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The SmartBay NIAP fund was made available in 2012 through Dublin City University over a two year period to enable researchers to access the SmartBay Ireland National Test and Demonstration Facility in Galway Bay. Research proposals were invited for funding under a number of activity types that are in line with the objectives of the SmartBay PRTLI Cycle 5 programme. This fund provided small awards (typically €2-25K) to research teams through a national competitive process, which was open to all higher education institutions on the island of Ireland. There were both open and biannual calls. The SmartBay NIAP fund was established to enable researchers in academia and industry to access the SmartBay Ireland national test and demonstration infrastructure. Proposals to access the infrastructure were brief and required information on the researcher(s), a description of the proposed research and its potential impact to the research team arising from the access to SmartBay Ireland. Marine Institute

Secondary level education in Ireland is going through a major transition with the introduction of the new Junior Cycle programme. For the first time sustainability is being embedded into every subject and teachers have been given the opportunity, and flexibility to create their own curriculum. Addressing this, 8 teachers at Castletroy College worked collaboratively on the “E-Mining@School” project to incorporate sustainability into their subjects’ curriculum using an ambitious multidisciplinary approach. This approach attempted to connect sustainability to the student’s everyday lives through the product that teenagers covet the most; their smartphones.The project developed a collaborative cross- curriculum pilot that explored the common theme of ‘urban mining of e-waste for Critical Raw Materials (CRMs)’ and the teachers integrated this common theme into the curriculum of 5 subjects that included Science, Geography, Business, Technology, and Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE) that would be delivered concurrently. The pilot ran for 4 weeks, beginning at the end of January 2019. A cohort of 220 2nd year students attended 60 lessons over all 5 subjects. 24 teachers delivered these lessons and each student received, on average, over 38 hours of lessons. The project culminated in a public WEEE collection event that recovered over 11 tonnes of WEEE that was sent for recycling. The second running took place in the Spring of 2020 and it is planned to continue it as an annual endeavour. The pilot demonstrated to students the value of the resources used in their electronic products and the challenges of finite resource scarcity. It showed them not only where their stuff came from but also where it goes when they thought it thrown it away. Through the project students became familiar with and champions of the Circular Economy which was very evident in the WEEE collection event. The project was also the first occasion for the teachers to collaborate on a cross-curricular approach to secondary education and the paper includes findings on this topic.

The ever-increasing human population and industrial growth have posed a considerable burden on existing resources and have led to an increase in environmental pollution and climate change. The Engineering Clinics offered at the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering at Rowan University is the hallmark of our program that enables our undergraduate students to actively participate in solving real-world problems through collaborative activities. Our graduate students get an opportunity to engage in stakeholder (i.e., industries, federal and regional funding agencies) interactions and student mentoring in conjunction with developing their research ability. Thus, through these synergistic undergraduate-graduate-faculty- stakeholder collaborations this work envisions to develop awareness about sustainable design and environmental impact in the community. The clinic problems include; (i) solvent recovery in process industries, and (ii) systematic synthesis of wastewater treatment (WWT) networks. These problems are important because imprudent use of industrial solvents and water resources have exacerbated the challenges relating to availability, quality as well as safe disposal of harmful solvents and wastewater. Through these challenging and relevant problems, we can teach our students multiple skills such as information collection, selective extraction of valuable content, economic and sustainability evaluation of multiple pathways through mathematical modeling, computer programming, technical writing, and presentation. The overall impact of these efforts is evident in the peer-reviewed conference and journal publications, oral and poster presentations at regional and national conferences, as well as our students choosing careers which value sustainability.

Today’s complex global problems necessitate engineering solutions that not only consider sustainability, but include elements of design and creativity. Unfortunately, many engineering programs do not train students to think in terms of multiple contexts and at various scales. We often constrain students’ creativity to think within the narrow parameters of their specialization. Engineering educators face a difficult task of training students with both technical competencies and sustainability consciousness to tackle 21st century challenges. If we are to positively contribute to society, then we need to fundamentally change the way scientists, social scientists, and engineers are educated (Bielefeldt 2013). Two successful models for implementing sustainability grand challenges into engineering curricula have emerged in practice and in literature: stand-alone courses versus modules that are integrated into many courses. Engineering programs implement the stand-alone course-based model by establishing one to two distinct courses designed to address sustainability grand challenges and design in depth. One example of this is senior design. Conversely, engineering programs implement the modular-based model by integrating sustainability grand challenges and design throughout a host of existing courses and weave student exposure throughout the curriculum. These modules can be via ready-made modules, but more often than not faculty develop their own modules. The goal of this research was to evaluate the two models for implementing sustainability and to provide succinct recommendations and lessons learned for engineering programs tasked with integrating sustainability into their curricula. We review the implementation results of three sustainability courses, fourteen sustainability-themed modules, and senior design. We track progress towards responding to ABET Program Criterion related to sustainability and Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge 2nd edition (BOK2) Outcome 10: Sustainability. Results compare outcomes of students’ senior design project from universities implementing the two different approaches. And finally, we present the results of a formative and summative surveys of hundreds of students who participated in classes implemented throughout the project as well as faculty perceptions and barriers to implementation.

