World Student Community for Sustainable Development

Course Dates: 1-14 August, 2010

Location: Karlskrona, Sweden

Course Language: The course will be given in English (and therefore requires proficiency in English.  See ‘Application Details’ below for further details).

Target Audience: This course is aimed at graduate students ( PhD-level) and young university teachers (under 35). 25 of the possible 40 seats are reserved for students who are both within this target audience AND come from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. The additional 15 of the 40 seats can be filled by applicants from any other country, but within the target audience.

The challenges and opportunities of sustainable development…

The results of unsustainable human development are evident worldwide – climate change, species extinction, pollution, poverty, and inequality are deteriorating our capacity to sustain our ways of life. People want to do good things and act to positively impact their surroundings, but often do not have an effective way to plan, or feel disempowered to make changes. Human society needs more effective ways of using our skills and resources to create positive change in our communities and the world.

This summer school course will take a systems perspective to help students identify the areas where we need to be strategic in our planning and actions for sustainability. The course curriculum will provide participants with a common language to facilitate the sharing and exchanging of ideas. The course will not focus on the details of any particular discipline, but instead will build on the knowledge that participants from a variety of disciplines and countries bring to the course from their particular area of study.  Each participant will be asked to share their perspective with other participants. The learning opportunities during this summer school will come as much from course participants’ peers as from the curriculum and instructors.

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to help participants consider current sustainability challenges using a whole-systems view.  The course focuses on a transdisciplinary approach to deal with the sustainability challenge of meeting our society’s needs, both today and into the future.  The course will also help students connect to others who are working in similar fields, or who have similar goals but come from different fields of studies. Students will be encouraged to work together, both during the course as well as after the course to support and assist one another in their respective work.

Goals

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Understand and communicate the relevance and power of whole-systems thinking, and how this might relate to planning for sustainability, and business planning, research, or education in general
• Understand and be able to describe a model of nine universal human needs, and the interrelationships between human needs, wants, satisfiers, and poverties
• Describe the flawed interpretations and trends about sustainability
• Define a framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD), consisting of:
  • A generic framework for planning and decision-making for success in any system.
  • Basic principles for socio-ecological sustainability, including their derivation, and their general characteristics of principles used for backcasting.
  • Scientific foundations used to derive the basic principles (e.g. laws of thermodynamics, energy, entropy, photosynthesis, biogeochemical cycles, interdependency of species, system dynamics, cyclic principle and biogeochemical cycles) of ecological sustainability. Nature’s ‘economy’.
  • An approach to planning called backcasting where first success is defined and then steps are taken to achieve it.
  • The ABCD Methodology - To begin (A) understanding how to apply Backcasting from Principles as an intellectual game/metaphor for analyses of (B) current practices and (C) solutions/visions and (D) prioritized actions to create a strategy to achieve success.
  • Apply hosting technologies for interactive ways of working with groups and teams and sharing core concepts of SSD
  • Understand and identify how their background and expertise can be strategically used to help move societies in a more sustainable direction;
  • Carry out a final project to  practice and gain experience conveying concepts and techniques discussed in the course to make a compelling case for sustainable development in their respective fields
  • Share ideas and discuss common aspects related to leadership for sustainability

The course will also help participants develop leadership skills to take forward to their work and help them transition their ideas into action.

Course Description

The focus of the course will be on strategic sustainable development and its applications in the Baltic Sea region.  Curriculum will emphasize the interconnectedness of climate and environmental issues, energy, and human-environment interactions. It will also incorporate aspects of social sustainability, including social cohesion, regional development, and policy objectives.

The first week of the course will be delivered in a non-traditional educational setting.  It will be hosted at Mundekulla Retreat Center near Emmaboda, Sweden in order to offer students opportunities to also learn about Swedish culture. The second week of the course will be hosted on the BTH campus in Karlskrona, Sweden (see Host Location Information below for more details about the two locations). Learning methods will emphasize hands-on learning, and will include:

• Introductory lectures to introduce relevant topics;
• Facilitated discussion with peers to further explore the topic; and
• Collaborative group work during which participants will explore and apply ideas introduced in lectures and discussions to specific situations.
• Group projects

Schedule

There will be an estimated 30 hours of lecture, workshop, seminar, or small-group work time each week. Group assignments will be marked and constructive feedback given to all students.

