About

How can partnerships sustain humanitarian engineering education?

Students undertaking the MSc Humanitarian Engineering are challenged to tackle actual societal challenges such as water and environment; renewable energy; food security; sustainable cities and infrastructures; industrial ecology and sustainable engineering, among others. The programme is underpinned by the UN SDGs and emphasis is placed on investigating complex humanitarian issues from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives to develop balanced, intelligent, and synergistic solutions.

The programme has well-established partnerships with charities, NGOs, consultancies, and industry collaborators who act as practitioners in teaching via seminar and workshop delivery as well project supervisors.

To demonstrate that students have integrated their knowledge and understanding, they complete a final project to specify and solve a substantial problem (or need), through the creation, development and/or improvement of a product, process, or system of work. Projects focussed on sustainability are put forth by programme partners which enables students to further scope, research and produce real life deliverables that can be (and often are) implemented in these organisations.

As such, this project - led by Professor Georgia Kremmyda from the School of Engineering - seeks to showcase and celebrate relationships between students, academic staff and external partners and stakeholders, and how these contribute to sustainable education by demonstrating creative ways in which the learning triangle of education, research and society is enhanced. This project seeks to highlight our partners through the seminars, events, workshops, site visits and student projects they deliver, and how this enables students to learn in a unique way to approach problems through a holistic and sustainable perspective.

The project is run in collaborative partnership with Horizon Collective. Horizon Collective is a creative advertising and video production agency, specialising in shaping ideas to communicate, provoke, think and reach modern audiences.

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Collaboration in the field of sustainable development

This project illuminates humanitarian issues associated with engineering and development. A short video will be produced, featuring interviews, case studies and quotes from external partners, stakeholders and students about how they collaborate in the field of sustainable development. The project is designed to enhance public engagement with humanitarian engineering, introducing it to new audiences.

It intends to further enhance networks by inviting those outside of academia to share research and collaborate on ideas that impact teaching, learning, and assessment. As new partnerships are formed, the team aims to promote engagement in knowledge exchanges locally, nationally, and internationally.

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This project links to the below Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):