Widening Interdisciplinary Sustainability Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Widening Interdisciplinary Sustainability Education

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 2015

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

We are presently facing many environmental challenges, relating to social and economic changes that take place in a number of different scales. To address complex environmental issues, such as climate change, pollution, depletion of natural resources or biodiversity decline, we need to teach students an interdisciplinary approach through courses and programmes that derive from various disciplines, such as biological and environmental sciences, sociology, economics, law, and psychology. Additionally, there is a need to put attention on sustainability education. i.e. education seeking to cultivate knowledge that acknowledges fundamental interdependences between the society and the environment we live in.

The main aim of the project was to create an international interdisciplinary network of academic teachers and researchers that would work together to develop the capacity of interdisciplinary thinking about sustainable development and to create innovative, multidisciplinary useful tools for environmental studies embedded in sustainable development, directed to Higher Education.
The specific objectives were:
1) to discuss challenges of interdisciplinary education in studies related to environmental problems and sustainability, as well as the implementation of the ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) into existing curricula;
2) to exchange knowledge and experience concerning different types of education and specific tools and methods for implementing interdisciplinarity in academic teaching;
3) to gather information on possibilities how to organize the sustainability education into university curricula within partners’ countries;
4) to develop a handbook (manual) with examples of teaching materials deriving from both social and natural sciences that can contribute to improvements of study programmes related to the environment in several European countries;
and finally
5) to create a new joint international innovative interdisciplinary educational programme in higher education that would deal with the contemporary environmental problems and prepare students to face them in the future.
The partnership brought together five higher education institutions from EU countries (Poland, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, Sweden). The involved researchers represented different fields of specializations (from social sciences to natural sciences).

The project was targeted at several groups. Directly, it was improving the skills and qualifications of the academics and teaching staff of the partner universities. The idea was to teach teachers who would include a new way of combining interdisciplinary and sustainability in their education taking into account a diversity of areas (law, sociology, education, biology, and geology). Indirectly the project was to positively influence students testing the teaching materials. The activities would allow for sharing of the experience, good practices and material outcomes that would be provided at open-access bases to the academic (teaching) community in Europe. Partner organizations exchanged knowledge and expertise regarding education for sustainability – this information was used locally, to enrich methodological approach to teaching environmental and sustainability issues in partner countries. Higher education professionals can use knowledge and experience gathered in international partner reports. Additionally, during the testing phase, students gained knowledge about innovative teaching approach and newly produced teaching materials, as well as issues of environmental education. We tried to reach many stakeholders active in the fields of ESD, through newsletters, conferences, events, and media, e.g. educational institutions, NGOs, students, academics, but also business professionals for whom the awareness and knowledge of sustainability issues are important in their daily work, etc.

Each partner has been assigned the specific tasks in the project framework:
– organization of transnational meetings (Poland and Greece),
– organization of workshops (Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic and Poland),
– organization of the Multiplier Events (each partner),
– the inclusion of testing of materials and curriculum in the teaching activities (each partner),
– ongoing work in preparation of the handbook (each partner),
– ongoing monitoring, communication activities (each partner locally and internationally under the supervision of the leader),
– ongoing evaluation and risk management (each partner under a special supervision of the Czech partner),
– dissemination of the project’s main idea and the project intellectual outputs (each partner).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 243325,9 Eur

Project Coordinator

COLLEGIUM CIVITAS & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Masarykova univerzita
• AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
• SVERIGES LANTBRUKSUNIVERSITET
• UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO