Teaching

Coordinating tasks

EHL’s Frank Veraart is the current Program Chair of the bachelor program Sustainable Innovation.

EHL’s Erik van der Vleuten is the current Program Chair of the master program Innovation Sciences.

Klara Strecker, Frank Veraart & Erik van der Vleuten, together with UU and WUR partners, are establishing an interuniversity minor program Sustainability Transitions in Past and Present.

TUE courses offered in 2021-22 (more info: see TUE intranet pages)

Bachelor level courses

0SAB0 USE basic: ethics and history of technology (Q4, 5 ECTS, ca. 2000 students. EHL contact person: Frank Veraart)

Short description: In the social history of technology part of this course, we discuss how engineers have engaged with societal challenges from the 19th century until today and invented concepts such as technocratic and participatory innovation to save innovative solutions from unintended harmful consequences. We unpack those often universalized concepts in terms of their appropriation by society, enterprise, and user spokespersons. Students apply these lessons to domains such as sustainable innovation, disruptive technologies, and AI.

0SV10 Sustainable technology in society: introduction (Q2, 5 ECTS, mandatory, Sustainable Innovation program, ca. 100 students. EHL contact person: Frank Veraart)

The Technology in Society learning line teaches SI students how technology and society are intimately interwoven. 0SV10 introduces these issues by means of exemplary contemporary and historical real-life innovation cases. It combines lectures & readings with group assignments, in which student groups study a particular socio-technical controversy.

0sv80 Sustainable Technology in Society—advanced (Q1, 5 ECTS, mandatory, Sustainable Innovation program, ca. 50-60 students. EHL contact person: Erik van der Vleuten)

Short description: Sustainable Technology in Society—advanced is the capstone of our Sustainable Technology in Society learning line. Preceding courses acquainted you with (1) basic STiS theories on sustainable innovation and (2) applying those theories to selected cases of sustainable innovation and its governance. (3) You did much of this as goup work. By contrast, 0sv80 invites you to individually engage with STiS debates on an advanced level. We selected several ongoing advanced research debates that all sustainable innovation scholars and students should know about. This year we selected debates on de-growth, global sustainability telecouplings, the Anthropocene, urban infrastructural transformations, and STiS theory/sustainability knowledge politics).

Bachelor thesis projects

We supervise bachelor thesis projects that study interactions of technological innovation and socio-ecological change in broader spatio-temporal perspective.

Master level courses

0EM130 Modern Societies in Transition: Introduction to Historical Transition Studies (Q1, 5 ECTS, mandatory, Innovation Sciences program, ca 35-40 students. EHL contact person: Erik van der Vleuten)

Short description: In 0EM130 you study sustainable innovation and socio-technical transitions in their broader historical context.Sustainable innovation and transitions are deeply temporal phenomena. Sustainability is an inter-generational process–how do the innovation choices of one generation affect the needs of later generations? Sociotechnical transitions (including sustainability transitions) too are defined as complex long-term processes that may take decades to unfold, sometimes even centuries. The energy transition has been pursued since the 1970s, for example, and is only gaining speed today. A long-term perspective uncovers many hidden innovation and transition dynamics and conflicts. How can we produce academic knowledge about this, and how can academic insights inform current sustainable innovation and transition efforts? 0EM130 invites you to engage with these issues on an advanced level.

0EM170 Global Connections (Q2, 5 ECTS, elective, Innovation Sciences program, ca 30 students. EHL contact person: Mila Davids)

Short description: This course illustrates how seemingly local transformations and innovations have a global dimension that often remains hidden. To fully understand localised technological developments, it is essential to understand how they are intertwined with global developments and their social contexts. Global connections are key in this process. We will focus on global connections of two different kinds: material based connections like information, communication, and transport technologies and the institutional and human relations in knowledge systems. Concepts of globalization, globalization and appropriation will be introduced and discussed.

0EM200 International development and sustainability (Q3, 5 ECTS, elective. EHL contact person: Jonas van der Straeten)

Thesis projects

The Eindhoven History lab and the Foundation SHT supervise master thesis projects on technology & sustainability, the Internet, Sustainable Urban Mobility, energy transitions in the Global South, sustainability monitoring, and global knowledge society in broader spatio-temporal perspective.

PHD projects

We are especially interested in supervising PhD projects on the modern and contemporary history of technology and sustainability, technology & European integration/fragmentation, the global knowledge society, and the social history of the Internet. See also our research programs.