SEFI@work | Sustainable engineers: Guardians of the Green Galaxy

Talk show series with the stars of the Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education

5 March 2025, 13:00 – 14:30 CET

Given the global demand for sustainable solutions and the need for localised and community-oriented approaches, engineering education must evolve to equip future engineers with the knowledge, skills, and ethical frameworks needed to address such challenges. In this talkshow, we explore innovative and decolonial approaches for integrating sustainability into the curricula, pedagogy, and assessment.

This raises many questions:

• How can engineering education balance global sustainability goals with localised, community-driven solutions?
• What role do decolonial perspectives play in rethinking engineering education for sustainability?
• How can educators foster sustainability competencies that go beyond technical skills to include ethics, empathy, social responsibility, and cultural awareness?
• What innovative teaching and assessment strategies can help future engineers engage with sustainability in meaningful and context-sensitive ways?
• How can universities collaborate with external partners (industry, NGOs, community members) to ensure sustainability education translates into real-world impact?
• And many more …

In a vibrant talk-show brought to you by Diana Martin (UCL, The UK), three key authors of The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education are coming together to explore these issues.

This workshop is for you:

• If you get very excited about the above questions.
• If you are faced with the above questions in your day-to-day work and are looking for hands-on answers.
• If you feel responsible to look for societal answers to the above questions, together with peers.

Speakers:

• Olga Pierakkos, Wake Forrest University, USA
• Irene Josa, University College London, UK
• John B. Kleba, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil

The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education originated as a SEFI SIG Ethics workshop idea at the 2021 Annual SEFI Conference. This became a SEFI project edited by Shannon Chance, Tom Børsen, Diana Adela Martin, Roland Tormey, Thomas Taro Lennerfors and Gunter Bombaerts, who were joined by a team of 108 authors from across the world who collaborated in the development of 36 chapters “mapping” the field of engineering ethics education. It is now time to celebrate together as a community and take stock of key advances in the field of engineering ethics and engineering education more broadly.

The talk-show series which will run between 2025-2027 is coordinated by Diana Adela Martin (University College London, The UK).