Sunday: Participants arrive at Mundekulla Course and Retreat Center and check into housing.

Mon – Fri (Week 1): Daily workshops, lectures, course work, student-led presentations.

Saturday – Sunday: Saturday morning: Travel to Karlskrona and check into housing. Saturday afternoon – Sunday evening: Free time (suggested cultural activities include local music, museums, ferry tour of the archipelago, barbecue, etc.).

Mon – Fri (Week 2): Workshops, lectures, course work, student-led presentations, cultural activities, course wrap-up and evaluation, closing dinner.

Saturday: Participants depart Karlskrona.

Host Location Information

The first week of the course will be hosted at Mundekulla Course and Retreat Center is located in southeastern Sweden, 60 kilometers from Karlskrona, just 10 southwest of the city of Emmaboda. The facility is built on ecological principles. The main building is a carefully restored house from the 1820s. The property includes 8 hectares of meadows in a varied and beautiful landscape, with open fields, natural ponds and foot paths, surrounded by old cultured forests.

The second week of the course will be hosted at BTH’s Campus Gräsvik, in the city of Karlskrona, the capital of Region Blekinge in the south of Sweden. The city is situated on an archipelago and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its unique naval heritage.

Karlskrona abounds with cultural buildings and its beautiful natural setting makes it a tourist destination in summer, with regular ferries through the archipelago. The island setting means there is good access to beaches and bathing areas, and water sports such as sailing, kayaking, and canoeing are popular.

With its 60,000 inhabitants, Karlskrona is large enough to give you necessary conveniences and small enough to provide an intimate and idyllic setting for learning.

Tuition and Costs

• Tuition, learning materials, food, lodging (in shared rooms with 2-4 people), and transportation costs (travel costs are covered up to 3 000 SEK) are fully covered by the Swedish Institute for a maximum of 25 students from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.
• Students participating in the course from other countries will be responsible for the cost of their food, lodging, transportation, and the textbook. Total cost (not including your main travel to the event, but including most food, lodging, and the course itself) is estimated to be 950-1200 Euro.  Further details can be provided if you contact us at treva.wetherell@bth.se.

Applications Open:  Monday, 1 March – Thursday, 15 April, 2010

Notification of Acceptance: Saturday, 15 May, 2010

Arrival date: Sunday, August 1, 2010

Departure date: Saturday, August 14, 2010

Applications will open on: Monday, March 15, 2010

Application Deadline: April 15, 2010

Before applying, please read all instructions below.

All applications must be sent by e-mail to treva.wetherell@bth.se and include all of the information outlined below by April 15, 2010.

Required Documents

• Summer School Application – Download and fill out the application form which includes the following information: your full name, permanent contact address, e-mail address, telephone number, passport number. The application form also includes space for you to provide a brief essay about your background and why you are interested in the program.

• University graduation certificate (Bachelors degree or higher education) – Copies of certificates and diplomas confirming that you have been awarded a Bachelor’s degree (Scanned pdf versions are acceptable) from an internationally recognized university. Your university must be listed in the latest edition of the International Handbook of Universities.(external site, new window)

• University transcripts of completed courses and grades (including course list), i.e. subjects from each semester containing marks/grades (Scanned copies (pdf) are acceptable).
• Identification – A scanned copy of the page in your passport with your personal data and photograph, or some other identification document
• Curriculum Vitae (Resume) (Maximum 2 pages, 12 point font)
• IMPORTANT NOTE ON the Necessary English language skills – You are not required to submit official scoring reports, but we do wish to be clear that you need to be able to work in English to be successful in this training. This is typically gained from having previous education or career work in which English is the primary language spoken. The following areuseful indicators if you have already taken an English test: a minimum TOEFL score of 550 (or a minimum score of 213 for a computer-based test; or a minimum score of 79 for an internet-based test);  OR a minimum IELTS scores of 6.0 and at least 5.0 in each of the four modules.

BTH will advise all successful applications by Saturday, May 15, 2010.

For further questions contact Treva Wetherell at treva.wetherell@bth.se