MSc Science and Technology for Sustainability

Year 1

(Award available for year: Master of Science)

Learning outcomes

1. Explain the ethical aspects of sustainability, and the role of science and technology in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals
2. Analyse the current challenges in sustainability science and technology
3. Apply a holistic view to sustainability assessment, including life cycle assessment
4. Work as a team to successfully deliver projects to a deadline, and evaluate own contribution to a team
5. Generate business proposal based on current research that addresses the UN Sustainable Development Goals
6. Apply domain specific measures of sustainability, e.g. green metrics or recyclability, and critically evaluate them in their context
7. Explain the energy challenges and common carbon dioxide sequestration technologies and their limitations
8. Explain how circular economy overlap with sustainability science and technology, and be able to analyse and identify critical areas for scientific and technical solutions to address these new challenges

Skills Learning Outcomes
1. Teamwork
2. Systems thinking when assessing the sustainability of products and manufacturing processes
3. Presentation skills in group innovation projects and research projects to communicate science and technology to general audiences
4. Creativity in sustainable product/process design
5. Critical thinking in analysing and evaluating the sustainability of published products and industrial processes
6. Literature research
7. Problem solving in research project and optional technical modules
8. Project planning and time management
9. Written communications of research results to non-specialist technical audiences
10. Setting personal objectives and professional development goals

Assessment

We aim to reproduce the realistic demand of professionally working in science and technology for sustainability and equip students with employable skills. Thus, the assessment methods were selected as a balance between literature report, project report, assignments and group exercise (new and compulsory modules), where students can draw upon wider resources for their work, and campus-based exams (existing and optional modules). Where exams are the main assessment method, an assignment (15-20% of the grade) are still included to reduce the dependence of the overall grade on a single exam.