Through this paper we will look at links between architecture education, research and practice, using a current project as a vehicle to cover aspects of building, pilot and live project. The first aspect, the building project consists of the refurbishment and extension of a Parnell Cottage for a private client and is located near Cloyne, in East Cork, Ireland. The pilot project falls within the NEES Project, investigating the use of materials and services based on natural or recycled materials to improve the energy performance of new and existing buildings. The live project aims to hold a series of on site workshops and seminars for students of Architecture, Architects and interested parties, demonstrating the integration of the NEES best practice materials and techniques within the built project. The workshops, seminars and key project documents will be digitally recorded for dissemination through a web based publication. The small scale of the building project allowed for flexibility in the early conceptual design stages and the integration of the research and educational aspects.

All programmes of study in Institutes of Technology in Ireland are subjected to internal programmatic review in five yearly cycles to ensure that the education programmes meet the quality assurance standards and are fit for purpose. In addition engineering and construction programmes undergo voluntary external accreditation by their respective professional bodies. Both processes differ in their focus and intent and the preparation required by the programme teams and managers. The two processes emphasise different aspects of engineering education. From the research literature, it has emerged that these assessment types are used worldwide, in varying ways and in regular cycles, for the quality assurance of engineering education programmes. Both the programmatic review and accreditation processes have evolved and diverged over time. Engineers Ireland has formally accredited all University and Institutes of Technology engineering programmes in Ireland since 1982. Engineering education programmes which satisfy the appropriate criteria laid down in the Engineers Ireland accreditation documents are deemed to meet the education standard required of individuals seeking one of the registered titles of Chartered Engineer, Associate Engineer and Engineering Technician. The Engineers Ireland accreditation process is consistent with international best practice and this is verified by their inclusion in international mutual recognition agreements. Significant consultation has taken place with the gatekeepers of these processes which includes the Registrars and Heads of Faculty in Higher Education Institutions, Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) and the Registrar of Engineers Ireland. Incorporation of the programmatic review and accreditation processes into a single quality assurance process has long been an ambition of these gatekeepers. To achieve this ambition, it is imperative to determine whether it is possible to align the objectives of both processes. Twenty four triangulation documents were prepared comparing the QQI Engineering Award Standards, the QQI Professional Award Type Descriptors and the Engineers Ireland Accreditation Criteria. This allowed for comparison across the three engineering professional titles, their equivalent Irish National Framework of Qualifications levels for the three quality strands of knowledge, skill and competence and the five sub- strands of Mathematics and Sciences, Design and Development, Information Technology, Business Context and Engineering Practice. Even though there are differences in wording between the standards, there is over ninety percent alignment between all three sets of objectives in terms of their intent.

Teaching Sustainability is a complex and demanding task requiring a multidisciplinary approach as is clearly demonstrated by the world focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (and specially goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable). The flipped classroom methodology facilitates the necessary discussion for embedding different points of view on the learning process. In this way students can effectively receive out-of-class and in-class opportunities to promote personal learning. However, structuring the huge amount of information handled is a very difficult tasks for students. In order to develop students’ learner autonomy or develop high-level thinking skills to achieve the learning competencies embedded on an Interdisciplinary Sustainable Architecture (ISA) curriculum, the use of mind-mapping learning strategy is known an effective knowledge construction tool for helping students’ organizational thinking. Beyond this fact, many previous studies have considered peer assessment as an effective learning strategy to provide students with a teacher’s perspective view to think and evaluate knowledge acquisition. This research presents relevant results on the use of mind-maps with an online peer assessment approach. This tool is embedded as a key element for structuring Sustainability Assessment knowledge within a course based on the flipped teaching methodology. Moreover, an experiment has been conducted to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach on students’ learning analytics such as time involvement and learning reflections. It is important that educators use an online peer assessment learning environment for learners and aim for the goals to help learners become more critical, independent, and autonomous in the development of any Sustainability curriculum.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) provide a number of challenges in addressing poverty worldwide. To create momentum towards achieving these goals and the sub-goals (or targets), in many cases developing entrepreneurial solutions may be the best approach. We have developed and offered a new course based on an experiential learning pedagogy to educate students on creating entrepreneurial solutions to the UN SDGs. The course begins with an overview of the UN SDGs and an introduction to entrepreneurship. The course then focuses on ideation and opportunity identification for solutions addressing one of the SDGs. The students are then introduced to the business model canvas, including the Presidio graduate school extension that enhances the Business Model Canvas by adding questions specifically related to sustainability considerations of the business model development. The next step in the course development is teaching the students how to develop minimum viable products through a process of rapid prototyping. In parallel with the formal teaching and activities in the classroom, the students are required to develop a venture concept outside the classroom. This concept is posted to a discussion board where the students’ peers and the professor are asked to provide feedback to the students posting their venture ideas. The next step in the course is to go through a customer discovery process in which students are asked to learn from potential customers what are the customers’ pains, difficulties that they are looking for solutions. Again, the results of these interviews with potential customers are posted on the course discussion board for peer and professor review and feedback. The business model and concept is refined by the students and then the students move into a customer validation phase where the talk to a number of potential customers/early adopters to refine their prototype solution. Finally, the students are then taught how to develop a sales strategy and to actualize some sales of their products. The course work is supported by local expertise including a sales consultant, a logo design/branding expert, a supply chain expert, and experts in corporate structures, venture financing and intellectual property. The students present their final product/service design, their venture strategy, and sustainability metrics that they will use to gauge the performance of their ventures specifically against the sustainability aspects of the solution. This paper will present more details of the activities conducted in the class, a description of the student outcomes and how well they were achieved and plans on further developing the course based on student feedback.

