FUTURES: A Project About a Sustainable Future

What is the project about?

This Project on the "A Sustainable Future" course at Uppsala University, a transdisciplinary program tackling global sustainability challenges. The project aims to expand co-teaching, virtual collaboration, and innovative learning across European universities. By integrating gamification, experiential learning, and real-world projects, students will develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The project is a collaboration between Uppsala University, University of Groningen and the University of Tartu. It emphasizes trialing #pioneerteaching, including future thinking, fostering creativity and collaboration to address sustainability issues. Through partnerships, educators and students will exchange knowledge, enhancing teaching innovation and engagement. Ultimately, the goal is to establish an ENLIGHT flagship course in Sustainable Development, promoting cross-border learning and collaboration.

Why is this international collaboration important? 

International collaboration brings an extra dimension to interdisciplinary initiatives. Furthermore, Uppsala already has a minor in Sustainable Development in place, which provides a great opportunity to learn beyond our university. We are all marine biologists and have previously met at conferences and collaborated on papers. We share an interest that goes beyond biology which is well-matched by this project.

What will be the impact of this project?

We plan to develop course elements and trial pioneer teaching methods that address various sustainability topics. These trials will give UG students a unique opportunity to interact with international students (online) from our partner universities. We aim to integrate the course elements we develop in this project into existing bachelor and master courses [and] to develop an ENLIGHT flagship course that can hopefully be integrated in our curriculum. 

UG Coordinator:

Prof. Dr. Laura L. Govers – Marine Conservation Ecology (GELIFES)