also explore your own personal values and strengths. (Inside-Out perspective). To be able to better understand the current situation from a systems perspective, you will in group work be interacting with stakeholders – thereby getting a richer picture of the overall challenge and understand a complex system in focus from different perspectives. In this part, dialogue tools are introduced and applied. The dialogue and the application of systems mapping tools enables the identification of points for intervention in the system. The project ideas, identified in this course, will serve to unlock and facilitating change in the sub-system, and subsequently to initiate possible transformation of the larger system.

 

Examination and compulsory elements

The course is examined through three activities:

  • Literature seminars. Throughout the course, four literature seminars will be held to support and examine students’ understanding of and engagement with core concepts from the course literature. The literature seminars replace a previously held midterm examination.
  • Individual written assignment with a half-time submission, peer-review and final submission.
  • A case. The case takes part during the entire course, and examination is based on completing group hand-ins and attendance.

 

Criteria for grades U, 3, 4, 5:

A total of 100 points will be handed out throughout the course that will be translated into grades. The points are distributed as follows:

  1. Literature seminars: Prior to the literature seminars you will submit short notes based on your readings. Sending in your notes and your active participation in discussions and breakout activities is required to pass this activity. While we highly recommend you to take part of all seminars to be best prepared for your individual written assignment, active participation in 2 out of 4 literature seminars are required to pass the course. Seminar are weighed based on attendance and participation. Active participation in all four literature seminars contributes 15 points to the total grade (grade 5), three out of four seminars contribute 10 points to the total grade (grade 4), and two out of four seminars contributes to 5 points to the total grade (grade 3).
  2. Individual Written Assignment: For detailed information about the written assignment, see the written assignment documentation in Canvas under Modules. There you will also find the grading template. Contributes up to 45 points (grade 3, 25 points, grade 4, 35 points, and grade 5, 45 points).
  3. Case: Group assignments connected to the case. The group work will be done in small groups. Each student should demonstrate an understanding and application of course tools. For a detailed list of assignments in the case, see the case documentation in Canvas under Modules. The Casework is a compulsory activity and requires attendance to pass. A fixed grade of 35 points is granted for passing. Passed group assignments is compulsory in order to pass the course.

 

Summary of granted points by activity:

 

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Literature seminars

5

10

15

Individual Written Assignment

25

35

45

Case

35

35

35

 

Assuming passed case, reflection assignment and literature seminars, accumulated points are translated into final grades as follows:

Accumulated points

Grade

<60

U

60

3

75

4

≥90

5

 

Mandatory attendance

The course case is mandatory, hence all aspects related to the case are mandatory to attend (i.e. workshops, group work and final presentation). If you miss a mandatory workshop, you must inform the course coordinator and your group as soon as possible to allow for both your group and teaching staff to prepare accordingly. Missing a mandatory workshop means that you will have to complete an additional task. If you for some reason miss a mandatory workshop, you will be informed what to do by the course coordinator.

It is also mandatory to attend the first lecture on September 3rd in order to claim your place in the course, since we have a waiting list with students who wants to participate in the course. If you do not claim your place in the course, it might be given to another student. If you cannot attend the first lecture, inform the course coordinator via email.

It is mandatory to attend two out of the four literature seminars. You are recommended to attend all four as they provide a foundation of central course concepts. Absence on literature seminars can be complemented by additional tasks such as providing an extensive summary and reflection on the seminar texts. Contact the course coordinator to be informed what to do.

All other lectures are non-compulsory. However, attendance is highly recommended as these provide a backbone for the entire course, including the case and written assignment.

 

Submissions, revisions and re-examination

All submissions in the course should be done through Canvas, and submissions by email 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.

 

Course literature

All literature is posted on Canvas at course start. The literature should be seen as adding perspectives to the lectures, not be a substitute to them. Hence, information might be presented during a lecture but not in the literature and vice versa. A reading guide with tips on how to digest the literature is attached to the literature list.

To further help you get into the course literature there will be four literature seminars. The literature for each module and seminar can be found on Canvas under Modules and in the literature seminar PM.

 

Academic honesty

Since examination is about judging your learning outcomes, it is highly important that everything you hand in for examination purposes can be attributed to your own work. Hence, do not put your name on any submission unless you have actually done the work yourself (individual submission) or participated actively in the work (group submission). We verify the reflection paper assessments via Ouriginal, previously known as Urkund. Ouriginal controls all documents submitted against three main sources; the Internet, published material, and Ouriginal archives (e.g., reports from previous years). All documents, which are controlled through the system, are stored in Ouriginal archives and prevent plagiarism from former and fellow students. Please note that copying your own previous work without proper referencing is also plagiarism. For further information, read for example “Academic honesty and integrity at Chalmers” and “Rules of Discipline”.

 

 

Schedule and location

The course will take place at campus. Please see TimeEdit for an updated course schedule with information about location and specific times. We always start sharp in the morning (8.00). When online, sessions will take place via Zoom and a link will be shared through announcements.

 

General scheduling:

Tuesdays 8-12

Wednesday 8-10                                                         

Friday 8-12

 

A full schedule will be published upon course start, below is a presentation of key events:

 

Course introduction (mandatory attendance to guarantee your place in the course): Sept 3 8-12

 

Literature seminar 1: Sept 13 8-12 (Hand-in Sept 12, 23.59)

Literature seminar 2: Sept 25 8-10 (Hand-in Sept 24, 23.59)

Literature seminar 3: Oct 8 8-12 (Hand-in Oct 1, 23.59)

Literature seminar 4: Oct 23 8-10 (Hand-in Oct 22, 23.59)

 

Hand-in case step 1: Sept 25 (23.59)

Hand-in case step 2: Oct 8 (23.59)

Hand-in case step 3: Oct 21 (23.59)

Hand-in case step 4: Upload transition agenda presentation: Oct 24 (23.59)

 

Outline written assignment hand-in: Oct 2 (23.59)

Full written assignment hand-in: Oct 27 (23.59)

Peer-review hand-in: Oct 29 (23.59)

Final written assignment hand-in: Nov 3 (23.59)