Project Lead:
Dr Niamh Power (Niamh.Power@mtu.ie)
Project Status
In Progress
Project Lead Home Department:
MTU Cork - Building and Civil Engineering - Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Alignment to HEA and NFETLHE SATLE 2022-23 Themes
- Education for Sustainable Development (ESD);
Alignment to MTU Strategy Themes
- Learner Education & Experience;
Project Description
This project will develop a process at institutional level to help programme teams embed SDGs within curricula. The process will help programme teams to identify core/priority SDGs aligned to their subject area discipline, evaluate the current level of SDG alignment and develop the process to enable programme teams to transition to ensure the core/priority SDGs are embedded and explicitly assessed at various points within the programme. The project will also develop tools to communicate the relevance of programmes to the SDGs to students and external agencies. This communication is essential to raising awareness amongst students and engaging and empowering them to define and realise their roles in achieving long term sustainability.
The project builds on an initial workshop, organised by this group, which was held on Wednesday 8th March entitled “Embedding SDG’s in Programmes”. This workshop had over 75 in attendance, including 30 academic staff and over 45 students from 12 Departments representing 13 participating programmes. The workshops ran in parallel in the MTU Cork and MTU Kerry campuses. The focus of this initial workshop was to identify a set of core SDG’s that clearly aligned with the discipline area. The intent of this project is to build on that initial workshop and support staff from a range of disciplines to embed the SDG’s within their discipline area.
Specific objectives of this project are to work with 7 different programmes across two faculties at MTU Cork and MTU Kerry to:
- Explore existing processes for mapping SDG’s within the curriculum, select a suitable process and map how the core SDG’s are currently realised within these programmes
- To identify a set of modules that currently do not focus on SDGs and re-design these so that they align with the core SDGs of the subject area discipline. These modules should span all three SDG pillars of societal, economic and environmental
- Engage with local external bodies e.g. Cork City Council, Kerry County Council, to explore collaborative opportunities to embed long-term authentic SDG activity within curricula
- Identify and create case-studies of good practice that can readily be transferred to other discipline areas
- Create a set of resources explaining how we mapped SDG’s and embedded them within these curricula and explore implications for practice within the wider MTU community i.e. implications for existing curriculum-design tools and processes.
What is the anticipated impact of this project?
It is anticipated the project will generate the following:
- An approach to identify core/priority SDG for a programme aligned to their subject area discipline. A process for mapping how existing curricula support those identified SDG’s and consequently enable an evaluation of existing programmes using those SDG lenses
- A number (seven) of SDG-intensive modules to further embed SDG’s within these programmes
- A range of resources to support others to map their programmes, evaluate the strengths and limitations of their programme and develop their own SDG-intensive modules or adapt ones developed as a result of this initiative to strengthen their programmes commitment to SDG’s.
The project will have institutional level impact including:
- The project will inform the academic quality enhancement process within MTU. The process developed and piloted by this project will inform MTU of best practice in the area of SDG embedding. Staff and students on the participating programmes will be directly impacted. Academic staff will have developed the capacity to educate for sustainable development, while students will develop a greater awareness of the SDGs aligned to their discipline area
- Staff and students participating in the two (three) SDG focused workshops will be directly impacted. This direct impact here will be through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective and peer learning.
What will the outputs of this project be?
The key outputs anticipated from this project are
- A process for identifying and mapping SDGs appropriate to the MTU context
- Case-studies with a spotlight on the SDG-intensive modules designed as a result of this initiative
- Recordings explaining and showcasing the mapping process using programmes that participated in this initiative as exemplars and the implications that were drawn as a consequence of the mapping process. Resources highlighting how the SDG-intensive modules were designed to address identified limitations within these programmes
- A website to share these resources and case-studies.
Team Members:
- Dr. Stephen Cassidy, Dean of Academic Quality Enhancement, MTU – Cork
- Dr. Martin Hill Head of Dept. of Electrical & Electronic Eng., MTU - Cork
- Dr. Katie Power, Head of Dept of Marketing & International Business, MTU - Cork
- Maria Cullinane, Dept. Process, Energy & Transport, MTU - Cork
- Dr. Daniel Cahill, Head of Dept. of Construction Engineering, MTU – Cork
- Katherine O’Sullivan, Dept. Science Technology Engineering and Maths – Kerry
- Don Crowley, Head of Dept. of Organisation and Professional Development, MTU – Cork
- Dr. Tom O’Mahony, Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Eng., MTU - Cork
