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Engineering in an Increasingly Complex World. How to Train Engineers for Integrated Problem Solving? Lessons from Some Experiments.
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ENGINEERING IN AN INCREASINGLY COMPLEX WORLD. HOW TO TRAIN ENGINEERS FOR INTEGRATED PROBLEM SOLVING? LESSONS FROM SOME EXPERIMENTS.
Dr.ir. Karel F. Mulder Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, De Vries van Heystplantsoen 2, NL 2628 RZ Delft, The Netherlands, e-mail: [email protected], tel: +31-15-2781043, fax: +31-15-2783177
Abstract: The paper discusses changes in society that affect the engineering profession. It concludes that the engineering profession cannot remain as it is, since the growing complexity of society creates problems that cannot be solved by engineers alone. The engineer must be trained to be able to co-operate with social scientists in interdisciplinary teams. The paper describes some experiments in which students from Delft University of Technology participated. Copyright@2000IFAC
I. INTRODUCTION, CHANGING SOCIETY
Taking these global changes into account, it is not surprising that engineering practice has changed dramatically. In the 19th century, engineers built railroads, industrial plants and utilities. Their training made them the adequate creators of a new world that could provide for the needs of the increasing masses. However, in the 20 th century, new professionals developed the solutions to the new conflicts that emerged: economists, sociologists, (international) lawyers, and political scientists. However, in the large-scale welfare states, not all problems were solved, and new problems emerged. Production and products were often detached. By the increasing scale of production, pollution, ecological destruction and exhaustion grew beyond the stage of mere local problems that could be solved locally. Moreover, as production became often completely detached from consumption, and causes from effects, these problems were hard to solve. Fast growing populations and uneven distribution of wealth create new conflicts. Exhaustion of non-renewable resources, global climate change, depletion of the ozone layer and massive extinction of species are physical problems that create new challenges for the engineer. However, is the current engineer equipped to deal with these new challenges? The basic features of most traditional engineering training programmes have been the application of basic science and mathematics to create cost-efficient technologies. This is in fact the rationalist attitude of the 'Enlightenment' that sought to overcome superstition, tradition and backwardness (Lintsen,
The main challenges, that Western societies have been facing, have been shifting considerably. In the 19th century, famine, diseases, working conditions, flooding, droughts and plagues kept major parts of the population in a situation of almost constant despair. Rationalising the technologies that were used could solve most problems. Together with these technological changes, the character of society shifted from a collection of independent and largely autarchic communities to nation states, gradually being integrated into larger economic blocks. Technology not only facilitated this transition but also propelled it. In return, nation states stimulated technological development. However, the larger scale of social organisation went hand in hand with larger scale conflicts: the range of less developed people that could be subjected to the interest of industrialised states was increased racist pogroms evolved into genocide and ethnic cleansing conflicts of interests between 'haves' and 'have nots' evolved into global conflicts One could argue that society has to some degree learned to overcome these conflicts. Various social innovations (Declaration of human rights, UN charter, Social Security systems) could be seen as examples of organising mutual respect in our largescale societies. 2. CHANGING CHALLENGES FOR THE ENGINEER
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1985). In that sense, engineering schools have been successful, perhaps even too successful. The primacy of this paradigm, optimising technology for cost efficient fulfilment of needs, has not been challenged. However, one cannot expect that this is a solid base to solve society's modem problems, especially since these problems are only in part of a technological nature. Cultural, ethical and organisational issues are often not only preconditions for a solution, they are part of the realm in which an engineer has to develop solutions. The world on which we live is finite, and this poses new challenges. Fulfilment of needs has to take place within the limits that are set by the borders of our planet, as interplanetary emigration is not a realistic option in the foreseeable future. This implies that we cannot take nature for granted in our creation of technologies. Moreover, if nature is not infinite, it is clear that technologists have to deal with contradicting claims on the utilisation of nature. One might perhaps argue that scarcity of natural resources will lead to higher prices and therefore to stimuli for more efficient technologies. However, such a supposition is based on a doubtful assumption: The assumption that the market precludes scarcity, and that the time lag between this market anticipation and actual scarcity is enough to develop alternative, or more efficient, technologies. Moreover, it is doubtful whether alternatives exist. For example, one might doubt if there are technological alternatives that might stop the decrease in biodiversity. In recent times, mankind seems rather successful in developing cleaner and more efficient technologies. However, taken the history of rise and fall of several civilisations into account, there is no reason to be optimistic. Several civilisations appear to have been operating unaffected, although the collapse must have been foreseen (Ponting, 1991). As the global problems of today are intimately connected to social and political issues, like the distribution of wealth and health in our societies, they cannot be solved by purely technologically means. To solve these problems, not only scientific rationalism, but also political, legal and economic rationalism is needed (Cf. Snellen, 1987).
