Technical Education (Book)

Thanks to the radical technological developments over the last decades, engineering science will have to undergo massive structural changes New strategies for research, education and practice are needed. This book brings together engineers' views of the necessary changes.

Pollution and lack of resources are causing a shift in perspective

Industrial and economic constraints, catastrophic environmental pollution in many regions and disastrous water, land and air quality are forcing engineers to think differently. In addition, engineers have to take into account the ever-increasing complexity of interaction between technology and human beings. In the techno-centric 21st century, engineers are challenged by the uncertainties associated with the impacts of their designs on their respective societies.

Sustainability comes from practice

Although the need for reform has been vaguely identified, there is no agreement on the intensity and targets of the changes needed. Technical universities have implicitly or explicitly started integrating values and principles of sustainable development. The concept of sustainability is therefore gradually shaping the technical knowledge and working habits of the next generation of engineers and will influence the development and use of technology in the future.

This book presents an analysis of engineers' views about the changes needed in research, education and the organization of technical universities. This empirical analysis is combined with the results of discussions on the sustainable university conducted over the last decade. Its aim is to generate recommendations on how technical universities can move towards becoming sustainable universities.

Book: “Technical Education for Sustainability. An Analysis of Needs in the 21st Century”, Mahshid Sotoudeh; part of the series: Environmental Education, Communication and Sustainability (Vol. 30), Peter Lang Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main, 2009)