Author: Petra Biberhofer

From the 18th to the 20th May 2017 the Faculty of Education, Free University of Bolzano welcomed the CASE team in the picturesque city of Brixen for an internal project workshop. In the beginning of the workshop, the CASE team welcomed the new project manager Josef Sedlak. During the first day, the CASE team concentrated on the Knowledge Platform and the two tools, which have been developed over the last months, the Sustainability Performance Tool as well as the Competence tool.
In the afternoon, Nihal Yildirim, the EACEA project officer from Brussel, joint the workshop and sustained our ideas and further developments of the project in a very constructive and supportive way.

In the evening, local actors and sustainability-driven entrepreneurs from the region joint the meeting. There has been a fruitful exchange of experiences and challenges in acting as sustainability-driven entrepreneurs. A great opportunity for the CASE team was then to present the two CASE tools to the participants, who have been invited to test them and to give feedback for improvements.
The second day focused on the Knowledge Platform and on the next steps within the CASE project. On Saturday, we finished the CASE workshop with some team building exercises high up in the mountains of South Tyrol.

On Friday 17th of March 2017 Johanna Bernhardt (Terra Institute), Antje Disterheft (Vechta University), Michael Ambros (BOKU), Petra Biberhofer (WU Vienna) met in Vienna to develop further the CASE coaching tool for teaching and learning in transdisciplinary cooperation formats.

Based on a systemic approach Terra Institute has the lead in developing this tool for supporting students and enterprises in setting up a fruitful cooperation-relation. The tool is oriented towards a competence-oriented approach in higher education based on the previous research conducted in the CASE project.

Assessment categories are now refined based on a combination of key competencies for sustainable development and competencies for sustainability-driven entrepreneurship. From May 2017 on the tool shall be ready for practical testing.

The CASE team met together on 16th and 17th February 2017 in the Czech Republic, this time at the Faculty of Social Studies (Masaryk University) in Brno. In the beginning of the workshop we welcomed two new team members Antje Disterheft from Universität Vechta and Ester Konarova from Masaryk University. During the workshop we were focusing on an intense discussion about the CASE Knowledge platform which will go online in May 2017. The platform will provide tools for collaboration between universities and partners from business and civil society in order to develop competencies for transformation towards sustainability.

The short afternoon break offered us time to non-formal discussion of related topics and visiting the unique architecture master piece Vila Tugendhat. The timeless architectonical design awakened us to further intensively discuss the current pilot evaluations of various innovative courses tested in the CASE regions.

At the end of workshop we concentrated on the future Master’s Program as well as forthcoming events and conferences where we want to present CASE outputs. The CASE project is slowly getting closer to a final part and we are really looking forward to presenting our work on a final event in Vienna in the beginning of November 2017!

From 13^th to 17^th of June 2016, experts for sustainability and education visited the University of Vechta and contributed to the running courses with lectures and workshops.

This was possible owing to the International Week that is organized and funded by the International Office of the University of Vechta: All professors have the possibility of inviting guest lecturers from around the world. Prof Dr Marco Rieckmann had invited Dr Lynne Wyness (Plymouth University), Dr Roger Cutting (Plymouth University), the PhD student Laure Yeo (Plymouth University), Dr Patricia Aguirre Mejía (Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ecuador), Katharina Steinlechner (Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ecuador), and Andrea Perneth (Universidad de Antioquia, Columbia).

 

Besides their contribution in courses (e.g. with value-based learning or with inputs on ESD at Plymouth University and sustainability challenges in Ecuador), there was time to discuss the CASE project, the draft for the CASE Master program and issues of capacity building for teaching staff. These discussions were inspiring and we thank our guests for their feedback and theirs ideas!

We met Amanda Österlin La Mont and asked her about her experiences of studying on the international Joint Master Program (JMP) Creative Sustainability at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. The students join the program at various faculties of the Aalto University, based on their background – design, economics, architecture, and engineering. The program lets students with different background work together with various practical societal challenges linked to sustainable development. According to Amanda, the benefits with the program, are that you can specialize in an area that does not offer a full Master program, but also have more opportunity to choose a breadth of courses and study with a width of fellow students to broaden everyone’s perspective.
Although it is challenging to study the JMP Amanda recommends students to accept the challenges and go for a JMP!

Read a longer interview with Amanda Österlin La Mont