Transforming engineering education for a sustainable industry of the future
This initiative is led by the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW), Stuttgart campus, and focuses on the thematic areas of skills and internationalisation. The EFEU (Emission Free European Universities) project addresses the need to prepare students in traditional engineering disciplines for a sustainable industry of the future.
Although many universities have introduced general sustainability strategies or focused modules, the project highlighted that students often still lack the necessary sustainability awareness and skills. The core aim of EFEU is to provide solutions for integrating these essential sustainability skills into teaching through innovative formats. This involves sharing approaches to redesigning teaching and learning activities to close skills gaps and improve the sustainability competencies of both students and staff. The ultimate goal is to enable students to develop and implement sustainable and people-centred ideas and solutions in the context of accelerated climate change.
The initiative itself is an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships co-funded project. It is coordinated by DHBW and involves a consortium of international partners: Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (FI), Polytechnic of Leiria (PT), and Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France (FR).
Results and impact
EFEU has successfully developed and implemented several tangible outputs designed to integrate Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into engineering curricula. Specifically, four parts in their strategy stand out:
- Gamification-based ESD teaching activities
- Challenge-based learning ESD teaching activities
- Co-created ESD teaching units
The long-term impact is enhanced by the project’s commitment to transferability. All deliverables are accessible and downloadable for implementation and adaptation by other institutions.
Lessons learned
The EFEU project demonstrates that a strong commitment of project partners and shared efforts leads to the successful co-creation, implementation, piloting, and evaluation of outcomes. The consortium collaborated in an excellent way, with specific collaborative highlights including the conducted EFEU Summer School (May 2025 in Stuttgart) and the EFEU BIP “Decarbonising Industry” with Glaxo Smith Kline (June 2025 in Valenciennes).
Despite these successes, the project faced challenges, notably a cyberattack on one of the participating universities at the beginning of the project, which severely restricted collaboration. Furthermore, the asynchronous nature of various semester breaks repeatedly slowed down or interrupted the highly dynamic collaboration among the international partners. For successful transferability, a key lesson learned was ensuring that all deliverables are accessible and downloadable for implementation and adaptation by other institutions.
Learn more
More information about the EFEU project can be found on its website or LinkedIn account.
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