performance/costs) or are just caught in their professional lore. However, this co-operation is essential as we can only develop the solutions that are needed by using various different realms of technological knowledge, and incorporate ethical and social issues into the engineering design. Therefore, there is an urgent need to train engineers in working with other professionals. Engineering curricula need to be adapted to enhance mutual understanding. Naturally, the same applies to the social sciences as they often refer to engineers as 'nerds' or 'useful idiots'. Project based learning could contribute to this goal, especially if these projects are organised as interdisciplinary projects. This paper will evaluate some recent experiments with teaching interdisciplinary courses, project based learning, and interdisciplinary projects at Delft University of Technology (OUT). It will sketch the way in which DUT decided to emphasise Sustainable Development in education, and the main educational activities in regard to Sustainable Development thus far. Main goal is to show that Sustainable Development is an interesting challenge to contribute to as an engineer. 4. ENGINEERING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT The narrow-minded vision on sustainable development, i.e. sustainable development as developing environmentally sound ways of production and consumption is still rather dominant in industrialised society. In this view, sustainable development is a major task for engineers as production is concerned, and a major task for social scientist as far as the problem of over consumption is at stake. One would therefore expect that engineers would have jumped on the issue of sustainability as it implies new challenges for the engineering profession. However, in practice, the opposite was often true. Cleaning technologies (sewerage, end of pipe, etc.) were often integrated within the engineering profession, but attempts to train engineers in thinking of inherently clean technologies often met with strong resistance. Training engineers to develop basic social knowledge to be able to recognise the global equity and democratic decision making issues that are part of SD too, is for many Engineering School staff members a bridge too far. What is behind the resistance?
3. CHANGES IN ENGINEERING CURRICULA New schools that integrate science and technology with social sciences have emerged. However, training a new type of 'hybrid engineers', in addition to the traditional engineers, does not solve the problem. A high level of technological engineering knowledge remains essential in developing solutions for the Sustainable Development problems that we face. However, high level technological specialists often hardly feel the need to co-operate with other professionals as they reject their 'irrationalism' (i.e. rationalisms that are not aiming at optimisation of
5. ENGINEERING CULTURE Although perhaps a too blunt generalisation, it might be useful for the purpose of this paper to describe some general characteristics of what could be called the 'engineering culture'. From our own experience (Cf. Bras et aI., 2000) we conclude that four features are more present in the
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engineering culture than in the culture of other academic groups. These features are: I. Quantifying as much as possible 2. Neglecting those cause-effect relations that cannot be quantified 3. A tendency to make human demands subordinate to the optimised performance of technological artefacts 4. A strong tendency to perceive the engineers task as the optimised fulfilling of tasks that are externally determined, without any responsibility for the consequences that the fulfilment of tasks might have. The first feature represents the ideas of positivism. Every lecturer that teaches Sustainable Development to engineers is generally not asked to explain what SD means but to dejine it. Naturally Brundtland's definition (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) and others can be shown, but as none of the SD defmitions divide the world neatly in sustainable and non-sustainable objects/practices/technologies, it might very easy become a subject external to the world of the traditional engineer. Staff members sometimes refer to this notion: There are so many dejinitions of Sustainable Development. In such an area, one cannot work SCientifically. However, problems can only be defmed properly after they have been solved. For example, the failure of DC electrical power systems in the 1890's could be formulated as a power transmission problem after the solution, AC systems using high voltages and transformers had been developed. III-defined problems therefore do not exclude creative problem solving, they exclude problem solving by standard approaches, i.e. they need creativity (Hughes, 1983). In engineering, dealing 'vague' issues is in low esteem. Moreover, as these courses are often marginal in the curriculum, the lecturers can often not afford to maintain high standards at the examinations as they will be blamed for high failure rates. This reinforces the low esteem of students for these courses. The second feature of engineering culture is therefore a logical next step. The simplest reaction to the quantifying problem is to expel the non-quantifiable variable from the numerical analysis. As such, one might defend this by lack of alternatives. However, one should seriously question the validity of the results of these analyses. In Life Cycle Analysis, this effect can often be observed: various aspects of consumer behaviour cannot be quantified, fertility effects of chemicals can hardly be quantified. However, LeA makers generally do not question the results that are affected by these omissions (Bras, 1999). The third feature, as it deals with technical artefacts is typical for the engineering culture. Primary:
engineers want to make the thing work. Although the artefact is mend to be used by humans, human characteristics and preferences are often seen as difficult extra requirements. It is already hard enough to get the thing operational, why bother with usability! In 1996, a colleague participated in a student project on space colonisation. The goal was to design a space colony that would be able to sustain itself and offer 500 people a home for at least 5 years. Major problems were, of course, the life sup~ort system, the laboratories and the structure. As the launch capacity from the Earth is limited, the structure should contain as less material as possible. In order to reach this, a student proposed to rule out all sexual relationships. This would solve two problems: what to do with infants not born on Earth, but raised in an artificial surrounding, and, the structure would not become larger by adding all kinds of private places for these relationships. When the student was told that this would seriously stress people, he replied that at DUT