Resilience in Engineering Education

Competencies for Designing Resilient Systems in Engineering Education

In an increasingly complex world, which is also described as a “VUCA world” (Volatile – Uncertain – Complex – Ambiguous), the perception of risks and the handling of hazards become more and more relevant. Given the rising frequency of environmental and natural disasters, it seems obvious that dealing with them is of particular relevance. As addressed in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), sustainable, innovative and resilient approaches and infrastructure are required in order to adapt to climate change and do develop a holistic disaster risk management. Especially concerning infrastructure planning and design, engineers are jointly-responsible for the development of adaptive approaches.

This requires competencies that are characterized in terms of resilience such as dealing with uncertainty and complexity or systems thinking. Therefore, as part of this research, it will be examined to what extent these topics are addressed and discussed in both engineering educational research and practice and how future engineers can acquire competencies for designing resilient systems.

For this purpose, the research is based on a qualitative approach, addressing three overall research questions: How far are resilience-related competencies addressed and discussed in Engineering Education Research (EER)? How far are resilience-related competencies represented in engineering curricula? And what teaching and learning methods are useful to teach resilience-related competencies?

To answer these questions, a systematic literature review of world-wide EER publications is performed and environmental-related engineering programs of the IDEA League universities, which form a central element of the scientific community for engineering education in Europe, are analyzed.

Finally, implications for resilience-related competencies of engineers in curricula will be formulated.

Keywords

System Resilience, Engineering Education, Competencies, Infrastructure, Adaptive Management