Introductory Remarks: What is it all about? Andrew Jamison PROCEED meeting, DTU, October 13, 2010
Jan 17, 2016
Introductory Remarks:
What is it all about?
Andrew Jamison
PROCEED meeting, DTU, October 13, 2010
The aims of PROCEED are to:
• improve the education of engineers, so that they might better be able to meet the challenges they can be expected to face in their working lives,
• bring together Danish and international researchers with knowledge about these matters in a strategic alliance,
• compare the different ways in which the challenges have been responded to in Denmark as well as internationally, • identify examples of “best practice” in regard to reforming engineering education, and
• reach out to engineering educators in a series of interactive workshops and seminars
Challenges Facing Science and Engineering
The sustainability challenge – how to deal with environmental problems, energy and other resource exploitation and, not least, climate change
The societal challenge – how to deal with the permeation of our societies by technology with new design skills in socially responsible ways
The technoscientific challenge – how to combine scientific understanding and technical skills in new forms of competence
“The climate crisis is not a political
issue, it is a moral and spiritual
challenge to all of humanity. It is also
our greatest opportunity to lift global
consciousness to a higher level.”
The Sustainability Challenge
from Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
The Societal Challenge
Due to the increasing role that technology plays in ever more areas of society, there is a
growing need for organizational, managerial and communicative competencies
and for economic, social and broader cultural ”contextual” understanding among engineers
The Challenge of Technoscience
A blurring of discursive boundaries between science and technology, nature and humanity
A trespassing of institutional borders between public and private, economic and academic
A mixing of skills and competencies between theoretical and practical knowledge
Response Strategies
The dominant , or ”hubristic” strategy:
commercialization, entrepreneurship, transdisciplinarity
The residual, or ”habitual” strategy:
academicization, expertise, (sub)disciplinarity
An emerging, or ”hybrid” strategy:
contextualization, engagement, cross-disciplinarity
Transdisciplinarity, or ”mode 2”
”Knowledge which emerges from a particular
context of application with its own distinct
theoretical structures, research methods and
modes of practice but which may not be locatable
on the prevailing disciplinary map.”
Michael Gibbons et al, The New Production of Knowledge (1994)
A Kind of Hubris
transgressing established forms of quality control ”a drift of epistemic criteria” (Elzinga)
transcending human limitations ”converging technologies” (bio, info, cogno, nano)
neglecting the broader public, or social interest ”academic capitalism”: engineering in the private
interest
(over)emphasis on commercialization propagation of competitiveness rather than cooperation
The Forces of Habit(us)
The challenges primarily responded to by niche-seeking among scientists and engineers
Taught by reconfiguring established scientific and engineering fields: ”subdisciplinarity”
Politics left largely outside of research and education: ”outsourcing” of ethics and responsibility
A continuing belief in separating the ”texts” of science
and engineering from broader cultural contexts
“A discipline is defined by possession of a collective capital
of specialized methods and concepts, mastery of which is
the tacit or implicit price of entry to the field. It produces a
‘historical transcendental,’ the disciplinary habitus, a
system of schemes of perception and appreciation (where
the incorporated discipline acts as a censorship).”
Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004)
The Discipline as Habitus
An Emerging Strategy?:Fostering a Hybrid Imagination
At the discursive, or macro level Sustainability engineering: redefining the ”identity” of
engineering in relation to the sustainability challenge
At the institutional, or meso level Engineering citizenship: providing space for critical
reflection about the engineer’s role(s) in society
At the personal, or micro level Responsible engineering: integrating contextual
understanding into engineering education
PROCEED:Cross-disciplinarity in action
Four universities: Aalborg, Århus, DTU and Roskilde
Four fields: history of science and technologyengineering education and pedagogy philosophy of technology STS and engineering studies
A Form for Change-Oriented Research
Problem-driven, rather than disciplinary-driven
A focus on processes of socio-cultural change
Reflective, rather than explanatory ambition
Participatory, interventionist methods
Personal engagement in what is studied
PROCEED Work plan
Jan-Aug 2010 – planning and initiation
Sept 2010 – Aug 2012 – thematic research
Jan 2012 – Aug 2013 – outreach activities
Jan 2013 - Dec 2013 – final reporting, conference
Thematic Projects
A. Challenges and responses in historical perspective
B. Curriculum design and learning outcomes
C. Models and simulations in engineering
D. Design capabilities and engineering practices in industry
E. Integrating contextual knowledge into engineering
education
Project A:The Challenges Facing Engineering Educationin Historical Perspective
Andrew Jamison
PROCEED meeting, DTU, October 13, 2010
mechanization
socialization
modernization scientification globalization
socialism populism
anticolonialism (anti)fascism
environmentalismfeminism
1800 1850 1950 20001900
Cultural and Social Movements
Waves of Appropriation
enlightenment romanticism cooperation
industrial science,
big science technoscienceengineering sciences
Cycles of Creative Reconstruction
DTU Århus, COWI
Aalborg,VESTAS
Askov
An Underlying Tension in Engineering Education
”Theory” versus ”Practice”
scientific emphasis technical emphasis
academic orientation business orientation
book-based learning problem-based learning
academic teachers practitioner teachers
for example: DTU for example: Aalborg
A Brief History of Recent Science and Technology
“Little Science” “Big Science” “Controversy” “Globalization”
Before WWII 1940s-50s 1960s-70s 1980s-
main orientation industrial atomic societal commercial
type of disciplinary multidisciplinary interdisciplinary transdisciplinaryknowledge
ideal, orvalues academic bureaucratic collective entrepreneurial
The Age of ”Big Science”,1940s and 1950s
expansion in size, scale and resources
atomic orientation, both military and ”civilian”
university-government collaboration
bureaucratic norm, or value system
new role for the state and multistate alliances
The Age of Controversy,1960s and 1970s
critiques of militarization and ”big science”
public debates esp. about atomic energy
interest in student-centered forms of education
”grass-roots” engineering (e.g. OVE)
emergence of technology assessment
The Age of Globalization,from 1980s
change in range and scope
market orientation, ”privatization”
university-industry collaboration
entrepreneurial norm, or value system
the state as strategist: innovation policy
from assessment to promotion: ”foresight”
A Brief History of the Sustainability Challenge
Awakening: 1960scritique of environmental pollution and
the population ”explosion”
Politicization: 1970srise of environmental and anti-nuclear
movements and an interest in appropriate technology
Professionalization: 1980sdiscourse of sustainable development,
integration of economics and environmentalism
Globalization: 1990s-2000s-contending approaches to sustainability
From the Cognitive Praxis of Environmental Movements...
Cosmological dimension: systemic holism, ”limits to growth”
Technological dimension: appropriateness, ”small is beautiful”
Organizational dimension: participatory research, ”citizen science”
Nordic Folkcenter for Renewable Energy
The New Alchemy Institute Ark
...to Contending Modes of Sustainability Research
sustainability sustainability sustainability science management engineering
Forms of policy-driven commercial contextualactivity research innovation appropriation
Types of post-normal managerial/ situated/Knowledge interdisciplinary transdisciplinary cross-
disciplinary
Forms of traditional, professional, engaged,learning scholarly instrumental participatory
Researcher’s expert entrepreneur concerned citizen
role
Contexts of governments companies communities application (”state”) (”market”) (”civil society”)