SEFI@work: ‘Experiencing stakeholder dynamics around emerging technologies: Theatrical role-plays in engineering education’

November 21st from 15:00-17:00 CET

Experiencing stakeholder dynamics around emerging technologies: Theatrical role-plays in engineering education is a practical online seminar that can help you to understand how a role-play simulation is a powerful means for students to learn about the complexity of social interactions around emerging technologies. 

Speakers: 
Klaasjan Visscher, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Verena Schulze Greiving, Saxion Hogeschool Enschede, The Netherlands

Did you know that in order to contribute to societal challenges, engineering students must learn to interact with societal stakeholders and incorporate their views into technological development?

Ethical Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) are important for the successful development and embedding of new and emerging technologies and should be part of the DNA of engineering students. To get ELSA under the skin of engineering students, we have developed theatrical role-plays in which the simulation and enlargement of stakeholder dynamics are pivotal and staged in a theater set-up. This way, students internalize the importance of stakeholders, their interactions, and their impact on the innovation process. Tensions, dilemmas, and conflicts present in a technology field are inscribed in the stakeholder roles and can be seen back during the discussion. Societal, ethical, ecological, or economic impacts of an innovation can be extrapolated to a future scenario which is played out. By reflecting on the play, students learn about required actions to integrate ELSA in the design process of a new and emerging technology.

In our interactive online workshop, we will discuss the concept and design of theatrical role-plays in engineering education, share our experiences with developing and implementing them in various programs, and let you experience how stakeholder dynamics are revealed in such a play.

You will learn about:

• Required actions to integrate ELSA in the design process of a new and emerging technology
• Differences in stakeholder perspectives 
• Ways to anticipate or overcome them
• And about general patterns of socio-technical dynamics.