Introductory Remarks:

What is it all about?

Andrew Jamison

PROCEED meeting, DTU, October 13, 2010

The aims of PROCEED are to:

• improve the education of engineers, so that they might better be able to meet the challenges they can be expected to face in their working lives,

• bring together Danish and international researchers with knowledge about these matters in a strategic alliance,

• compare the different ways in which the challenges have been responded to in Denmark as well as internationally, • identify examples of “best practice” in regard to reforming engineering education, and

• reach out to engineering educators in a series of interactive workshops and seminars

Challenges Facing Science and Engineering

The sustainability challenge – how to deal with environmental problems, energy and other resource exploitation and, not least, climate change

The societal challenge – how to deal with the permeation of our societies by technology with new design skills in socially responsible ways

The technoscientific challenge – how to combine scientific understanding and technical skills in new forms of competence

“The climate crisis is not a political

issue, it is a moral and spiritual

challenge to all of humanity. It is also

our greatest opportunity to lift global

consciousness to a higher level.”

The Sustainability Challenge

from Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

The Societal Challenge

Due to the increasing role that technology plays in ever more areas of society, there is a

growing need for organizational, managerial and communicative competencies

and for economic, social and broader cultural ”contextual” understanding among engineers

The Challenge of Technoscience

A blurring of discursive boundaries between science and technology, nature and humanity

A trespassing of institutional borders between public and private, economic and academic

A mixing of skills and competencies between theoretical and practical knowledge

Response Strategies

The dominant , or ”hubristic” strategy:

commercialization, entrepreneurship, transdisciplinarity

The residual, or ”habitual” strategy:

academicization, expertise, (sub)disciplinarity

An emerging, or ”hybrid” strategy:

contextualization, engagement, cross-disciplinarity

Transdisciplinarity, or ”mode 2”

”Knowledge which emerges from a particular

context of application with its own distinct

theoretical structures, research methods and

modes of practice but which may not be locatable

on the prevailing disciplinary map.”

Michael Gibbons et al, The New Production of Knowledge (1994)

A Kind of Hubris

transgressing established forms of quality control ”a drift of epistemic criteria” (Elzinga)

transcending human limitations ”converging technologies” (bio, info, cogno, nano)

neglecting the broader public, or social interest ”academic capitalism”: engineering in the private

interest

(over)emphasis on commercialization propagation of competitiveness rather than cooperation

The Forces of Habit(us)

The challenges primarily responded to by niche-seeking among scientists and engineers

Taught by reconfiguring established scientific and engineering fields: ”subdisciplinarity”

Politics left largely outside of research and education: ”outsourcing” of ethics and responsibility

A continuing belief in separating the ”texts” of science

and engineering from broader cultural contexts

“A discipline is defined by possession of a collective capital

of specialized methods and concepts, mastery of which is

the tacit or implicit price of entry to the field. It produces a

‘historical transcendental,’ the disciplinary habitus, a

system of schemes of perception and appreciation (where

the incorporated discipline acts as a censorship).”

Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004)

The Discipline as Habitus

An Emerging Strategy?:Fostering a Hybrid Imagination

At the discursive, or macro level Sustainability engineering: redefining the ”identity” of

engineering in relation to the sustainability challenge

At the institutional, or meso level Engineering citizenship: providing space for critical

reflection about the engineer’s role(s) in society

At the personal, or micro level Responsible engineering: integrating contextual

understanding into engineering education

PROCEED:Cross-disciplinarity in action

Four universities: Aalborg, Århus, DTU and Roskilde

Four fields: history of science and technologyengineering education and pedagogy philosophy of technology STS and engineering studies

A Form for Change-Oriented Research

Problem-driven, rather than disciplinary-driven

A focus on processes of socio-cultural change

Reflective, rather than explanatory ambition

Participatory, interventionist methods

Personal engagement in what is studied

PROCEED Work plan

Jan-Aug 2010 – planning and initiation

Sept 2010 – Aug 2012 – thematic research

Jan 2012 – Aug 2013 – outreach activities

Jan 2013 - Dec 2013 – final reporting, conference

Thematic Projects

A. Challenges and responses in historical perspective

B. Curriculum design and learning outcomes

C. Models and simulations in engineering

D. Design capabilities and engineering practices in industry

E. Integrating contextual knowledge into engineering

education

Project A:The Challenges Facing Engineering Educationin Historical Perspective

Andrew Jamison

PROCEED meeting, DTU, October 13, 2010

mechanization

socialization

modernization scientification globalization

socialism populism

anticolonialism (anti)fascism

environmentalismfeminism

1800 1850 1950 20001900

Cultural and Social Movements

Waves of Appropriation

enlightenment romanticism cooperation

industrial science,

big science technoscienceengineering sciences

Cycles of Creative Reconstruction

DTU Århus, COWI

Aalborg,VESTAS

Askov

An Underlying Tension in Engineering Education

”Theory” versus ”Practice”

scientific emphasis technical emphasis

academic orientation business orientation

book-based learning problem-based learning

academic teachers practitioner teachers

for example: DTU for example: Aalborg

A Brief History of Recent Science and Technology

“Little Science” “Big Science” “Controversy” “Globalization”

Before WWII 1940s-50s 1960s-70s 1980s-

main orientation industrial atomic societal commercial

type of disciplinary multidisciplinary interdisciplinary transdisciplinaryknowledge

ideal, orvalues academic bureaucratic collective entrepreneurial

The Age of ”Big Science”,1940s and 1950s

expansion in size, scale and resources

atomic orientation, both military and ”civilian”

university-government collaboration

bureaucratic norm, or value system

new role for the state and multistate alliances

The Age of Controversy,1960s and 1970s

critiques of militarization and ”big science”

public debates esp. about atomic energy

interest in student-centered forms of education

”grass-roots” engineering (e.g. OVE)

emergence of technology assessment

The Age of Globalization,from 1980s

change in range and scope

market orientation, ”privatization”

university-industry collaboration

entrepreneurial norm, or value system

the state as strategist: innovation policy

from assessment to promotion: ”foresight”

A Brief History of the Sustainability Challenge

Awakening: 1960scritique of environmental pollution and

the population ”explosion”

Politicization: 1970srise of environmental and anti-nuclear

movements and an interest in appropriate technology

Professionalization: 1980sdiscourse of sustainable development,

integration of economics and environmentalism

Globalization: 1990s-2000s-contending approaches to sustainability

From the Cognitive Praxis of Environmental Movements...

Cosmological dimension: systemic holism, ”limits to growth”

Technological dimension: appropriateness, ”small is beautiful”

Organizational dimension: participatory research, ”citizen science”

Nordic Folkcenter for Renewable Energy

The New Alchemy Institute Ark

...to Contending Modes of Sustainability Research

sustainability sustainability sustainability science management engineering

Forms of policy-driven commercial contextualactivity research innovation appropriation

Types of post-normal managerial/ situated/Knowledge interdisciplinary transdisciplinary cross-

disciplinary

Forms of traditional, professional, engaged,learning scholarly instrumental participatory

Researcher’s expert entrepreneur concerned citizen

role

Contexts of governments companies communities application (”state”) (”market”) (”civil society”)