Abstract
The incorporation of sustainability in universities finds the greatest barriers in the field of teaching. The curricula do not usually cover all dimensions of sustainability as most of the experiences are isolated and they do not reach all students. Within a larger study, an exploratory investigation has been carried out on how sustainability competences are being integrated into the programs of both Informatics Engineering and Industrial Engineering degrees of 25 Spanish universities. The main findings suggest that existing courses in the domain of the humanities and engineering projects, as well as the final degree project, are very appropriate areas for developing a holistic and reflective approach. Likewise, there is a lack of environmental issues in Informatics Engineering, and ethical issues do not usually appear in Industrial Engineering courses. In general, there is no systematic and strategic integration along the degree programs. However, inspiring practices have been identified to propose lines of action and a curriculum model to embed sustainability into engineering education coherently and effectively. In addition, some reflections on drivers, opportunities, and challenges to achieve it are presented.
Highlights
Over the last decades, it has been seen that neither the responses to global, social, and environmental challenges nor their implementation, are simple or evident in the complex framework of the current globalization
For each of the course categories, some results related to their presence in the curricula and their contribution to the development of sustainability competences are presented
An exploratory research has been carried out to study how sustainability competencies are being integrated into the programs of both Industrial and Informatics engineering degrees in Spanish universities
Summary
It has been seen that neither the responses to global, social, and environmental challenges nor their implementation, are simple or evident in the complex framework of the current globalization. The problems are multi-causal and affect many different stakeholders, e.g., governments, companies, educational institutions, unions, and civil society. All these agents have different ways of intervening in the process, depending on their power, urgency and legitimacy, as well as their knowledge and capacity for action [1,2,3]. Assuming that it is impossible to have full certainty about the social impacts of technology in the future, this does not exempt practitioners and institutions from their responsibility to develop new technologies so that their impacts are desirable and lead to greater empowerment of people, instead of limiting it [7,8,9]
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