Sustainability as a ‘super-wicked’ problem; opportunities and limits for engineering methodology

Yearworth, Mike

doi:10.1080/17508975.2015.1109789

Cited by 25 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The global challenges facing contemporary society call for an increase in strategies and prompt action [1]. Addressing these wicked problems [2] implies the need to observe the system's perspective and complexity [3] as represented in the sustainable development goals (SDGs) approved by the United Nations in 2016 to be achieved in 2030. Thus, less than two key decades are left to facilitate education frameworks for citizenship participation and awareness, and for developing new ways of knowledge production and decision-making with respect to sustainability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This involves fifty-five researchers from ten universities. The project is organized around four specific objectives, namely: (1) to define the sustainability competency map of the participating degrees and establish a framework for incorporating the map into the degree in a holistic way; (2) to validate different didactic strategies for addressing sustainability from a constructivist and community pedagogical approach; (3) to diagnose the status of the sustainability training needs of the teachers of each degree, as well as to develop and test training proposals, and (4) to diagnose the sustainability competency level of current university students and to develop and test training proposals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Didactic Strategies to Promote Competencies in Sustainability

et al. 2019

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Higher education is a principal agent for addressing the sustainable development goals proposed by the 2030 Agenda, because of its key mission of knowledge generation, teaching and social innovation for sustainability. In order to achieve this, higher education needs to integrate transversally the values of sustainability in the way of developing the field of management, as well as research, university life and, of course, teaching. This paper focuses on teaching, and more specifically on the didactic strategies considered most relevant for training in sustainability competencies in college students, according to the guidelines commonly accepted by the international academic community. Through collaborative work among experts from six Spanish universities taking part in the EDINSOST project (education and social innovation for sustainability), funded by the Spanish R&D+i Program, in this paper the role of five active learning strategies (service learning, problem-based learning, project-oriented learning, simulation games and case studies) in education for sustainability are reviewed, and a systematic approach of their implementation in higher education settings is presented. The results provide a synthesis of their objectives, foundations, and stages of application (planning, implementation, and learning assessment), which can be used as valuable guidelines for teachers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Didactic Strategies to Promote Competencies in Sustainability

et al. 2019

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“…Sustainability issues are widely recognized as wicked problems (Yearworth, 2016), which should not be considered as problems to be solved, but as conditions to be governed (Seager et al, 2011). There is a general agreement on the need to reform scientific expertise, as it is required to deal with sustainability challenges, by developing new ways of knowledge production and decision-making.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action research workshop for transdisciplinary sustainability science

Papell

Coral

2017

Sustain Sci

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The Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology under the Master degree in Sustainability Science and Technology organises the course Action Research Workshop on Science and Technology for Sustainability (5 ECTS). The authors have been coordinating the course during the academic years 13/14, 14/15 and 15/16. The purpose of the workshop is to put together civil society organisations, local administrations, students and educators to collaboratively undertake responsible research, performing transdisciplinary learning environments and by using an action-research framework, to answer questions such as: Who are we researching for? Who profits from our research? What are the impacts of our research? Which methodologies and tools should be used when dealing with sociotechnical sustainability challenges? \ud Students work on real projects, related to local sustainability problems, represented by a community entity (Service learning and Campus Lab). Action research methodology is used with a two-cycle approach. In each real-life project, students, faculty and stakeholders are asked to follow the action-reflexion process of action research projects: Action 1- Jointly defining: Project purpose; Customer and interest; Involved actors; Reflexion 1- Students define: research question, initial situation, needed additional information, action Strategy, Tasks planning and distribution: Action 2 - Items returning and discussing with stakeholders, Reflexion 2 - revising and reformulating.\ud Having now run the workshop three times, we can conclude that: First, students realized the significance of framing an investigation under a research methodological framework that allows bringing research to the community, enhancing transdisciplinarity in any initiative or action in sustainability science. They set out the importance of some topics and the difficulty to hold them. Second, the formulation of the problem became one of the most arduous tasks in the process; difficulties were mainly related to the perception of the problem from distinct community group motivations. Third, interaction and communication with stakeholders and the recognition of their role was problematic as engineering students are not usually trained to work in wicked problems nor accompany stakeholders during the whole process. Finally, it is relevant to highlight that during the process students faced conflict and frustrating situations both within their team and with stakeholders. To help tackle this problem, an Emotional Intelligence module was introduced in the workshop which proved useful in helping students to solve some paralyzing situations, which could otherwise have stopped the progress of the project. We suggest that engineering students need specific training in transdisciplinary research and in conflict resolution, to avoid collapsing in frustration when dealing with real transdisciplinary sustainability transitions.Postprint (author's final draft

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“…City planning as a wicked problem was discussed by Engberg [30] and Yearworth [31] and also partly by Pere and Farrell [32]. Pere and Farrell [32] reviewed the wind energy siting debate in the Catalonia region in Spain over the past 30 years.…”

Section: Every Wicked Problem Is Essentially Uniquementioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Efficiency as a Wicked Problem

2019

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Together with increased shares of renewable energy supply, improved energy efficiency is the foremost means of mitigating climate change. However, the energy efficiency potential is far from being realized, which is commonly explained by the existence of various barriers to energy efficiency. Initially mentioned by Churchman, the term "wicked problems" became established in the 1970s, meaning a kind of problem that has a resistance to resolution because of incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements. In the academic literature, wicked problems have later served as a critical model in the understanding of various challenges related to society, such as for example climate change mitigation. This aim of this paper is to analyze how the perspective of wicked problems can contribute to an enhanced understanding of improved energy efficiency. The paper draws examples from the manufacturing sector. Results indicate that standalone technology improvements as well as energy management and energy policy programs giving emphasis to standalone technology improvements may not represent a stronger form of a wicked problem as such. Rather, it seems to be the actual decision-making process involving values among the decision makers as well as the level of needed knowledge involved in decision-making that give rise to the "wickedness". The analysis shows that wicked problems arise in socio-technical settings involving several components such as technology, systems, institutions, and people, which make post-normal science a needed approach.2 of 11 energy management principles [6,7]. Another line of argument is that there has been a lack of a systems approach in energy efficiency research [8]. One perspective that could contribute to an enhanced understanding of improved energy efficiency is the perspective of "wicked problems". A wicked problem is a problem that has a resistance to resolution because of incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements. The solution depends on how the problem is formulated, and vice versa, the problem definition depends on the ideas about the solution. Efforts to solve a wicked problem may impair the situation or create other problems because of complex interdependencies. Relating to Valentine et al. [9], wicked problems arise when different worldviews collide.One example can be derived from the Swedish industrial energy policy program PFE (Program for improving energy efficiency in energy intensive industry). Stenqvist and Nilsson [10] could prove that the policy instrument as such was effective, and from a technical perspective, large savings have occurred for the two five-year program periods. This indicated a "success" or "effectiveness" of the policy, but in a governmental report, also bringing in the neoclassical economic perspective on the policy, the improvements could also be due to other mechanisms that are not necessarily connected to the PFE [11].A second example of a wicked problem is the view of what is and what is not an energy efficiency measure. Relating again to Valenti...

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Sustainability as a ‘super-wicked’ problem; opportunities and limits for engineering methodology

Cited by 25 publications

References 38 publications

Didactic Strategies to Promote Competencies in Sustainability

Didactic Strategies to Promote Competencies in Sustainability

Action research workshop for transdisciplinary sustainability science

Energy Efficiency as a Wicked Problem

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