Abstract
Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) is developing education for sustainable development (ESD) as a strategic issue and based on a sound methodology, in contrast to a one-off effort as most fashionable short term projects and pick and mix approaches. Thereby MUAS follows a long term development path to incorporate sustainability across all areas and fields of action. This overall incorporation of sustainability as an integral part in MUAS is exactly what the UN Global Action Program calls “whole institution approach”, highlighted and emphasized in priority action area 2 (UNESCO 2014). Further to a number of measures already taken and launched in MUAS, the central questions around ESD are: Which approaches may offer proper teaching and learning settings to make sustainability actually work? How to implement ESD into academic curricula, informal learning opportunities in students’ day life, and local urban environments? The sound methodology used to investigate the totality of realizations of ESD implementations and to identify the proper ones for MUAS is the morphological box. It provides a powerful heuristic tool for creative problem solving, particularly applied to explore all realizations of multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable phenomena—like ESD. As a result, the morphological box delivers a systematic overview, covering all possible ways with hundreds of different options and various opportunities on how ESD could be realized in the light of relevant attributes in the field of ESD (Isenmann and Zinn 2015). With the help of the morphological box the full range of options and opportunities to make ESD actually work could be illustrated in detail, so that any university—or any other educational institution—may find its customized profile of ESD courses. To describe ease of use of the morphological box, the full range of opportunities to make ESD actually work is illustrated along the four different approaches of x-disciplinarity (Isenmann 1999; Isenmann and Zollner 2014)—i.e. monodisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. Each approach is described through corresponding ESD course formats at MUAS. Further, the overall inter- and intra-organizational embeddedness of sustainability in MUAS is pointed out.
The original version of this chapter was revised: The author’s proof corrections have been carried out. The updated version of this chapter is available at 10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_32
An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_32
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bergmann, M., Brohmann, B., Hoffmann, E., Loibl, M. C., Rehaag, R., Schramm, E., et al. (2005). Quality criteria of transdisciplinary research. A guide for the formative evaluation of research projects. Frankfurt/M.: Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE).
Beynaghi, A., Moztarzadeh, F., Maknoon, R., Waas, T., Mozafari, M., Huge, J., et al. (2014). Towards an orientation of higher education in the post Rio +20 process: How is the game changing? Futures 63, 49–67.
Defila, R., & Di Giulio, A. (1998). Interdisziplinarität und Disziplinarität. In J. H. Olbertz (Ed.), Zwischen den Fächern – über den Dingen? Universalisierung versus Spezialisierung akademischer Bildung (pp. 111–137). Opladen: Leske und Budrich.
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). (2015). Ideen für die Stadt der Zukunft. Available online http://www.bmbf.de/de. Accessed February 15, 2015.
Funtowicz, S., & Ravetz, J. (1993). Science for the post-normal age. Futures, 25(7), 735–755.
Fraunhofer. (2014). Morgenstadt city labs. Accelerating the sustainable development of cities. Study prepared by A. Radecki. Stuttgart: Fraunhofer-Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO.
Gonçalves, F. J., Pereira, R., Leal Filho, W., & Miranda Azeiteiro, U. (Eds.) (2012). Contributions to the UN decade of education for sustainable development (Vol. 33). Environmental education, communication and sustainability. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.
Heckhausen, H. (1972). Discipline and Interdisciplinarity. In L. Aposter, G. Berger, A. Briggs & G. Michaud (Eds.), Interdisciplinarity. Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Isenmann, R. (1999). Interdisziplinarität: verstehen – verantworten – gestalten. In W.-D. Hutter (Ed.), Interdisziplinarität. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen fächerübergreifender Lehre und Forschung (pp. 17–43). Trier: Institut fächerübergreifenden Studierens und Forschens (LfSF).
Isenmann, R. (2008). Sustainable information society. In M. Quigley (Ed.), Encyclopedia of information ethics and security (pp. 622–630). Hershey (PA): IGI Global.
Isenmann, R. (2013). Eine Professur für eine nachhaltige Hochschule. Interview mit Prof. Dr. Ralf Isenmann, Inhaber der Professur für nachhaltiges Zukunftsmanagement an der Hochschule München. Hochschulen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung. Ideen zur Institutionalisierung und Implementierung (pp. 22–23). Deutsche-UNESCO-Kommission. Bonn: VAS.
Isenmann, R., & Zinn, S. (2015). Morphological box for education on sustainable development—approach and examples at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. In V. Dermol, A. Trunk, & M. Smrkolj. (Eds.), Managing intellectual capital and innovation for sustainable and inclusive society: Proceedings of the Make Learn and TIIM Joint International Conference, 27–29 May 2015, Bari, Italy. Bangkok et al.: ToKnowPress. Available online http://www.toknowpress.net/ISBN/978-961-6914-13-0/MakeLearn2015.pdf. Accessed June 03, 2015.
