TEACHENER Final Conference on "Social Sciences and Humanities at Universities of Technology"
TEACHENER is a transnational Strategic Partnership (2016-2019) that involves 7 organisations from both social and technical sciences dealing with energy issues in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Spain. The goal of TEACHENER is to fill the gap between social sciences and humanities (SSH) and energy teaching at universities in Europe and contribute to enhance the socio-technical perspective in the current education of energy engineers.
Among the outcomes of the project, a set of teaching modules covering diverse topics associated with social aspects of energy has been designed. The topics of the eight Teaching Modules include:
- Energy awareness. Being aware of the importance of energy (four our life).
- Philosophy and ethics of energy development. Fundamental questions behind the use of energy.
- Energy and the public: the challenge of understanding public responses.
- Social impact of energy technologies. Assessing social impacts through Social Life Cycle Assessment.
- Technology assessment. An approach for organising societal discourse on innovative energy technologies.
- Risk governance approach in smart metering. Smart metering, social risk perception and risk governance.
- Conflict management. Understanding and managing conflicts on energy technologies.
- Decentralised energy systems. Social aspects of energy production and use.
The modules have been tested at the partners’ technical institutions and, also, during two Student Winter Schools in 2019, at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.
The final conference of the Erasmus+ TEACHENER project will take place in Gdansk on 27-28 June. The Conference «Social Sciences and Humanities at Universities of Technology» responds to strategic developments at the European level based on the integration of SSH aspects into European research projects, e.g. within the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, and the need to properly recognise SSH in the academic community.
The event will be divided into a conference part and a workshop part.
The conference part (Thu 27 June, 1 pm-6 pm) will be devoted to presenting the results of the TEACHENER project to a broad audience. The guest speakers and project partners will also discuss how to address successfully the following issues:
- Interdisciplinary cooperation among technical and SSH universities
- Designing and templating unique teaching schemes ready to follow
- International cooperation and strengthening European education
The conference will be accompanied by a panel discussion Do universities of technology need teaching about SSH issues?
The workshop part (Fri 28 June, 9 am-2 pm) will be focused on promoting the teaching courses and the accompanying teaching materials - the main deliverable of the TEACHENER project. Workshop sessions of the Conference will get their participants familiar with the 8 teaching modules targeted at students and teachers from universities of technology.
Teaching staff, students, PhD students, and young postdocs from technical higher education institutions will be able to get to know the TEACHENER teaching modules, discuss the lecturing materials and ask questions to the authors.
The participation in the conference and the workshop is free of charge.
Registration and further information is available at: www.teachener.eu/final-conference