there were so little girls, that he had to do without for jive years. "If I can, they should also be able to!" Finally, engineers have developed a kind of implicit worldview that allows them to expel the ill-defined, non-quantifiable needs and wants of individuals and groups from their practice: The division of responsibilities in the engineering practice in three categories: commissioning the engineer to design/develop the actual designing/development job the application of the results of the designing/development task In the engineer's view, his responsibility is only the actual design/development. Therefore, he bears no responsibility for the social-political issues that matter in engineering. The engineers therefore do not need to preclude future market trends: Why should we train engineers to incorporate SD issues into their designs? We do not feel that the market has a need those engineers nor for their products. If the market asks for SD in engineering, we train them. Although one can observe that engineers in their daily practice often interfere with the commissioning of projects, and the application of their technologies (Cf. E.g. the nuclear engineers that are still pleading for more nuclear power stations), the lecturers that go into the responsibilities of engineers are often criticised as being 'politicians'. An Australian colleague quoted the comments of his students who called him a 'Tree hugging socialist' (Trigwell, Yasukawa, 1999.) Finally, some people claim that: Our discipline is developing basic knowledge. These
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training are of growing importance at OUT. For example, the faculty of Mechanical Engineering is in the middle of a reform process that aims at transforming the entire curriculum into problem oriented training. Presently there is a great deal of attention for SO in engineering curricula at Delft University of Technology. In 1998, the OUT board adopted a plan consisting of three interconnected operations: The design of an elementary course 'Technology in Sustainable Development' for ALL students of the OUT. Intertwining of sustainable development in ALL regular disciplinary courses, in a way corresponding to the nature of each specific course. Development of possibility to graduate in a sustainable development specialisation within the framework of each faculty (Commissie Duurzame Ontwikkeling OUT, 1998). This plan is now being implemented. However, there is certainly a strong undercurrent that will turn the tide as the political climate changes. It is therefore not only important to use the favourable atmosphere, but also to prepare for the future. As this paper has shown, part of the problem is the inability of social scientists to lecture in a comprehensible way to engineering students and the inability of engineers and engineering students to grasp conceptual reasoning on social-cultural processes. Engineering students are 'makers', not readers. They are mainly interested in concepts as they help them understand their objects. It is therefore our experience that using vast amounts of examples of engineering stories might help to raise their interest. The most interesting stories are the ones that lead to failure as these stories show the importance of specific (often non-quantifiable) factors. Such examples might easily lead to the conclusion that the goal is just to criticise technology. Therefore, it is also important to show some successes. However, it is my experience that one hardly learns from the successes of new technologies, as students just appear to admire the shining beauty of a technological design, instead of the process that lead to it.
kind ofapplied problems are not our business. However, it is the essence of engineering that basic knowledge creation is subordinate to the task of solving practical problems. Besides these objections that reflect the mainstream engineering culture, one can often observe tricks to get rid of SO issues. Some of them are very smart: SD is far too important to be taught in one separate course. No it really should be integrated in all courses and every lecturer should keep it always in mind. This staff member was trying to hug SO to death. If SO is everybody's responsibility, nobody needs to take notice, so we can forget about it! Naturally SD is very important. However, it is the responsibility of the student to study this subject. So the university should offer optional SD courses. Or: When we were students, we discussed ethics in the student parish. Why should the university be responsible for SD courses? Key subjects for a profession cannot be taught optional!
6. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT OUT Developing technology is not a matter of optimising artefacts or systems in regard to a given (set of) demand(s). Demands of society are dynamic, just as technology is itself. Successful technologies generally do more than just fulfilling peoples existing demands; they challenge people and show them new possibilities that they did not even think of before. Developing new and successful technologies can only take place if the technologist has a deep understanding of the motives and desires of people that will be related to the new technology and the effects of his design on society as a hole and nature. This problem orientation is hard to achieve within engineering curricula that are generally composed of disciplinary courses (Cf. Neef and Pelz, 1995). A paradigm shift is therefore required in engineering, and it will profoundly affect engineering curricula. Engineers have to learn that not their technology driven concepts are the central issues of society, and that people have to adapt to these concepts I. The demands of people (especially the weaker, and unborn) are what counts, and technologists have to be challenged to contribute to fulfilling those demands. If engineering students realise that, they can make invaluable contributions to the environment. It is therefore hopeful that problem oriented forms of
7. INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS Working in interdisciplinary teams is not a goal, but a method to train working on complex societal themes, in an integral and creative way. Sustainability is such a complex theme that needs to be approached with an open mind and wide scope. In the fall of 1999, an interdisciplinary project took place. Its theme was 'water'. Teams of four to six students from four different educational institutes cooperated for fourteen weeks on the subjects 'drinking water', 'water consumption in industry and agriculture', and 'river water management'. To
I This gap between engineering ideas on 'useful' technologies for society and the ideas of the layman was nicely illustrated by a study of the IEEE (1984). US Engineers valued 12 (electrical) technologies about equal to laymen. However, there was a large gap regarding the usefulness of 'automation' and 'robotics'.
