Aims
This module anchors engineering design in social and natural worlds and explores the ways in which the design process intersects with approaches to sustainable, socially responsible innovation.  Students taking this module will develop a good overall understanding of the ways in which technology impacts social and ecological worlds.  It will also give you a set of techniques aimed at probing the social world in ways that enable responsible innovation in your future professional practice.

This IEP Module takes an ‘active’ approach to learning.  Students will work on team projects and engage with a range of internal and external experts who provide the specialist knowledge to underpin a socially and ecologically responsive design process. This module will require all students to participate in weekly on-line seminars and on-campus workshops.   Assessment is by coursework which is split 50:50 between team and individual assignments.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students will be familiar with principles and key techniques used in responsible innovation and engineering design to address complex, or ‘wicked’ real-world problems. This will involve learning about:

 
	how technologies can impact ecological and social worlds
	tools required to negotiate the intersection between engineer and eco-social world
	values both personal, institutional and those that are embedded in technologies
	the key role of interdisciplinary knowledge and practice in designs for sustainability
	principles of stakeholder analysis and the assimilation of multiple perspectives
	creative design practices that are reflexive and eco-socially informed
	how imagined (fictional) futures can support anticipatory thinking
Content

This module integrates the principles of practical engineering design, sustainability and responsible innovation.  The core project centres around the use of technologies in the study and management of nature.  The focus is on biodiversity and issues raised by large predatory mammals in human dominated landscapes. Students will learn about the role of technologies, human values that are assigned to them and to nature; and the ways in which these can impact the sociological and ecological worlds for which they were designed. Students who take this module will learn how to respond to complex engineering design challenges in ways that are technically sound, socially beneficial and sustainable. The module will appeal to students who would like to understand the processes and practices that encourage engineering for a more sustainable world.

 