Education

Providing support to higher education institutions is important for long-term capacity building and skills development for ecodesign in Wales. There is a long tradition of sustainable and ecodesign education within a number of leading international universities. However within the UK, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)¹ and the UK Design Council ²  have stressed that embedding sustainability into mainstream curricula is still a challenge for many design educators. There is a major need for reliable teaching tools and materials on ecodesign.

During the last two years EDC has been addressing this challenge by working in partnership with the course leaders from the four universities in Wales offering product design degrees. The aim being to provide a platform for the sharing of skills and knowledge required to mainstream ecodesign and sustainability issues within existing curricula.

EDC’s approach has included four basic elements:

• a platform for course leaders from product design education in Wales to discuss Sustainable Development issues

• a tailored ecodesign teaching resource reflecting different university needs

• 'trainer training' to help build the educators ecodesign knowledge

• direct student support delivered via lectures and assistance with dissertations

The co-developed teaching resource on ecodesign and sustainable development is being trialed by each of the universities. Feedback from the four universities continues to be very positive. EDC will explore in the next few months how to share the teaching resources to a broader audience.

EDC has also run a series of events and meetings for the partner university lecturers. The main events have been:

• the 'Education Launch' event held in June 2007 to start the collaboration

• the 'Design for Sustainability Education Day: Dialogues in Practice' workshop, held in May 2008 . The event included a training/information session on sustainable design education by an external practitioner, Dr. Emma Dewberry

Through working with the universities there have been a number of issues that have informed EDC's activities. These include:

• institutional drivers

• diverse perceptions of sustainability

• creation of intra-university collaboration with the appropriate levels of trust and support

• continued professional development

• perceived risk of stiffing creativity

There are many challenges but EDC believes that by taking a capacity building approach it will be possible to facilitate the required changes. EDC remains committed to working with the universities over the coming years. The long-term objective being that all product design graduates in Wales will be literate in sustainable development and ecodesign.

Click on the link to read about education activities to date.

1: Higher Education Funding Council for England (2005) Sustainable Development in Higher Education: Current Practice and Future Developments A report for The Higher Education Academy, prepared by Dawe, G. Jucker, R. and Stephen Martin.

2: Design Council (2002) Design & Sustainability: A Scoping Report for the Sustainable Design Forum, prepared by Richardson, J. Irwin, T. and Sherwin, C.