Eco-GT
ECO-GT focuses on understanding the specific communication tasks and stakeholder networks that underpin the development, implementation and mainstreaming of green technologies in Europe. A greater awareness of these real-world, hands-on communication situations can help engineering educators—whether in lanuguages, social skills or technical disciplines—to integrate applied, workplace-relevant communication activities into the engineering curriculum and better prepare graduates for the realities of multi-stakeholder, international engineering projects.
Motivation
Addressing climate change requires both technical expertise and the ability to communicate across research, business, and policymaking sectors. Despite the increasing importance of communication in STEM education, many universities lack comprehensive training in this area, creating a skills gap for green-transition engineers. Existing communication competency frameworks are either too broad or not tailored to the needs of engineering education, making integration into curricula challenging. This project aims to develop a structured and flexible approach to teaching and assessing international communication skills in engineering education.
Objectives:
- Understanding Communication Demands – Analyze communication networks and tasks relevant to green-transition engineers.
- Developing a Competence Framework – Create an assessment framework tailored to international green engineering communication.
- Designing a Flexible Curriculum – Develop and pilot a modular curriculum with structured learning objectives and assessments.
- Host an International Summer School – Bring together engineering students from diverse green-tech disciplines to learn about science communication and embed technical and engineering communication design into interdisciplinary and international project plans.
- Advancing Research on Communication in Green Engineering – Publish a handbook combining academic research and practical educational tools to support best practices in integrating communication skills.
This project strengthens the role of communication in green engineering education, enabling engineers to collaborate effectively across disciplines and sectors. By integrating communication skills into engineering curricula, the project supports the transition to a more sustainable and climate-resilient future.
Partner Institutions:
- Gdansk University of Technology
- Technological University Dublin
- University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro
- Lapland University of Applied Sciences
- Transylvanian University of Brasov
- Istanbul University
Senior Lecturer/Researcher