Project proposal Bright Minds Assistantships February 2022
Transdisciplinary and challenge-based education: developing the Capstone for a European University
Department: Sustainable Development Research group: Environmental Governance
Supervisor: Dr. Marjanneke Vijge / Dr. Carole-Anne Sénit Email address: m.j.vijge@uu.nl / c.a.senit@uu.nl
Project description
Utrecht University is involved in the CHARM-EU initiative, a model for a CHallenge-driven, Accessible,
Research-based, Mobile European University that aims to ‘Reconcile humanity with the Planet’. CHARM-EU is one of the first newly established European Universities that the European Commission funds since 2019. It is also the first one to set up a European joint degree Master’s programme called ‘Global Challenges for
Sustainability’ (https://www.charm-eu.eu/masters/globalchallenges) that ca. 70 students started in September this year. In this Master’s programme, CHARM-EU pilots a number of highly innovative educational methods, including challenge-based, transdisciplinary learning, hybrid teaching and programmatic assessment. Many of these educational innovations culminate in the final phase of the Master’s programme: the Capstone phase. In this phase, students work in teams on a collaborative thesis project in which students, academic and extra-academic actors identify, investigate and address real-life sustainability challenges. Utrecht University takes the lead in the development and execution of the Capstone, which will start in September 2022 in each of the five universities that are part of CHARM-EU.
As a Bright Minds fellow, you will assist the researchers (Capstone coordinator Marjanneke Vijge, deputy coordinator Carole-Anne Sénit and other colleagues from the five universities) with the further development of the Capstone. This will include the following tasks:
• Assisting us with creating an overview of the current state of the art of Capstone projects at UU and beyond;
• Assisting us with data collection and analysis on good practices and lessons learned in Capstone projects;
• Conducting interviews with extra-academic actors that are interested in the Capstone to gather information about their needs and wishes with regard to their involvement, in particular around the specific sustainability challenges; the possible Capstone products/outputs; the networking
opportunities; and opportunities to gain from and/or contribute to (professional) education.
The activities listed above should directly feed into the further development of the Capstone, in particular the further development of criteria for Capstone challenges; ToRs for extra-academic actors; specific educational activities that can be part of the Capstone; (assessment of) Capstone products; etc. You would be appointed as assistant on this project for a pre-specified period, with the possibility to start as soon as possible. We foresee that the most common research activities would be desk research, in-depth interviews and participating in (online) Capstone coordinators meetings, next to regular exchange with the supervisors. In case COVID-19 continues to pose restrictions to face-to-face meetings, the research activities can easily be shifted online without leading to major problems or delays.
Project proposal Bright Minds Assistantships February 2022
Job requirements
To conduct the above-mentioned research activities successfully, you need to be a student with a clear social science profile (e.g. Human Geography; Sustainable Development, track Earth System Governance or
International Development Studies). Of course, you should have an interest in transdisciplinary education and educational innovation and be willing to study these academically. In view of the explorative nature of the research activities, we need someone with a high degree of curiosity who is willing to reach out to people and organizations within and outside UU to learn more.
