Integrating Social Sciences and Humanities into Teaching about Energy Erasmus Project

Project Title

Integrating Social Sciences and Humanities into Teaching about Energy

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Energy and resources; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

The relationship between technology and society changes; it is becoming a widely recognized view that future technology policies including energy policies have to be not only technically, but also socially acceptable. While it is uncertain what this shift means for the transformation of political decision-making about energy, the implications for the scientific ethos are obvious. It seems to be no longer tenable to view the research as accomplished in the seclusion of laboratories and detached from the impact of energy technologies on social systems. If science is to assist political reason convincingly, then competences have to be built, which allow conceiving the technical and the social as two interlinked phenomena.

The main goal of TEACHENER project was to foster transdisciplinary education and build a bridge between Social Sciences and Humanities on the one hand and teaching about energy at technical higher education institutions on the other. To accomplish this goal, project partners 1) mapped the demand for SSH approaches at technical higher education institutions (HEIs) in project countries, 2) designed the TEACHENER EDUKIT as a complex and flexible set of Teaching Modules covering various topics associated with social aspects of energy, 3) tested Teaching Modules at partner technical HEIs and during two Student Winter Schools.

The TEACHENER EDUKIT, being a main result of the project, is a complex set of ready-to-use, innovative Teaching Modules covering various topics associated with social aspects of energy for educating Master and PhD students at technical higher education institutions. Innovative educational practices, constituting the EDUKIT, provide the graduates of technical energy studies with interdisciplinary skills, knowledge and competencies in social sciences and humanities, enabling them to better respond to the needs of the labour market related to the shift to knowledge society and a fair energy transition with new or adapted job profiles.

The EDUKIT and accompanying e-book “Integrating Social Sciences and Humanities into Teaching about Energy: the TEACHENER EDUKIT” encompass the project results. The EDUKIT has been incorporated into teaching curricula at technical institutions participating in the project, either as standalone courses for MSc/PhD students or as parts of existing courses offered at the technical university.

The partnership behind the project consisted of ‘socio-technical teams’. Each such a team consisted of researchers from one SSH institution and one technical HEI partner:
– In Poland it was Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU) and Gdańsk University of Technology (GUT),
– in Spain MERIENCE and Catalan University of Technology (UPC),
– in Czech Republic the Institute of Sociology of Czech Academy of Sciences (ISAS) and Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU),
– in Germany the team consisted of researchers from the department of Urban and Enviromental sociology and Monitoring and Exploration Technologies from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

The TEACHENER consortium encourages technical university teachers to use TEACHENER EDUKIT, an integrated toolbox consisting of the following eight Teaching Modules, each devoted to a different topic:
1. ENERGY AWARENESS
2. PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS OF ENERGY DEVELOPMENT
3. ENERGY AND THE PUBLIC
4. SOCIAL IMPACT OF ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES
5. TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
6. SMART METERING. SOCIAL RISK PERCEPTION AND RISK GOVERNANCE
7. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
8. DECENTRALIZED ENERGY SYSTEMS

On the dedicated web-platform available under www.teachener.umk.pl, one can download the ready-made Teaching Modules and adapt them to the own requirement of teaching at a technical university

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 303565 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIWERSYTET MIKOLAJA KOPERNIKA W TORUNIU & Country: PL

Project Partners

• POLITECHNIKA GDANSKA
• UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA
• HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM FUR UMWELTFORSCHUNG GMBH – UFZ
• CESKE VYSOKE UCENI TECHNICKE V PRAZE
• INSTITUTE OF SOCIOLOGY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC PUBLIC RESEARCH INSTITUTION
• MERIENCE SCP