Innovation, Gender and Sustainable Development: Follow-up of the conditions for teaching

The distance course Innovation, Gender and Sustainable Development has since 2010 been part of Luleå University of Technology's range of freestanding courses. The course is at first-cycle level, comprises 7.5 credits and is given at quarter-speed once per academic year.

For many years, the first course task has involved searching for definitions of "sustainable development" and "innovation" on the Internet. In the assignment description, it has been emphasized that the students are not expected to agree with everything in all definitions they collect, but encouraged to include a wide range of different definitions, for example also humorous, negative and ironic ones.

As part of ongoing course development, Maria Udén, Professor of Gender and Technology at the research subject Design, is now conducting a study to see if and how the selection of definitions has changed during the years 2016 to 2024. The aim is to create a picture of the conditions for teaching about the subject of the course. The study will result in a research article.

The study is motivated by public interest (to maintain the quality of teaching). The investigation concerns how definitions occur longitudinally year-by-year. The work of individual students is not traced, all results are aggregated. Definitions may origin, for example, from material that the United Nations, the governments of various nations, the World Bank, associations and organizations, bloggers, activists, researchers and entrepreneurs, news agencies, etc., have posted publicly on the Internet. No quotes from original text written by individual students will be communicated.

The study is carried out by Maria Udén and in the research article, Professor Mohammed-Aminu Sanda and Senior Lecturer Rufai Haruna Kilu, who have both contributed to the course and its implementation, will participate as co-authors. Both are currently active in Ghana (University of Ghana and University of Professional Studies, Accra, respectively) and obtained their PhD degrees at Luleå University of Technology.