Design briefs defined by user groups and their development into prototypes or demonstrators follows well established methodologies in both academia an industry. However, the infusion of an environmental context is yet to be fully established. It is critically important that this objective is achieved, so that the products developed promote positive environmental sustenance, follow processes that identify materials that are sourced from the most ecologically appropriate sources, follow a design methodology that leads to a set of candidate solutions that are all in one way or another environmentally sound, and finally the inclusion of an ‘end of life’ path which directly identifies re-usability or safe biodegradability. This paper surveys the approaches Higher Education Institutions have taken in embedding environmentally conscious design tools, particularly related to electronics, into their students’ curricula, and an informal audit as to how well their approaches engender sustainability of engineering and design consciousness in their graduates. The paper draws on engineering, design, creativity, materials selection, innovation, product and industrial design in relation to electronics, in an otherwise broad sense. The paper also highlights examples of this approach at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, within the Irish context of environmental policy.

The world is becoming increasingly urbanized. Municipal, metropolitan, regional and national governments, companies, international organizations, financiers, technology developers and civil society across the globe are faced with increasingly complex problems to transform the potential challenge of rapid urbanization into an opportunity to foster development and prosperity in societies. Cities are under immense pressure to address environmental sustainability issues. In addition, utilizing the potential of technologies and innovations, often under the label of Smart City initiatives, to enhance the performance in terms of efficiency, resilience and sustainability has become an important priority on many cities' agendas. In this complex urban context, infrastructures, which are best conceptualized as complex socio-technical systems, play a crucial role in attaining the desired performance for cities. Governance of urban infrastructures plays a pivotal role in enabling cities to deliver quality services to citizens. Addressing complex problems associated with governance of large urban infrastructures calls for a genuine holistic-multidisciplinary approach. However, literature shows that urban practitioners (both in the public and private sector) seldom approach complex urban problems from such a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective, and technical and discipline-specific approaches continue to prevail. The current literature also highlights the important role that professional training can play in helping urban practitioners to adopt such a perspective. Yet, only a limited number of studies have attempted to shed light on the challenges associated with training urban practitioners to adopt a holistic perspective; even fewer studies go on to propose effective strategies for dealing with those challenges in practice. This thesis precisely sheds light on this understudied domain of research. Action Research is used as the research methodology in this thesis. A full-scale Executive Master program on innovative governance of large urban systems (IGLUS) was developed and served as the empirical context of the research. The thesis reports the processes undertaken for the design, implementation, and continuous evaluation of the IGLUS Executive Master. Building upon this solid empirical basis, it also provides a systematic and structured illustration of some of the most important challenges associated with training urban practitioners to adopt a more holistic-multidisciplinary perspective to address complex urban problems. Strategies for effectively dealing with these challenges, and ultimately delivering a transformative learning experience, are also proposed. The key findings of this thesis are that critical reflection is instrumental to developing meaningful learning experiences for adult learners. Developing and using conceptual frameworks can serve as an invaluable pedagogical exercise; supporting the meaning-making processes for both the educators and learners. Helping adults to effectively engage in critical reflection in and on their actions is absolutely essential, but is an inherently complex and delicate task. Thus, delivering a learning experience on the basis of promoting critical reflection requires a genuinely innovative, reflective and comprehensive approach towards the design and delivery of the training programs; in these settings knowledgeable, dedicated and creative program managers and educators play a pivotal role.