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facilitate team building, and to make this project attractive the introductory phase of two weeks took place on board of a boat that sailed the IJssel River. The boat was the work and living area of the participants. It was very helpful for the integration amongst the group. The IJssel River2 has a beautiful river basin. It also has severe environmental problems. Governmental organisations, industry and environmental groups were invited to lecture on board the boat. The students used their bicycles to visit various mainland organisations and facilities. Industry, utilities, government agencies and NGO's were very willing to co-operate. After the two introduction weeks, the students had to work on the project for a further twelve weeks, but then based at their own educational institute. The Open University of the Netherlands set up a virtual platform for information exchange during the project. Evaluation of the group work was the final part of the project.
determined but will invariably involve significant structural and cultural change (Schwarz, 1997; de Meere and Berting, 1996). The mission of the Interdepartmental Research Programme Sustainable Technological Development (STD) was to explore and illustrate, together with policy makers in government and industry, how technological development could be shaped by back casting from visions of sustainable futures and to develop instruments for this (Programme STD, 1997). 9. RESULTS
In the beginning of the project there was much confusion on the theme sustainable development related to the discipline of the students. During the project the students became aware of their specific contribution, based on their different backgrounds. They learned to communicate, without using technical jargon and discovered they could be critical towards persuasive information. The students started to build a network for their final projects and future work field.
8. BACK CASTING Back casting, the creation of a future VISIon, the challenge of the factor 20 and its translation into short-term actions and projects, was the leading philosophy during the project. Questions such as: 'What will the world look like, in about fifty years' and 'What will the increased amount of citizens need?' had to be answered. This leads to the next questions: 'What do we need to do nowadays and in future times to contribute to fulfilling those needs?' 'How can the necessary changes in culture, structure and technology be made? .
The period after the time spent on the boat caused difficulties as the students were based in various educational institutes, throughout the Netherlands. This consumed a lot of time for those who had to travel to the weekly meetings. As the formal arrangements differed for the students in the various institutions, there were a lot of organisational problems and frustrations. The differences in possible workload and the 'culture differences' between the institutes turned out to be tough for some students. Although there were some technical problems during the project, the virtual platform was of enormous importance for the flow of information. Although much needs to be improved, the results of the project are stimulating. Although interdisciplinary project work is often frustrating, it leads to more integrated assessments of problems, and hopefully to better solutions.
Fulfilling the needs of future generations A simple calculation has shown that fulfilling the material needs of present and future generations on the basic of equity requires a jump in the environmental efficiency of technology by a factor of between J and 50, say 20, over the next year (Weterings and Opschoor, 1992). These jumps in environmental efficiency of technology cannot be brought about technical innovations alone. The social conditions for these leap-frog technologies still have to be
°
10. INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT 2000 In September 2000, the interdisciplinary project 'Schieoever' will start. This project will focus on problems of an industrial area in Delft. The local industry and the municipality planned to develop initiatives for a more sustainable industrial area. Having a direct problem owner might be advantageous to the project work and motivation of the students. The four (sub-)themes of the project will be sustainable industrial production, the ecology of in industrial areas, sustainable building, sustainable entrepreneurship
Shortly after the Rhine enters the Netherlands, the IJssel river branches of in Northern direction. It discharges into the Lake IJssel, which discharges into the Northsea. Besides the same sustainability problems as the Rhine has (pollution, ecological devastation, flooding/barriers), dehydration of the river basin, and accumulation of toxins at Lake IJssel are more specific problems and flood protection of the medieval cities are more specific problems.
2
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Ponting, C., (l99 I), A green history of the world. Sinclair Stevenson, London.
We realise that this is just a very small beginning. Further initiatives are being developed in cooperation with the other organisations.
REFERENCES
Programme Sustainable Technological Development, (l997), STD Vision 1998 - 2040 Technology, key to sustainable prosperity. Ten Hagen & Stam BV, Den Haag.
Bras-Klapwijk, R., (1999), The use of LCA 's in policy analysis. thesis, DUT.
(1983), Splijtstoj, Controverses rond kernenergie,
Schuuring, C., Tuininga, E., Turkenburg W. (ed.), SISWO, Amsterdam
Bras-Klapwijk, R., de Haan, A., Mulder, K.F., (2000), Training of lecturers to integrate sustainability in the engineering curricula, In: Integrating Concepts of Sustainability into education for agriculture and rural development (W. van den Bor et aI., Ed.), Peter Lang, Frankfurt.
Schwarz, M. (1997) Maatschappelijke levensvatbaarheid en Duurzame Technologieontwikkeling: Schets van het project maatschappelijke contexten. Duurzame Technologische Ontwikkeling Work document CST I, Delft.
Commissie Duurzame Ontwikkeling TU Delft, (l998), Advies Duurzame ontwikkeling in het Onderwijs. Delft, OUT
Snellen, I. Th.M., (1987), Boeiend en geboeid; ambivalenties en ambities in de bestuurskunde. Samsomffjeenk Willink, Alphen aid Rijn.
