Technology for Sustainable Development (MSc)

The certificate programme is relevant for students who want to contribute to socially and environmentally sustainable development, whether at home or abroad. Negative impacts from conventional economic modernization strategies are becoming ever more obvious and they require urgent action, by people working in government, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations alike. These organisations are looking increasingly to hire young people with initiative and drive who have the awareness and the skills to work towards achieving a transition towards more sustainable development. There is a special role for technical specialists who are well aware of the methods for integrating sustainability aspects in the research and design processes in their own field of expertise.

This MSc certificate equips students for a career in this domain. It takes an international perspective.  In today’s world, the required expertise of engineers working for multinationals, non-governmental organisations, engineering consultancy companies, social enterprises, or international institutions keeps expanding geographically, embracing emerging economies, former Eastern European countries, and poor countries in Africa. There is a growing demand for scientists and engineers who have awareness of how sustainability problems play out in different socio-economic and cultural environments, and who have the skills to address these problems in diverse settings and perform well in multidisciplinary project teams.

Students who choose certain courses and projects in the field of sustainability and environment for a total of 20 ECTS will receive the TSD/MSc certificate together with their Master of Science diploma. With the certificate the TU/e declares that the owners are also experts of sustainable development within their field of expertise.

The TSD/MSc certificate shows that you:

• are familiar with, and can reflect on the key environmental and social challenges that are occurring in a variety of socio-economic and cultural contexts, and understand their major causes and impacts
• can identify important environmental and social exclusion problems and major research areas within your own field of expertise concerning sustainable technology;
• are aware about common limitations of science & engineering-driven “solutions” for sustainability problems, and know how to avoid such dead ends;
• have mastered sound management approaches for working towards the solution of these challenges in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, such as participative stakeholder governance and responsible innovation;
• are capable of integrating aspects of environment and social inclusiveness in innovation design processes in your own field of expertise;
• recognize the multidisciplinary character of sustainable technology;
• are capable of working in multidisciplinary teams.

Component 1 (10 ECTS):

Choose at least two of the following four courses:

Component 2 (5 ECTS):

Other suitable courses are:

Component 3 (5 ECTS):

One of the courses should take the form of a project, which will count for 5 ECTS towards the certificate requirements. The type of project that can be undertaken is flexible, as long as the orientation is clearly on social and/or environmental sustainability. Suitable projects can be an MSc internship or an MSc thesis project. Courses 7XC2M0 Circularity Research a/o Design Project or 1CM170 Sustainable Supply Chains also offer opportunities for a project application.

When a student meets the certificate requirements, he/she could contact the TSD certificate coordinator at Jonas Van der Straeten and submit a digital printout from Osiris on which the TSD eligible courses are highlighted. The coordinator checks if all requirements have been met and requests the education administration of IE&IS to generate the certificate.

Want to know more? Contact Jonas Van der Straeten via the contact form below.