Helena Mälkki

Energy engineering students on their way to expertise in sustainable energy

Abstract Energy engineering is facing new challenges in educating experts in sustainable energy. The aim of this paper is to characterise expertise related to sustainability in higher education. Future challenges and required skills are explored through recent studies, which have listed key competencies that engineers need in their working life. Sustainability and expertise are discussed on the basis of literature and energy curricula are explored on universities’ internet pages.

The Implementation of Sustainable Development in the Nordic Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

Education has a key role in sustainable future. Due to their high societal impact, universities are challenged to take a leadership role in promoting sustainability. Although many Nordic HEIs have made efforts to integrate sustainability into their operations, the current status of sustainability has remained unexplored. This paper describes how the Nordic HEIs have studied the status of sustainability by implementing a joint project in the Rio+20 framework. The project included a wide survey on the implementation of Rio+20 goals targeted to the university staff, and three interactive workshops on drivers, indicators and implementation. The results provide an insight on how the Nordic HEIs implement sustainability, highlighting the key drivers, barriers and ways to promote sustainability. Finally, the project recognized and initiated new topics for collaboration around indicators and sustainability literacy to assure the continuity of the intensive collaboration between Nordic universities. This paper encourages universities globally to find areas for collaboration and to strive together to reach more sustainable societies.