Sustainability is one of the pillars of DTU's strategy and this also rubs off on the university's 1,760 PhDs. While most of the work on the 3-year PhD project takes place in the academic environments at DTU's departments and centres, all PhDs must also meet for mandatory courses across academic disciplines.
One of the courses is called 'Sustainability evaluation and communication'. Over five days, students are introduced to putting their project into a sustainability framework and are trained to communicate this to the public.
There's a good reason why DTU prioritizes interdisciplinary courses, such as the one on sustainability and communication, Provost Rasmus Larsen, who is responsible for the PhD school, emphazises. The courses help to place the in-depth expertise in a broader societal perspective:
"The discoveries and innovative ideas generated by research at DTU only have real value when they contribute to positive change for people and society. We believe that being able to assess the potential sustainability of projects is central to an engineer's work," he says.
As the sustainability agenda has evolved, the sustainability evaluation and communication course content has continuously changed:
"Sustainability is the most important agenda of our generation, which is why we address sustainability in all our activities. We need to be able to communicate and apply our knowledge to mitigate climate change and the biodiversity, natural resource and environmental toxicity crises that are developing," says Rasmus Larsen.
Broad competencies
In the course 'Sustainability and Communication', PhDs are encouraged to give a presentation at a high school or similar educational institution. In addition, they learn to communicate their results scientifically and to teach through other courses and programmes, as teaching is regarded an important way to bring your knowledge into play.
When the sum of these 'broader competencies' is combined with the PhD project in the academic environment, it creates the integrated, competence-heavy and attractive PhDs that DTU is known for, explains Rasmus Larsen. This means that you cannot down-prioritise or opt out of parts of the PhD programme, as you will then not obtain the competencies that industry demands, and society needs. Furthermore, there is great value in meeting across disciplines and departments, he says:
"Most researchers will work with a broader portfolio and closely with other disciplines. Therefore, as part of your research programme, you need to be familiar with the research across DTU and know about other academic disciplines and research methods," he explains.
DTU has had the Sustainability evaluation and communication course since 2019.
