• Energy Research

The interactions between the higher education sector and society and industry have been attracting increased attention in terms of ways to develop social innovation solutions to societal problems. Despite calls from politicians and the existence of some guidelines, we know little about how higher education could incorporate social innovation activities into its structure and missions. This study examines some practice experiences in two southern European public universities in Portugal and Spain. We show that the third mission of universities, which includes social innovation, is both linked to the first two missions of teaching and research, depending on the university’s historical and social context. The high dependence of higher education institutions on economic returns increases the importance of political action to drive the development of social innovation activities. This conditioning factor seems to be intrinsic to some of the barriers that have been identified, such as lack of legitimization and recognition of social innovation practices at the formal governmental level.

This paper analyzes students’ perceptions of how teaching-learning methods influence the promotion of higher education students’ social innovation competencies based on a sustainability framework. We focus our analysis on Spain using ‘Spanish Universities Involvement in Social Innovation Activities’ (SUISIA) data, collected in 2021. For the long list of 19 competencies available in our sample of 349 students, we identify those competencies associated with social innovation and categorize them as organizational, entrepreneurial and collaborative. We then employ different statistical models to identify which teaching-learning methods facilitate the development of social innovation competencies. We also consider variables such as student characteristics and field of study program. Our results suggest a lack of implementation of active teaching-learning approaches which leads to poor development of organizational, entrepreneurial and collaborative competencies, particularly in engineering studies in comparison to other disciplines. This suggests a gap between higher education and society’s demands in students’ preparation for and engagement in a complex and dynamic future aimed at achieving the sustainable development goals outlined in Agenda 2030. This research is funded by the National R&D Program of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, grant number RTI2018-101722-B-I00 Spanish Universities Involvement in Social Innovation Activities (SUISIA). Peer reviewed

The aim of this paper is to provide insights into the appropriateness of teaching-learning and evaluation processes using rubrics, for student self-assessments. We studied students enrolled on the Master’s in Secondary Education Teaching—Music Specialism course. In the Spanish secondary education system, music is seen as increasing equity and improving student performance in line with the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The training of new teachers and the ongoing professional development of the current teaching force are critical for improving the quality of education. We adopted an action-research approach and obtained feedback from the Masters’ students via questionnaires administered at the start and end of the process (pre- and post-test). Our results show that using rubrics as formative and shared assessment tools has a positive influence on students’ perceptions of their acquisition of both transversal and specific competencies, as well as demonstrating the utility of rubrics for their future professional practice. However, rubrics on their own are not sufficient to increase the facility for learning and awareness among students.