Copernicus declaration, (l993), http://www.infu.unidortmund.de/copernicus/welcome/hauptfenster.htm
Trigwell, K., Yasukawa, K., (1999), Learning in a Graduate Attributes-based Engineering Course, paper, Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Technology, Sydney.
de Meere, F., Berting, J. (1996), Maatschappelijke verandering en technologische ontwikkeling: Een culture analyse van het DTO programma, Duurzame Technologische Ontwikkeling, Work document CST 6, Delft.
Weterings, R.A.P.M., Opschoor, J.B., (1992), De Milieugebruiksruimte als uitdaging voor technologieontwikkeling RMNO, Rijswijk
Hughes, T.P. (1983), Networks of power, Electrification in Western Society 1880-1930. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
World Commission on Environment and Development, (1987), Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York.
IEEE-Spectrum, Louis Harris Survey, (1984), Electrotechnology and the Engineer: A survey of attitudes of the IEEE membership. Louis Harris & Associates, Inc. Lintsen, H.W., (l979), De Polytechnische School, In: Het tweede jaarboek voor het Democratisch Socialisme (J. Bank, M. Ros, B. Tromp Ed.) Arbeiders Pers, Amsterdam Lintsen, H.W., (1985), Ingenieur van Ingenieurspers, Den Haag,
beroep.
Mulder, K.F., (1993), A useful tool turned into a monument: Controversies over Holland's Windmills in the first half of the 20th century. lA, the journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 17-2, pp.37-46 Neef, W., Pelz, T., (1995), Ingenieurausbildung fuer eine nachhaltige Entwicklung. Wechselwirkung, December, pp. 32-37 Nelkin, D, (1979), Controversy, the politics of technical decisions. Sage, LondonlBeverly Hills.
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ENGINEERING IN AN INCREASINGLY COMPLEX WORLD. HOW TO TRAIN ENGINEERS FOR INTEGRATED PROBLEM SOLVING? LESSONS FROM SOME EXPERIMENTS.
Dr.ir. Karel F. Mulder Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, De Vries van Heystplantsoen 2, NL 2628 RZ Delft, The Netherlands, e-mail: [email protected], tel: +31-15-2781043, fax: +31-15-2783177
Abstract: The paper discusses changes in society that affect the engineering profession. It concludes that the engineering profession cannot remain as it is, since the growing complexity of society creates problems that cannot be solved by engineers alone. The engineer must be trained to be able to co-operate with social scientists in interdisciplinary teams. The paper describes some experiments in which students from Delft University of Technology participated. Copyright@2000IFAC
I. INTRODUCTION, CHANGING SOCIETY
Taking these global changes into account, it is not surprising that engineering practice has changed dramatically. In the 19th century, engineers built railroads, industrial plants and utilities. Their training made them the adequate creators of a new world that could provide for the needs of the increasing masses. However, in the 20 th century, new professionals developed the solutions to the new conflicts that emerged: economists, sociologists, (international) lawyers, and political scientists. However, in the large-scale welfare states, not all problems were solved, and new problems emerged. Production and products were often detached. By the increasing scale of production, pollution, ecological destruction and exhaustion grew beyond the stage of mere local problems that could be solved locally. Moreover, as production became often completely detached from consumption, and causes from effects, these problems were hard to solve. Fast growing populations and uneven distribution of wealth create new conflicts. Exhaustion of non-renewable resources, global climate change, depletion of the ozone layer and massive extinction of species are physical problems that create new challenges for the engineer. However, is the current engineer equipped to deal with these new challenges? The basic features of most traditional engineering training programmes have been the application of basic science and mathematics to create cost-efficient technologies. This is in fact the rationalist attitude of the 'Enlightenment' that sought to overcome superstition, tradition and backwardness (Lintsen,
The main challenges, that Western societies have been facing, have been shifting considerably. In the 19th century, famine, diseases, working conditions, flooding, droughts and plagues kept major parts of the population in a situation of almost constant despair. Rationalising the technologies that were used could solve most problems. Together with these technological changes, the character of society shifted from a collection of independent and largely autarchic communities to nation states, gradually being integrated into larger economic blocks. Technology not only facilitated this transition but also propelled it. In return, nation states stimulated technological development. However, the larger scale of social organisation went hand in hand with larger scale conflicts: the range of less developed people that could be subjected to the interest of industrialised states was increased racist pogroms evolved into genocide and ethnic cleansing conflicts of interests between 'haves' and 'have nots' evolved into global conflicts One could argue that society has to some degree learned to overcome these conflicts. Various social innovations (Declaration of human rights, UN charter, Social Security systems) could be seen as examples of organising mutual respect in our largescale societies. 2. CHANGING CHALLENGES FOR THE ENGINEER
183
1985). In that sense, engineering schools have been successful, perhaps even too successful. The primacy of this paradigm, optimising technology for cost efficient fulfilment of needs, has not been challenged. However, one cannot expect that this is a solid base to solve society's modem problems, especially since these problems are only in part of a technological nature. Cultural, ethical and organisational issues are often not only preconditions for a solution, they are part of the realm in which an engineer has to develop solutions. The world on which we live is finite, and this poses new challenges. Fulfilment of needs has to take place within the limits that are set by the borders of our planet, as interplanetary emigration is not a realistic option in the foreseeable future. This implies that we cannot take nature for granted in our creation of technologies. Moreover, if nature is not infinite, it is clear that technologists have to deal with contradicting claims on the utilisation of nature. One might perhaps argue that scarcity of natural resources will lead to higher prices and therefore to stimuli for more efficient technologies. However, such a supposition is based on a doubtful assumption: The assumption that the market precludes scarcity, and that the time lag between this market anticipation and actual scarcity is enough to develop alternative, or more efficient, technologies. Moreover, it is doubtful whether alternatives exist. For example, one might doubt if there are technological alternatives that might stop the decrease in biodiversity. In recent times, mankind seems rather successful in developing cleaner and more efficient technologies. However, taken the history of rise and fall of several civilisations into account, there is no reason to be optimistic. Several civilisations appear to have been operating unaffected, although the collapse must have been foreseen (Ponting, 1991). As the global problems of today are intimately connected to social and political issues, like the distribution of wealth and health in our societies, they cannot be solved by purely technologically means. To solve these problems, not only scientific rationalism, but also political, legal and economic rationalism is needed (Cf. Snellen, 1987).