Isenmann, R., & Zollner, G. (2014). Nachhaltigkeit in der x-disziplinären Lehre. Beispiele zum Einbezug von Nachhaltigkeitsthemen in die Betriebswirtschaftslehre mit Erfahrungen an der Hochschule München. In C. Schier, & E. Schwinger (Eds.), Interdisziplinarität und Transdisziplinarität als Herausforderung akademischer Bildung. Innovative Konzepte für die Lehre an Hochschulen und Universitäten (pp. 123–137). Bielefeld: Transcript.
Jahn, T., Bergmann, M., & Keil, F. (2012). Transdisciplinarity: Between mainstreaming and marginalization. Ecological Economics, 79, 1–10.
Jandrić, P. (2014). Research methods are made by questioning: The postdisciplinary challenge of networked learning. In S. Bayne, C. Jones, M. de Laat, T. Ryberg, & C. Sinclair, C. (Eds.), Book of selected papers from the Networked Learning 2014 conference (pp. 162–169). New York: Springer.
Landeshauptstadt München. (2013). PERSPEKTIVE MÜNCHEN – Fortschreibung 2012. Ergebnisse der Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung. Leitmotiv, strategische Leitlinien. Landeshauptstadt München. Referat für Stadtplanung und Bauordnung. Available online www.muenchen.de. Accessed January 24, 2015.
Leal Filho, W. (Ed.) (2009). Sustainability at universities—opportunities, challenges and trends (Vol. 31). Environmental education, communication and sustainability. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.
Leal Filho, W. (Ed.) (2011). World trends in education for sustainable development (Vol. 32). Environmental education, communication and sustainability. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.
Leal Filho, W. (Ed.) (2012). Sustainable development at universities: New horizons (Vol. 34). Environmental education, communication and sustainability. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.
Müller-Merbach, H. (1976). The use of morphological techniques for OR-approaches to problems. In Operations Research ’75 (pp. 127–139). Amsterdam, New York, Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Company.
Nationale Plattform Zukunftsstadt (NPZ). (2014). NPZ-Konferenz –Session 11: Reallabore für Forschung und Umsetzung. Available online http://www.nationale-plattform-zukunftsstadt.de. Accessed February 14, 2015.
Rat für Nachhaltige Entwicklung (RNE). (2014). Ergebniszusammenfassung der RNE-Bildungskonferenz “Vom Piloten zum Standard: Nachhaltigkeit in Forschung, Lehre und Betrieb implementieren”. Available online www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de. Accessed January 26, 2015.
Reichert, S., Winde, M., & Meyer-Guckel, V. (2012). Jenseits der Fakultäten. Hochschuldifferenzierung durch neue Organisationseinheiten für Forschung und Lehre. Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft.
Ritchey, T. (2013). General morphological analysis. A general method for non-quantified modelling. Available online www.swemorph.com. Access January 15, 2016.
Schneidewind, U. (2014). Urbane Reallabore – ein Blick in die aktuelle Forschungswerkstatt. pnd|online III: (pp. 1–7). Available online www.planung-neu-denken.de. Accessed February 14, 2015.
Scholz, R., Lang, D., Wiek, A., Walter, A., & Stauffacher, M. (2006). Transdisciplinary case studies as a means of sustainability learning. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 7(3), 226–251.
Starik, M., et al. (Eds.) (2010). Academy of management learning and education. Special Issue: Sustainability in Management Education 9(3).
Sukopp, T. (2013). Interdisziplinarität und Transdisziplinarität. Definitionen und Konzepte. In M. Jungert, E. Romfeld, T. Sukopp, & U. Voigt (Eds.), Interdisziplinarität. Theorie, Praxis, Probleme (pp. 13–30). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Thomson Klein, J. (2012). A taxonomy of interdisciplinarity. In R. Frodelman, J. Thompson, & C. Mitcham (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity (pp. 15–30). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2014). UNESCO Roadmap for implementing the global action programme on education for sustainable development. Paris: UNESCO.
University Educators for Sustainable Development (UE4SD). (2014). Mapping opportunities for professional development of university educators in education for sustainable development: A state of the art report across 33 UE4SD partner countries. In M. Mader, D. Tilbury, J. Dlouhá, J. Benayas, G. Michelsen, C. Mader, et al. (Eds.), Cheltenham: University of Gloucestershire.
Zwicky, F. (1969). Discovery, invention, research—through the morphological approach. Toronto: The Macmillan Company.
Zwicky, F., & Wilson, A. (Eds.). (1967). New methods of thought and procedure: Contributions to the symposium on methodologies. Berlin: Springer.
Acknowledgments
This contribution is an outcome of the project: “Für die Zukunft gerüstet” (German, Future proof), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), grant no. 01PL11025. This overall support is gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zinn, S., Isenmann, R. (2017). Munich University of Applied Sciences Towards a “Whole Institution Approach”—Illustrations Along x-Disciplinary Perspectives to Education for Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W., Skanavis, C., do Paço, A., Rogers, J., Kuznetsova, O., Castro, P. (eds) Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47888-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47889-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)