Interactive Sessions

On-line registration for interactive sessions is closed.

Day 1: 13:45 – 15.15

Full descriptions follow below

 

Creating a Supportive Environment for Transformative Research at Universities

Facilitator: Lisa Bohunovsky, Mandy Singer-Brodowski

Co-authors: Lisa Bohunovsky, Helga Kromp-Kolb, Gernot Stöglehner, BOKU

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

Current structures at most universities do not provide adequate incentives to follow such a pathway of transformative research. Thus, the question remains how universities have to change in order to provide framework conditions that allow and even encourage researchers to contribute to societal and sustainability oriented transitions. Such framework conditions include career and evaluation models, publication and teaching practices, necessary skills and university’s self-perceptions.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Group InVEntion Method (GIVE©) by SPES: The method is a democratic tool to collect ideas in a very efficient way also in big groups. It starts from a certain amount of questions. Each question is put on a flip chart sheet, which are attached to the walls and can be accessed freely. Every participant will write down his or her ideas and complement others. In a second step, all participants have time to read all answers and ideas and prioritise them. The highest rated results are then presented and discussed in plenary.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

University networking innovation to foster ESD

Faciltator: Jana Dloua and Hilligje van't Land

Co-authors: Jana Dlouha, Hilligje van't Land, Clemens Mader, Dana Kapitulcinova, Laura Machackova Henderson, Charles University of Prague, University of Zurich, COPERNICUS Alliance

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

Joint IAU/CA interactive session will reflect impact of network cooperation on possibilities to achieve systemic sustainability transition on higher education level. The social capital generated within cooperation in networks plays a role in achieving changes inside involved universities, on interface of university/society, and within the overall policy environment. This session will provide an opportunity to discuss these benefits of networking, while also involving participants in shaping specific joint projects offered recently by IAU/CA (as outlined in MoU – newly launched agreement between IAU and CA).

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

The World Café is an interactive and problem-solving-oriented brainstorming methodology. The participants in groups will explore several areas of HEIs activities, assess the role of each area within every individual HEI, and within the network, and reflect upon specific opportunities for cooperation in joint IAU/CA projects. They will investigate the role of HE networks to support sustainability transition from different, incl. practical points of view, and share the results of this brainstorming in plenum with the audience.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

The 12 key issues of ESD

Facilitator: Peter Glavic

Author: Peter Glavic, Uni Maribor

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

UNESCO endorsed the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD as the follow-up to the Decade. The GAP will deploy a two-fold approach to multiply and to scale up ESD action: (1) integrating sustainable development into education and (2) integrating education into sustainable development

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

station talk: This method helps developing new ideas for different topics in a structured way. Participants work in teams of three or four, and rotate from one topic to the next. This way they can comment on the ideas of the previous group and also further develop the ideas.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

Transport as a key driver for climate change

Facilitator: Hermann Knoflacher

Co-author: Harald Frey, Research Center of Transport Planning and Traffic Engineering Institute of Transportation, Vienna University of Technology

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

Transport problems in rich societies are increasing instead of decreasing contrary to other fields of progress. The session will provide the audience with the basic tool to solve problems in this field and to have fun when you understand, why things are going wrong. It is an exercise to look into human brain also. In the session we will show examples that focus on:

· incentives for a low traffic campus

· business travel & congress tourism

· students mobility and structures

· policy framework for universities

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Analytical Discourse and practical Scenarios:

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

Criteria for Monitoring Sustainability at Higher Education Institutions in Bavaria - A Whole-Institution Approach

Facilitator: Lara Lütke-Spatz1,3, Hans Stötter3, Johannes Geibel4

Co-Authors:/Co-facilitators: Ingrid Hemmer1 and Markus Vogt2

1Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany), 2Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (Germany, 3University of Innsbruck (Austria), 4netzwerk n e.V. (Germany),

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

A set of criteria is being developed that allows Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Bavaria, Germany, to systematically identify and monitor their sustainability activities in the following six fields: ‘Governance’, ‘Teaching and Learning’, ‘Research’, ‘Campus Management’, 'Dialogue with Society' and 'Student Engagement' (whole-institution approach). The focus of the project lies on internal processes at HEIs, rather than on external reporting mechanisms, in order to help embed sustainability into the structures of HEIs in Germany. The research project is funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Environment and Consumer Protection.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Station Talk: This method helps develop new ideas for different topics in a structured way. Participants work in teams of three to five, and rotate from one topic to the next. This way they can comment on the ideas of the previous group and also further develop the ideas.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

University Course “Education for Sustainable Development – Innovations in Schools and Higher Education” (BINE)

Facilitator: Franz Rauch

Author: Franz Rauch, Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

The goal of the University Course BINE is to encourage participants to deal as a “community of learners” with subject information on sustainable development (SD) and education for sustainable development (ESD) in a reflected way. The participants are teacher-educators and teachers who work on sustainable development issues and their educational challenges.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

With the method Analytical Discourse a group is able to investigate and analyse a situation/project in a participatory and democratic approach. The main steps of the Analytical Discourse are: Information, Questions (Rules: Only questions, no critical comments, no suggestions), Reflextion (give comments, share reflections etc. no question rule anymore) and Development of theses.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

How can wicked problems facilitate the transformation of tertiary education institutions to living labs for sustainability?