performance/costs) or are just caught in their professional lore. However, this co-operation is essential as we can only develop the solutions that are needed by using various different realms of technological knowledge, and incorporate ethical and social issues into the engineering design. Therefore, there is an urgent need to train engineers in working with other professionals. Engineering curricula need to be adapted to enhance mutual understanding. Naturally, the same applies to the social sciences as they often refer to engineers as 'nerds' or 'useful idiots'. Project based learning could contribute to this goal, especially if these projects are organised as interdisciplinary projects. This paper will evaluate some recent experiments with teaching interdisciplinary courses, project based learning, and interdisciplinary projects at Delft University of Technology (OUT). It will sketch the way in which DUT decided to emphasise Sustainable Development in education, and the main educational activities in regard to Sustainable Development thus far. Main goal is to show that Sustainable Development is an interesting challenge to contribute to as an engineer. 4. ENGINEERING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT The narrow-minded vision on sustainable development, i.e. sustainable development as developing environmentally sound ways of production and consumption is still rather dominant in industrialised society. In this view, sustainable development is a major task for engineers as production is concerned, and a major task for social scientist as far as the problem of over consumption is at stake. One would therefore expect that engineers would have jumped on the issue of sustainability as it implies new challenges for the engineering profession. However, in practice, the opposite was often true. Cleaning technologies (sewerage, end of pipe, etc.) were often integrated within the engineering profession, but attempts to train engineers in thinking of inherently clean technologies often met with strong resistance. Training engineers to develop basic social knowledge to be able to recognise the global equity and democratic decision making issues that are part of SD too, is for many Engineering School staff members a bridge too far. What is behind the resistance?
3. CHANGES IN ENGINEERING CURRICULA New schools that integrate science and technology with social sciences have emerged. However, training a new type of 'hybrid engineers', in addition to the traditional engineers, does not solve the problem. A high level of technological engineering knowledge remains essential in developing solutions for the Sustainable Development problems that we face. However, high level technological specialists often hardly feel the need to co-operate with other professionals as they reject their 'irrationalism' (i.e. rationalisms that are not aiming at optimisation of
5. ENGINEERING CULTURE Although perhaps a too blunt generalisation, it might be useful for the purpose of this paper to describe some general characteristics of what could be called the 'engineering culture'. From our own experience (Cf. Bras et aI., 2000) we conclude that four features are more present in the
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engineering culture than in the culture of other academic groups. These features are: I. Quantifying as much as possible 2. Neglecting those cause-effect relations that cannot be quantified 3. A tendency to make human demands subordinate to the optimised performance of technological artefacts 4. A strong tendency to perceive the engineers task as the optimised fulfilling of tasks that are externally determined, without any responsibility for the consequences that the fulfilment of tasks might have. The first feature represents the ideas of positivism. Every lecturer that teaches Sustainable Development to engineers is generally not asked to explain what SD means but to dejine it. Naturally Brundtland's definition (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) and others can be shown, but as none of the SD defmitions divide the world neatly in sustainable and non-sustainable objects/practices/technologies, it might very easy become a subject external to the world of the traditional engineer. Staff members sometimes refer to this notion: There are so many dejinitions of Sustainable Development. In such an area, one cannot work SCientifically. However, problems can only be defmed properly after they have been solved. For example, the failure of DC electrical power systems in the 1890's could be formulated as a power transmission problem after the solution, AC systems using high voltages and transformers had been developed. III-defined problems therefore do not exclude creative problem solving, they exclude problem solving by standard approaches, i.e. they need creativity (Hughes, 1983). In engineering, dealing 'vague' issues is in low esteem. Moreover, as these courses are often marginal in the curriculum, the lecturers can often not afford to maintain high standards at the examinations as they will be blamed for high failure rates. This reinforces the low esteem of students for these courses. The second feature of engineering culture is therefore a logical next step. The simplest reaction to the quantifying problem is to expel the non-quantifiable variable from the numerical analysis. As such, one might defend this by lack of alternatives. However, one should seriously question the validity of the results of these analyses. In Life Cycle Analysis, this effect can often be observed: various aspects of consumer behaviour cannot be quantified, fertility effects of chemicals can hardly be quantified. However, LeA makers generally do not question the results that are affected by these omissions (Bras, 1999). The third feature, as it deals with technical artefacts is typical for the engineering culture. Primary:
