Ulrik Jørgensen presents on sustainability education at Aalborg University and the DIST center. The university focuses on project-based learning and has campuses in Copenhagen and Esbjerg. DIST engages in research and outreach on socio-material perspectives of sustainability challenges like climate change, resource use, growth, and social conflicts. Educational programs explore sustainable design, cities, and transitions to impact professional practices and societal strategies. Sustainability presents challenges to university disciplines and the structure of professions and knowledge.

1. DIST centre and AAU’s
sustainability educations
Presentation 10 November 2015 at the conference:
Opening up new horizons: International perspectives on ESE
Ulrik Jørgensen, prof.
Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions
Aalborg University Copenhagen
1Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

2. Overview of my presentation
• brief on Aalborg University
• DIST foundation and areas of engagement
• challenges: climate, resource consumption, growth,
social conflicts and disciplinarity
• alternative responses and their contributions
• educational programs at AAU
• impacts on professional practices, innovation and
societal strategies
2Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

3. Aalborg University and its campuses
• founded in 1973 as a merger of existing local and
subsidiary institutions – all science fields present
• project based learning (PBL) has been the ’trade
mark’ covering half of the study time each semester
• fundamental change from focus on teaching to focus
on learning – a continuous challenge
• campuses also in Copenhagen and Esbjerg – a result
of a concentration and competition policy
3Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

4. DIST center: staff and approach
• cross-faculty and -department cooperation with a
common platform in science and technology studies
(STS) – the lingua franca of the center
• research and knowledge building with a strong focus
on and interest in outreach activities and cooperation
with societal actors
• including approx. 50 academics with a variety of
disciplinary background reaching from engineering
and sociology to economy and ethnology
4Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

5. Common ’theory’ of socio-materiality
• philosophy had questioned the role of technology as
has the 1990s technology assessment
• innovation theory demonstrated limitations to
economic theories of growth and change
• technology studies (STS) questioned the constructed
devide between the social and the material
• new approach to understanding disciplines, design
processes, sustainability, societal transitions, etc.
5Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

6. Actor centered approach
• actor centered approach is core to understanding
how objects and practices are constituted and
performed (enacted)
• but actors also reflect past and present institutional
configurations that frame and set the stage for action
• actors re-configuring and engaging in new network
constellations within arenas of development are an
core to institutional change
6Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

7. Outreach and focus on learning
• engagement with actors in society that experiment
with and support sustainable transitions
• cities, regions, new constellations of actors with
focus on change patterns of consumption and waste
• including companies, entrepreneurs, citizen groups
• focus on learning based on principles of project
based studies and stakeholder co-operation
7Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

8. Areas of engagement - so far
• cityscapes and mobility to create livable spaces
• energy systems incl. consumption and ownership
• design with user involvement that improve products,
use practices and systems
• design of health and use comfort systems
• eco-food development from land to table
• construction of new markets, economic models and
valuations that support ecological transformation
8Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

9. Areas of engagement – next steps
• develop a ’navigational approach’ to support open
ended transition processes
• enter cross-sector governance of critical
infrastructures that integrate water, energy, food, bio
poducts, and land use (the nexus perspective)
• take up inequality, marginalisation, exclusion ,
health, and issues related to migration and refugees
• develop visions for a sustainable societal foundation
beyond the neoliberal and nation state focus
9Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

10. Sustainability challenges
• climate change presents an urgent
agenda for engaging in ways to
induce radical transitions
• making cases for reduced resource
consumption, energy and new social
practices
• a global challenge to economic,
social and environmental action
10Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

11. Sustainability as discourse
• to be ’sustainable’ is the new speak in town – it can’t
be negated
• life cycle assessments, climate models present
strong, but partial metrics
• a discourse on the legitimacy of development
pathways rather than a macro-metric
• a transformative challenge to professions, research
disciplines, and societal ideologies
11Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

12. Dilemmas of growth
• growth rates generally are going down
• increased inequality
• general wellfare loss
• energy and resources
spurred growth
• leads to fundamental
policy contradictions
12Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