Facilitator: Peter Schildermans

Author: Peter Schildermans, ECOCAMPUS, Program on Sustainable Higher Education, Government of Flanders, Belgium

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

Trying to better define wicked problems, dividing them in smaller sub-problems and merely adding more data, doesn’t solve them. Living Labs are about “relationship building and having deeper conversations, so that – for example – a sociologist, a scientist and council engineer might all be working on the problem of urban flood prevention. Each sees the problem through their own lens, and with Living Lab they learn to see things from each other’s perspective so they can work together.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

Day 2: 10:45 – 12.15

Full descriptions follow below

 

Cases of transdisciplinary teaching and learning

Facilitator: Michael Ambros

Co-authors: Petra Biberhofer, Lukas Harlan & Christian Rammel, WU Wien, BOKU

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

First, participants of this session get introduced to two different examples focusing on ways to open up universities in the context of inter- and transdisciplinary learning and teaching. The first example is the European funded project CASE Competencies of A Sustainable socio-Economic development were ten university and business partners from 5 countries jointly accept the need of new ways of teaching and learning as well as a strong cooperation between higher education and business to enhance a sustainable socio-economic development in general and new forms of sustainability-driven enterprises

In particular. The second example is the master program public policy focusing on political and social entrepreneurship. The program will be provided from the School for Political Design and invites professionals of any age with hands-on experience in political, scientific, cultural, economic, or social environments. It is designed to enable students to develop, communicate and implement a concrete social or political project on the basis of effective action and responsible decision-making. The program enables the students with all necessary analytical and practical skills to become a civic minded leader and/or an innovative entrepreneur in a political or social context.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Step 1 (station talk/working in groups): Observation of the problem / brainstorming to develop and discuss good practice approaches, knowledge exchange and sharing between participants, collection of main problems/main challenges concerning key questions.

Step 2 (rapid prototyping): Prototyping is a method connected to design thinking usually implemented over several loops. Linked to a time based, iteration and positive approach which carries the science society - interface into effect, it aims to develop concrete applicable solution concepts which last beyond the actual interactive session conducted during the Copernicus Alliance conference. As such examples presented in the beginning of the session and contributed by the participants will be used and analysed concerning good practices and further developed -> presentation results.

As such the strategy of the session is to focus on concrete inter- and transdisciplinary project development in terms of accurate problem analysis and identification of entry points. How do you get first ideas for troubleshooting to actual implementation?

The workshop cannot cover all steps usually practiced via rapid prototyping. Consequently, learnings have to be integrated into a new phase and presented to users afterwards. The aim of the session is also to establish working groups beyond the session.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

Envisioning climate neutral universities - session canceled

Facilitator: Sybille Chiari,

Co-authors: Sybille Chiari & Dominik Schmitz, BOKU

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

This workshop aims to bring together different perspectives, ideas, strategies and measures on how to support universities to become carbon neutral. As intro we will very briefly summarise the preliminary outcomes of a research project on accounting greenhouse gas emissions at universities.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

World Disney method to talk about possible pathways towards carbon neutral universities. The participants will join the three groups (the dreamers, the realists and the critics) in a circular mode to create, discuss, exchange and challenge ideas and possible strategies and solutions for carbon neutral universities.

OUTCOMES:

1. capture others scientist’s perspective on the general idea of carbon neutral universities

2. illustrate most relevant barriers on the pathway towards carbon neutral universities

3. compare emission reduction strategies persued by others as well as concrete measures that have been implemented at their home universities

 

Sustainablity in academic research, the answer to societal challenges

Facilitator: Filip Colson

Co-authors: Filip Colson & Leen Audenaert, Ecocampus, Sustainable Higher Education, Government of Flanders, Belgium

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

Tackling the hardest hurdle in sustainable development: the transformation of research. What can you learn from the implementation of strong sustainability in HE research in Flanders, Belgium?

