How to train the leaders of tomorrow’s sustainable cities

Today’s cities need leaders and managers in all departments who are experienced in the latest knowledge and best practice about sustainability and the built environment, democracy and how technology can help create a inclusive communities. But they are thin on the ground.

Educational institutions need to be training the leaders and managers of tomorrow with the skills necessary to successfully manage our burgeoning urban environments and their vast ecological footprints. But where are the training materials to be found?

Europe is rising to these challenges with an educational program that began last December. It is called ESSENCE, will last for three years, and its purpose is to promote the development of sustainable cities through international cooperation.

It is a pilot Erasmus+ project, involving the collaboration of five universities: Germany’s Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Holland, Turku University of Applied Sciences in Finland, the Universitat Polytècnica de València in Spain, and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in the UK.

It is intended to encourage the development of smart sustainable cities through the creation of an international course with particular attention given to blended learning, the use of creative tools in lessons, interdisciplinarity and entrepreneurship.

MMU is to host a five day ‘start up bootcamp, bringing together students from across the European partners to develop their skills in enterprise and entrepreneurship against the background of a smart sustainable city.

ESSENCE stands for a European Sustainable Solutions for Existing New and City Environments. According to Prof. Dr. Johan Versendaal, after the end of three years it is expected that a multidisciplinary educational programme will have been developed that will incorporate a viable solution for the challenges and threats that are occurring in urban areas that will utilise novel and innovative learning techniques, including e-learning.

Another partner is CARPE (Consortium on Applied Research and Professional Education), which works in the field of Applied Sciences in Europe and aims to connect and research with the European regions to increase the social and economic value of the knowledge that they create.

Special attention is to be paid to entrepreneurship and the encouragement of students to develop start-ups. Young professionals are going to be trained to be able to contribute to achieving sustainable cities.

Special features include:

• (Inter)Regional dimension and cooperation
• Environment & climate change
• New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses.

Students are expected to be not only young people and apprentices, but experts, specialists, professionals from municipalities, SMEs and incubator facilities, decision-makers and officials as well as researchers and teaching staff.

All teaching material will be put on an electronic learning environment, although face-to-face in teaching is incorporated also. Video conferencing and social media plus live streaming will all be features of this blended learning programme. The infrastructure for this will be developed from Utrecht’s Open Educational Resources Department.

In the first year the challenges for developing sustainable cities will be discussed in detail and staff will be trained in the use of innovative teaching approaches. There will be a conference later in the year on blended learning in Valencia.

Course material will be developed in the second year for a joint programme of 30 ECTS will be completed, and an international Start-Up competition for students on Entrepreneurship will be organized. Staff will be trained in creative solution searching, and a conference on Creativity and Smart Sustainable Cities will be organized in Turku (Finland).

In the final year the joint course programme will be tried out in Utrecht and there will be an international student Sustainable City competition plus a conference on viable solutions for a sustainable city environment.

This article is published in collaboration with Sustainable Cities Collective. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: David Thorpe is a Special Consultant for Sustainable Cities Collective.

Image: A silhouette of students taking their seats for the diploma ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge is shown. REUTERS/Brian Snyder.