engineers want to make the thing work. Although the artefact is mend to be used by humans, human characteristics and preferences are often seen as difficult extra requirements. It is already hard enough to get the thing operational, why bother with usability! In 1996, a colleague participated in a student project on space colonisation. The goal was to design a space colony that would be able to sustain itself and offer 500 people a home for at least 5 years. Major problems were, of course, the life sup~ort system, the laboratories and the structure. As the launch capacity from the Earth is limited, the structure should contain as less material as possible. In order to reach this, a student proposed to rule out all sexual relationships. This would solve two problems: what to do with infants not born on Earth, but raised in an artificial surrounding, and, the structure would not become larger by adding all kinds of private places for these relationships. When the student was told that this would seriously stress people, he replied that at DUT there were so little girls, that he had to do without for jive years. "If I can, they should also be able to!" Finally, engineers have developed a kind of implicit worldview that allows them to expel the ill-defined, non-quantifiable needs and wants of individuals and groups from their practice: The division of responsibilities in the engineering practice in three categories: commissioning the engineer to design/develop the actual designing/development job the application of the results of the designing/development task In the engineer's view, his responsibility is only the actual design/development. Therefore, he bears no responsibility for the social-political issues that matter in engineering. The engineers therefore do not need to preclude future market trends: Why should we train engineers to incorporate SD issues into their designs? We do not feel that the market has a need those engineers nor for their products. If the market asks for SD in engineering, we train them. Although one can observe that engineers in their daily practice often interfere with the commissioning of projects, and the application of their technologies (Cf. E.g. the nuclear engineers that are still pleading for more nuclear power stations), the lecturers that go into the responsibilities of engineers are often criticised as being 'politicians'. An Australian colleague quoted the comments of his students who called him a 'Tree hugging socialist' (Trigwell, Yasukawa, 1999.) Finally, some people claim that: Our discipline is developing basic knowledge. These
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training are of growing importance at OUT. For example, the faculty of Mechanical Engineering is in the middle of a reform process that aims at transforming the entire curriculum into problem oriented training. Presently there is a great deal of attention for SO in engineering curricula at Delft University of Technology. In 1998, the OUT board adopted a plan consisting of three interconnected operations: The design of an elementary course 'Technology in Sustainable Development' for ALL students of the OUT. Intertwining of sustainable development in ALL regular disciplinary courses, in a way corresponding to the nature of each specific course. Development of possibility to graduate in a sustainable development specialisation within the framework of each faculty (Commissie Duurzame Ontwikkeling OUT, 1998). This plan is now being implemented. However, there is certainly a strong undercurrent that will turn the tide as the political climate changes. It is therefore not only important to use the favourable atmosphere, but also to prepare for the future. As this paper has shown, part of the problem is the inability of social scientists to lecture in a comprehensible way to engineering students and the inability of engineers and engineering students to grasp conceptual reasoning on social-cultural processes. Engineering students are 'makers', not readers. They are mainly interested in concepts as they help them understand their objects. It is therefore our experience that using vast amounts of examples of engineering stories might help to raise their interest. The most interesting stories are the ones that lead to failure as these stories show the importance of specific (often non-quantifiable) factors. Such examples might easily lead to the conclusion that the goal is just to criticise technology. Therefore, it is also important to show some successes. However, it is my experience that one hardly learns from the successes of new technologies, as students just appear to admire the shining beauty of a technological design, instead of the process that lead to it.
kind ofapplied problems are not our business. However, it is the essence of engineering that basic knowledge creation is subordinate to the task of solving practical problems. Besides these objections that reflect the mainstream engineering culture, one can often observe tricks to get rid of SO issues. Some of them are very smart: SD is far too important to be taught in one separate course. No it really should be integrated in all courses and every lecturer should keep it always in mind. This staff member was trying to hug SO to death. If SO is everybody's responsibility, nobody needs to take notice, so we can forget about it! Naturally SD is very important. However, it is the responsibility of the student to study this subject. So the university should offer optional SD courses. Or: When we were students, we discussed ethics in the student parish. Why should the university be responsible for SD courses? Key subjects for a profession cannot be taught optional!
6. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT OUT Developing technology is not a matter of optimising artefacts or systems in regard to a given (set of) demand(s). Demands of society are dynamic, just as technology is itself. Successful technologies generally do more than just fulfilling peoples existing demands; they challenge people and show them new possibilities that they did not even think of before. Developing new and successful technologies can only take place if the technologist has a deep understanding of the motives and desires of people that will be related to the new technology and the effects of his design on society as a hole and nature. This problem orientation is hard to achieve within engineering curricula that are generally composed of disciplinary courses (Cf. Neef and Pelz, 1995). A paradigm shift is therefore required in engineering, and it will profoundly affect engineering curricula. Engineers have to learn that not their technology driven concepts are the central issues of society, and that people have to adapt to these concepts I. The demands of people (especially the weaker, and unborn) are what counts, and technologists have to be challenged to contribute to fulfilling those demands. If engineering students realise that, they can make invaluable contributions to the environment. It is therefore hopeful that problem oriented forms of
7. INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS Working in interdisciplinary teams is not a goal, but a method to train working on complex societal themes, in an integral and creative way. Sustainability is such a complex theme that needs to be approached with an open mind and wide scope. In the fall of 1999, an interdisciplinary project took place. Its theme was 'water'. Teams of four to six students from four different educational institutes cooperated for fourteen weeks on the subjects 'drinking water', 'water consumption in industry and agriculture', and 'river water management'. To
I This gap between engineering ideas on 'useful' technologies for society and the ideas of the layman was nicely illustrated by a study of the IEEE (1984). US Engineers valued 12 (electrical) technologies about equal to laymen. However, there was a large gap regarding the usefulness of 'automation' and 'robotics'.
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facilitate team building, and to make this project attractive the introductory phase of two weeks took place on board of a boat that sailed the IJssel River. The boat was the work and living area of the participants. It was very helpful for the integration amongst the group. The IJssel River2 has a beautiful river basin. It also has severe environmental problems. Governmental organisations, industry and environmental groups were invited to lecture on board the boat. The students used their bicycles to visit various mainland organisations and facilities. Industry, utilities, government agencies and NGO's were very willing to co-operate. After the two introduction weeks, the students had to work on the project for a further twelve weeks, but then based at their own educational institute. The Open University of the Netherlands set up a virtual platform for information exchange during the project. Evaluation of the group work was the final part of the project.
determined but will invariably involve significant structural and cultural change (Schwarz, 1997; de Meere and Berting, 1996). The mission of the Interdepartmental Research Programme Sustainable Technological Development (STD) was to explore and illustrate, together with policy makers in government and industry, how technological development could be shaped by back casting from visions of sustainable futures and to develop instruments for this (Programme STD, 1997). 9. RESULTS
In the beginning of the project there was much confusion on the theme sustainable development related to the discipline of the students. During the project the students became aware of their specific contribution, based on their different backgrounds. They learned to communicate, without using technical jargon and discovered they could be critical towards persuasive information. The students started to build a network for their final projects and future work field.
8. BACK CASTING Back casting, the creation of a future VISIon, the challenge of the factor 20 and its translation into short-term actions and projects, was the leading philosophy during the project. Questions such as: 'What will the world look like, in about fifty years' and 'What will the increased amount of citizens need?' had to be answered. This leads to the next questions: 'What do we need to do nowadays and in future times to contribute to fulfilling those needs?' 'How can the necessary changes in culture, structure and technology be made? .
The period after the time spent on the boat caused difficulties as the students were based in various educational institutes, throughout the Netherlands. This consumed a lot of time for those who had to travel to the weekly meetings. As the formal arrangements differed for the students in the various institutions, there were a lot of organisational problems and frustrations. The differences in possible workload and the 'culture differences' between the institutes turned out to be tough for some students. Although there were some technical problems during the project, the virtual platform was of enormous importance for the flow of information. Although much needs to be improved, the results of the project are stimulating. Although interdisciplinary project work is often frustrating, it leads to more integrated assessments of problems, and hopefully to better solutions.
Fulfilling the needs of future generations A simple calculation has shown that fulfilling the material needs of present and future generations on the basic of equity requires a jump in the environmental efficiency of technology by a factor of between J and 50, say 20, over the next year (Weterings and Opschoor, 1992). These jumps in environmental efficiency of technology cannot be brought about technical innovations alone. The social conditions for these leap-frog technologies still have to be
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10. INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT 2000 In September 2000, the interdisciplinary project 'Schieoever' will start. This project will focus on problems of an industrial area in Delft. The local industry and the municipality planned to develop initiatives for a more sustainable industrial area. Having a direct problem owner might be advantageous to the project work and motivation of the students. The four (sub-)themes of the project will be sustainable industrial production, the ecology of in industrial areas, sustainable building, sustainable entrepreneurship
Shortly after the Rhine enters the Netherlands, the IJssel river branches of in Northern direction. It discharges into the Lake IJssel, which discharges into the Northsea. Besides the same sustainability problems as the Rhine has (pollution, ecological devastation, flooding/barriers), dehydration of the river basin, and accumulation of toxins at Lake IJssel are more specific problems and flood protection of the medieval cities are more specific problems.
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Ponting, C., (l99 I), A green history of the world. Sinclair Stevenson, London.
We realise that this is just a very small beginning. Further initiatives are being developed in cooperation with the other organisations.
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