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Journalist technique: depending on the number of participants, we will have 3 or 4 questions or statements, 3 or 4 groups --> each person answers 1 question. A interviews B about question A --> B-A: B --> new couples: ... until everybody has answered all questions. (All questioning phases each take ten minutes.) End: regroup: analyze the answers.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

Re-developing the COPERNICIUS Alliance Charta

Facilitator: Clemens Mader, Jana Dlouha, Laura Macháčková Henderson

Author: Jana Dlouha, Charles University in Prague

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

COPERNICUS Alliance has drafted a new CA Charta that will be launched at the end of the conference. This new document is supposed to reflect last developments in Sustainability debates, and anticipate new roles of universities in changing knowledge landscape. The session is dedicated to involve participants in the development of the final draft version of the Charta. After this participants will still have the opportunity for changing small parts of the Charta, but the structure and main contents will be finalized in this session.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

PopCorn and Focus groups: In this session, we will have intense, structured discussion on the purpose, content, and possibilities for implementation of the renewed COPERNICUS Charta; its purpose is to achieve reliable, justified feedback as a basis for developing the document. Discussion within the group will be moderated as a process of “guided interaction” participants will stimulate each other in an exchange of ideas, motivations, feelings, and values behind them. “PopCorn” method will give a chance to elicit comments from those who feel moved to share them.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

The ESD Monitoring Framework in Germany - how to measure the impact of the Global Action Program on Education for Sustainable Development

Facilitator: Insa Otte

Co-authors: Insa Otte, Antje Brock & Mandy Singer-Brodowski, Free University Berlin, Institut Futur

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

The “Monitoring of the GAP ESD” at Freie Universität Berlin tries to evaluate the status quo and the quality of ESD in Germany. Qualitative and quantitative research are supposed to provide central drivers and barriers as well as leverage points for the German educational system. Discussing the concept of the monitoring as well as out of the point of the view of the participants the questions of central drivers and barriers for mainstreaming ESD the higher educational system is focus of this session.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Plenary discussion & World Café: World café is an interactive and problem-solving-oriented brainstorming methodology. It aims at developing innovative solutions for complex tasks. This is achieved by intensive discussions in small groups, where people from different backgrounds exchange their experience and cooperate to develop new ideas.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here

 

Employing Concept Mapping for Building Consensus on (E)SD Issues - session canceled

Facilitator: Michael Scoullos

Author: Michael Scoullos, UNESCO Chair and Network on SD Management &Education, University of Athens; MEdIES/MIO-ECSDE

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

The proposed interactive session will review few examples and focus on the experience of the author in using concept mapping for enhancing comprehension and building consensus on issues related to (E)SD among different combinations of stakeholders and in a variety of settings: e.g. in classrooms and "knowledge construction" environments by identifying knowledge gaps and misconceptions and/or by reaching agreement on optimal ways to present issues.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Concept mapping is a way of developing logical thinking and, in a variety of forms, could help individuals or groups to clarify and elaborate their ideas about a given topic and present them in a visual way

OUTCOMES:

One or two collectively constructed concept maps on issue(s) to be selected by the participants and some suggestion on their use on ESD/SD consensus building processes

 

U-MOB LIFE | European University Network for Sustainable Mobility - session canceled

Facilitator: Rafael Requena Valiente

Co-authors: Cécile Sauvage (FEH), Maria Isabel Dominguez Perelló (NOVOTEC), Universitat Autònoma Barcelona, Fundación Equipo Humano, NOVOTEC Consultores SA

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

The main objective of U-MOB LIFE project is the creation of a university network to facilitate the exchange and transfer of knowledge about sustainable mobility best practices among European universities.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

Practical Scenarios: The principle is to ask participants to give a solution to a given problem related to mobility framed in a story contextualised in a university campus and oriented toward the questions for discussions presented below. Concretely, we will propose active participation to problem solving, leading to a reflection and abstract conceptualisation for further application.

OUTCOMES:

Highlight main challenges faced by universities on sustainability in relation to mobility. Assess importance of networking in sustainable mobility solutions.Check interest of Universities on joining European Network of mobility management at campus

 

Working towards a robust reference framework to strengthen integration of sustainable development in university teaching

Facilitator: Anne Zimmermann

Co-authors: Anne Zimmermann, Karl Herweg, Andreas Kläy & Doris Wastl-Walter, University of Bern

TOPIC DESCRIPTION:

Universities educate future agents of change; if they pledge to commit to sustainable development (SD), they can contribute to “the great transformation”. However, in the context of ESD, even when universities actively support integration of SD in teaching, their mainstreaming efforts have limited effect because they lack a reference framework to valorize SD integration.

METHOD DESCRIPTION:

The World Café is an interactive and problem-solving-oriented brainstorming methodology. It aims at developing innovative solutions for complex tasks. This is achieved by intensive discussions in small groups, where people from different backgrounds exchange their experience and cooperate to develop new ideas.

OUTCOMES:

The outcomes of this session can be found here