Integration of Sustainable Development Goals into the Technical Architecture degree

Abstract

Royal Decree (RD) 822/2021, of 28 September, organises university education and the procedure for guarantee quality. It aims to ensure that professionals from universities are able to lead transformations to collectively build a better society. Article 4, which guides the principles to design the curricula for official university degrees, indicates that curricula must have democratic principles and values as a benchmark, together with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). These values should be incorporated as transversal contents or competencies. Some teachers of the Technical Architecture Degree (TAD) of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) are performing a two-year education innovation project, whose main objective is to integrate SDG (UN Agenda 2030) into the TAD curriculum. The project makes the most of the project-based learning methodology implemented in TAD at the UJI and the participation of all subjects to develop a common project (CP). The advantages of this methodology (teamwork, comprehensive view, etc.), including sustainability, also involve another step by promoting the acquisition of professional performance competencies and the formation of open-minded people who contribute to Society with their transformative attitude. This project will be the first step to consider RD principles for their effective application in TAD. For this purpose, some activities focus on teaching staff to raise their awareness about this topic, and to promote their reflexion on how to include SDG in their subjects by modifying teaching guides and methodologies according to the specificities of subjects. Other activities focus on students to train them in SDG and to encourage their reflection to implement these principles in the CP. This paper presents the results from the first year.