CARES: Curriculum Advancements & Rapid Embedding of Sustainability

Dr Aisling O’Gorman; Maria Cullinane

Munster Technological University

40 CARES: Curriculum Advancements & Rapid Embedding of Sustainability

Dr Aisling O’Gorman and Maria Cullinane

Dr Aisling O’Gorman and Maria Cullinane presented CARES, a student–staff collaboration to rapidly embed sustainability into engineering curricula. The project, funded under SATLE, pilots new approaches in Sustainable Energy and Chemical & Biopharmaceutical Engineering, with the goal of scaling across disciplines.

CARES takes a design thinking approach, emphasising co-creation with students. Undergraduate students joined the project team, contributing to curriculum redesign, piloting UNESCO/GreenComp sustainability competencies in modules, and even facilitating a Concern World Café on climate justice and biodiversity alongside students from other disciplines. Their involvement empowered them as both learners and educators, enriching the redesign process with authentic student perspectives.

A major focus has been the redesign of MTU’s common first-year “Creativity, Innovation, Teamwork” module, taken by students across 119 programmes. Students identified which aspects to retain (e.g. teamwork, academic writing, the Business Model Canvas) and proposed ways to embed sustainability more deeply through green competencies, continuous assessment, and project-based work. This ensures sustainability is not just content to “add on” but a thread woven into assessments and teamwork.

CARES also benchmarks against international frameworks like Engineering for One Planet and the UK’s Reimagined Degree Map, adapting them for MTU. By combining staff leadership with student empowerment, the project demonstrates how sustainability can be embedded rapidly and meaningfully in curricula, while modelling the collaborative ethos of ESD itself.