13. Social uprising and refugees
• several Middle East, Asian and African conflict
zones are related to water, draught and climate
• new political extremist in Europa are the retult of
inequality and migration pressures
• water conflicts will eventually result in extended
refugee problems
• besides production led (over)consumption this may
be the most important future sustainability challenge
13Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

14. A scattered world representation
• foundational problem of university disciplines lies in
the need for isolating research objects
• science is not just filling ’white’ spots on a
knowledge map – a trade-off between gains and
reduction
• a ’scattered’ representation of the world (Cartwright)
• crucial for dominant professions of engineering,
economy, management, planning and policy
• challenge postnormal science and interdisciplinarty
14Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

15. Technological and institutional fix’es
• green growth - a dominant efficiency response
• new concepts – ’cradle to cradle’ and ’circular
economic’ and ’sharing economy’ simplify
• commodification and sectoralisation – dominant
policy on infrastructures and services
• sustainability – natural science and technology
topic?
• with the ’antropocene’ and following e.g. ’Tensions
of Europe’ humanities is waking up
15Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

16. Translating ’environment’ …
• sustainability can be seen as the second and
extended wave – environment and energy in the
1970s were the first
• detailed study of institutional framings of the uptake
of the first wave at DTU and AAU in Denmark
• local codes of meaning translated the challenge into
either chemical pollution, planning using EIA and
models, or production management issues
16Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

17. Four response practices observed
• efficiency parameters – integration into existing
disciplines like enzymes, recycling, innovation
• external societal perspective – broad discussions and
projects on impacts, ethics and politics
• particular new disciplines – EIA, energy modelling,
design courses, ecology and resilience
• transformative – engagement in project assignments
and adjusted teaching content and theory reflections
17Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

18. Sustainability focused educations
• some AAU programs have sustainable change and
transitions as their core focus
• ’Sustainable Design’ (b+m) – socio-material design,
user involvement, new views on systems, navigating
open terrains, challenge: classic engineering disciplines
• ’Sustainable Cities’ (m) – impact assessment, energy
system modelling, challenge: new roles in planning
• ’Sustainable Transitions’ (pm) – professionals,
institutional regimes, navigating sustainable transitions
in open terrains, market construction, change agency
18Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

19. Other educational uptakes
• other programs have sustainability as an important
topic
• ’Sustainable Biotechnology’ (b+m) – biomaterials,
biorefining, genetic engineering, challenge:
sustainability as navigational and ethical perspective
• ’Integrated food studies’ (m) – food chain
management, organic food production, kitchen
strategies, nutrition, challenge: health aspects
• ’Production Engineering’ (b+m) – elements of
sustainable production and management
19Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

20. Still pending options
• several of the engineering programs open for
sustainability as a perspective in projects supported
by some general courses, but in the line with
’efficiency’ and ’add-on’
• ’Social Work’ and ’Refugee Studies’ are social
science programs still lacking sustainability
• ’Lighting Design and ’Mediology’ are integrated
programs with options in project
• still a lot of challenges and a lot to be done!
20Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

21. Program structure and core disciplines
• two main challenges comes from:
- lack of engagement with progress in learning
- research disciplines still dominate teaching
• project based learning, progression and semester
coordination is core
• cost of education ’issue’ – break even between
cousework and projects: 60 students
• dilemma for educators between ’hook’ and ’renewal’
21Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

22. Implications for innovation and policy
• contemporary and innovation policy is technology
centered and focus on growth
• dispite the dismantling of the linear model by the
history of technology and innovation economics
• strategic research is focusing on commercial actors
• in a transition perspective societal functions need to
be made the structural backbone of innovation
22Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions

23. Implications for disciplines
• universities are basically conservative when it
comes to faculty and disciplines
• dispite their role in knowledge provision and
innovation
• contradiction of importance for new cross-
disciplinary activities
• sustainability in all its ’weakness’ is a challenge to
the structure of professions and knowledge
23Ulrik Jørgensen – Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions