Admission requirements
To take part in Resilient Cities, students must have followed the previous course Sustainable Development: Big Issues New Answers.
Description
In this course, which is part of the Minor Sustainable Development, you will experience how research into sustainability problems can be developed and how sustainability ideas and theories can be put into practice. Several excursions and invited guest speakers around the theme “Resilient cities” will showcase some existing and new sustainability projects. The course will provide you with knowledge of tools and techniques that will help with researching and developing solutions to sustainability problems and is mainly grounded in the concept of systems thinking. You will put this into practice in a case study of a current sustainability challenge. The course will illustrate that there is no right or wrong methodological approach to investigating a problem, but that the method should be chosen based on its appropriateness to the problem at hand, the research question, the details required, the knowledge base, the available resources, and the socio-cultural context.
A strong emphasis will be placed on acquiring and/or improving practical skills, particularly communication skills. To help you communicate your research outcomes to your target audience in the most effective way, you will follow workshops in pitching, visualization and English writing. The benefits, and in fact necessity, of multi-disciplinary teamwork in solving sustainability issues will also become apparent during this course.
Course objectives
The course is intended to provide you necessary knowledge and insights for the Area Study in January 2022 and provide you with knowledge and practical skill for doing research in the field of sustainability.
After completing the course, students will be able to:
- Apply sustainability theory to practically approach sustainability research;
- Apply a systems approach/perspective in addressing sustainability problems;
- Obtain relevant information to assess sustainability problems and their potential solutions;
- Present information in the most useful manner to the target audience;
- Propose a valid and feasible research approach to use in finding sustainable solutions;
- Obtain topical additional knowledge for the area study (resilient cities);
- Work in an interdisciplinary team to address a complex sustainability problem;
Timetable
The course is from 14 November – 23 December 2022. It is a full-time course with compulsory classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday self-study, group work and an occasional compulsory class is scheduled (so always check the schedule).
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
Mode of instruction
This course runs over a period of six weeks, during which there will be lectures and interactive workshops on various topics related to the complexity of sustainability issues, proposal writing, resilient cities and communicating research.
In addition to the scheduled lectures and workshops, every group is expected to have weekly meetings with their assigned group supervisor and to contribute to scheduled plenary presentations.
Assessment Method
For the course assessment, you will write, in groups, a research proposal for a sustainability problem in an urban area, and your group will present this proposal in writing as well by oral presentation.
Registration
From the academic year 2022-2023 on every student has to register for courses with the new enrollment tool MyStudyMap. There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information. Exemptions are minor students and fall semester for 1st year bachelor students: the student administration will enroll these groups for courses.
Please note that it is compulsory to both preregister and confirm your participation for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam of the course. Confirming your exam participation is possible until ten days before the exam.
Extensive FAQ's on MyStudymap can be found here.
Remarks
Students will be enrolled in Brightspace. All the lecture notes, announcements, the schedule, assignments, etc. can be found there.