In 2015, the UN set 17 global goals, the so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the year 2030, “a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity”. Although these challenges are global, their impact manifests itself on a local level. An inspiring challenge for HU UAS Utrecht is to educate self-confident (upcoming) professionals who contribute to the realization of these global goals by creating local impact. In our opinion such professionals are socially involved, cope with complexity, think systemic and work trans-disciplinary. Furthermore, they ‘mix and match’ personal, societal and professional development, which will not be confined to formal education but lasts a lifetime. This complex challenge forges us to transform our thinking about education and how to organize learning, and about how, where and with whom we educate. UAS’s will have to cooperate with private, public and research partners and create communities in which all participants work, learn and develop themselves while facing new challenges.
De opkomst van Chat GPT laat zien hoe AI ingrijpt in ons dagelijks leven en het onderwijs. Maar AI is meer dan Chat GPT: van zoekmachines tot de gezichtsherkenning in je telefoon: data en algoritmes veranderen de levens van onze studenten en hun toekomstige werkveld. Wat betekent dit voor de opleidingen in het HBO waar voor wij werken? Voor de inspiratie-sessie De maatschappelijke impact van AI tijdens het HU Onderwijsfestival 2023 hebben wij onze collega’s uitgenodigd om samen met ons mee te denken over de recente AI-ontwikkelingen. We keken niet alleen naar de technologie, maar juist ook naar de maatschappelijke impact en wat de kansen en bedreigingen van AI zijn voor een open, rechtvaardige en duurzame samenleving. Het gesprek voerde we met onze collega’s (zowel docenten als medewerkers van de diensten) aan de hand van drie casussen met. De verzamelde resultaten en inzichten van deze gesprekken zijn samengebracht op een speciaal ontwikkelde poster voor de workshop (zie figuur 1). We hebben deze inzichten gebundeld en hieronder zijn ze te lezen.
Higher education has the potential to act as ecosystem catalysts, connecting with the places our institutions which they are a part of, for learning-based changes with wicked (sustainability) challenges. This, however, calls for reorienting and rethinking of the higher educational narratives and subsequent practices towards more ecological and relational ones. In this study, a pilot aimed to connect a course at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands) to an industrial park next to the university which is undergoing transition towards a sustainable living space. The pilot, which ran from September 2020 to February 2021, included 17 students from 9 nationalities and 12 different bachelor programmes, and was designed according to the concepts of an ‘ecology of learning’. In this semester long course, called Mission Impact, students reflected every five-weeks, to capture their learning experiences using a combination of arts-based and narrative reflection methods. Two questions guided the analysis: (1) what are the key design characteristics of an ecological approach to higher education that connects to sustainability transformations (in times of COVID-19) and (2) what does this type of education asks from to learners. The reflective artefacts were analysed using Narratives of T-Mapping and juxtaposed with autoethnographic insights maintained by the first author for triangulation. Preliminary results of this pilot include the structure in chaos, space for transformation, openness for emerging futures & action confidence as components of such an ecological education that connects to and co-creates sustainability transformations.
Due to societal developments, like the introduction of the ‘civil society’, policy stimulating longer living at home and the separation of housing and care, the housing situation of older citizens is a relevant and pressing issue for housing-, governance- and care organizations. The current situation of living with care already benefits from technological advancement. The wide application of technology especially in care homes brings the emergence of a new source of information that becomes invaluable in order to understand how the smart urban environment affects the health of older people. The goal of this proposal is to develop an approach for designing smart neighborhoods, in order to assist and engage older adults living there. This approach will be applied to a neighborhood in Aalst-Waalre which will be developed into a living lab. The research will involve: (1) Insight into social-spatial factors underlying a smart neighborhood; (2) Identifying governance and organizational context; (3) Identifying needs and preferences of the (future) inhabitant; (4) Matching needs & preferences to potential socio-techno-spatial solutions. A mixed methods approach fusing quantitative and qualitative methods towards understanding the impacts of smart environment will be investigated. After 12 months, employing several concepts of urban computing, such as pattern recognition and predictive modelling , using the focus groups from the different organizations as well as primary end-users, and exploring how physiological data can be embedded in data-driven strategies for the enhancement of active ageing in this neighborhood will result in design solutions and strategies for a more care-friendly neighborhood.
Developing a framework that integrates Advanced Language Models into the qualitative research process.Qualitative research, vital for understanding complex phenomena, is often limited by labour-intensive data collection, transcription, and analysis processes. This hinders scalability, accessibility, and efficiency in both academic and industry contexts. As a result, insights are often delayed or incomplete, impacting decision-making, policy development, and innovation. The lack of tools to enhance accuracy and reduce human error exacerbates these challenges, particularly for projects requiring large datasets or quick iterations. Addressing these inefficiencies through AI-driven solutions like AIDA can empower researchers, enhance outcomes, and make qualitative research more inclusive, impactful, and efficient.The AIDA project enhances qualitative research by integrating AI technologies to streamline transcription, coding, and analysis processes. This innovation enables researchers to analyse larger datasets with greater efficiency and accuracy, providing faster and more comprehensive insights. By reducing manual effort and human error, AIDA empowers organisations to make informed decisions and implement evidence-based policies more effectively. Its scalability supports diverse societal and industry applications, from healthcare to market research, fostering innovation and addressing complex challenges. Ultimately, AIDA contributes to improving research quality, accessibility, and societal relevance, driving advancements across multiple sectors.
The pace of technology advancements continues to accelerate, and impacts the nature of systems solutions along with significant effects on involved stakeholders and society. Design and engineering practices with tools and perspectives, need therefore to evolve in accordance to the developments that complex, sociotechnical innovation challenges pose. There is a need for engineers and designers that can utilize fitting methods and tools to fulfill the role of a changemaker. Recognized successful practices include interdisciplinary methods that allow for effective and better contextualized participatory design approaches. However, preliminary research identified challenges in understanding what makes a specific method effective and successfully contextualized in practice, and what key competences are needed for involved designers and engineers to understand and adopt these interdisciplinary methods. In this proposal, case study research is proposed with practitioners to gain insight into what are the key enabling factors for effective interdisciplinary participatory design methods and tools in the specific context of sociotechnical innovation. The involved companies are operating at the intersection between design, technology and societal impact, employing experts who can be considered changemakers, since they are in the lead of creative processes that bring together diverse groups of stakeholders in the process of sociotechnical innovation. A methodology will be developed to capture best practices and understand what makes the deployed methods effective. This methodology and a set of design guidelines for effective interdisciplinary participatory design will be delivered. In turn this will serve as a starting point for a larger design science research project, in which an educational toolkit for effective participatory design for socio-technical innovation will be designed.
