Designing Solutions for Global Sustainability

Course Objective

This course aims to guide the student in designing solutions to complex
challenges in global sustainability, within their own field of interest
(e.g. energy, climate, water, waste, nature, food security, gender).

Course Content

The course comprises interactive lectures and exercises and is assessed
through an assignment. After this course students:
• Can meaningfully integrate People-Planet-Profit analyses into the
design of innovative solutions for global sustainability challenges in a
systematic and creative manner;
• Can characterize key components of the design creation process, namely
analysis, synthesis and conceptualization;
• Identify and apply methods and processes to design sustainable
solutions and communicate the results in a convincing and credible
manner;
• Demonstrate a capacity to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams and
contribute to a shared goal;
• Reflect on personal strength and weaknesses in developing and
conceptualizing global sustainable solutions.

Additional Information Teaching Methods

The course is organized in three thematic weeks and a fourth closing
week, which follow the logic of a design process, sequentially
addressing:
1. Design analysis and design specification (week 1),
2. Ideation: going through the creative design process of innovation,
development, and actualization (week 2),
3. Conceptualisation and evaluation, user empathising, and visualisation
for product / service pitching (week 3),
4. Completion: final presentation and review of the sustainability
solution, and personal reflection (week 4).
Each week starts with a main lecture on Monday followed by two working
sessions on Wednesday and Friday. The Wednesday session evolves mainly
around Peer-to-Peer exercises while the Friday session will allow for
more Peer-to-Teacher interaction. To accommodate the latter, two
teachers will be present in the class-room on Friday. The working
sessions and lectures will be highly interactive, for which there is a
lot of space to work and reflect on your assignment.

Method of Assessment

The final course grade is completely based on an individual assignment,
consisting of a pitch and a final report. To pass the course, students
must obtain an overall grade of at least 5.5 (out of 10) and contribute
to the compulsory activities. To calculate the overall grade, grades of
the individual elements are averaged using the weights above.

Entry Requirements

This course welcomes students of any background, as long as they have a
strong affinity with sustainability challenges.

Literature

Week 1:
1. Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt (2010). Design Thinking for Social
Innovation. Development Outreach 12(1): 29 – 43
https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1596/1020-797X_12_1_29
2. Rikke Friis Dam and Yu Siang Teo (2019) 5 Stages in the Design
Thinking Process. Interaction Design Foundation.
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-de
3. Tassoul, M, & Buijs, J. (2007). Clustering: An Essential Step from
Diverging to Converging. Creativity and innovation management 16(1):
16-26. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00413.x. (focus on page 16 – 22)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00413.x/epdf
Week 2:
4. Tom Ritchey (2002 - revised 2013) General Morphological Analysis: A
general method for non-quantified modelling. Swedish Morphological
Society. 1-10. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/gma.pdf
5. Shih-WenHsiao∗Jyh-RongChou (2004). A creativity-based design process
for innovative product design. International Journal of Industrial
Ergonomics 34(5), 421-443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2004.05.005
6. Tassoul, M, & Buijs, J. (2007). Clustering: An Essential Step from
Diverging to Converging. Creativity and innovation management 16(1):
16-26. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00413.x. (focus on page 22 – 26)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00413.x/epdf
Week 3:
7. Pruit, J., & Grudin, J. (2003). Persona's, practice and theory. DUX
'03 Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Designing for user
experiences: 1-15.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/prui
8. Chiara Diana, Elena Pacenti, Roberta Tassi (2009). Visual'tiles',
Communication tools for (service) design, Conference Proceedings
ServDes.2009; DeThinking Service; ReThinking Design; Oslo Norway 24-26
November 2009. http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/059/006/ecp09059006.pdf
9. sSWOT: Eliot Metzger, Samantha Putt del Pino, Sally Prowitt, Jenna
Goodward, Alexander Perera (2012). sSWOT: a sustainability swot user’s
guide. World Resources Institute (WRI). Washington DC.
https://sustainabilitycasestudies.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/sustainabi

Additional Information Target Audience

This course is predominantly aimed at students that are following the
ERM pre-master or the minor Sustainability: Global Challenges,
Interdisciplinary Solutions. These students already worked on their case
in the previous courses of this minor/pre-master and therefore have a
head start in working on their solution. However, the course also
welcomes students that did not follow these programs, although it may be
slightly more challenging for them as they need to catch up quickly in
the first week of this condense course.

Additional Information

When students from other universities want to register for this course,
they may be asked to which programme this course/minor belongs. Kindly
fill the BSc program "Aarde, Economie & Duurzaamheid".