Global society is facing formidable current and future problems that threaten the prospects for justice and peace, sustainability, and the well-being of humanity both now and in the future. Many of these problems are related to science and technology and to how they function in the world. If the social responsibility of scientists and engineers implies a duty to safeguard or promote a peaceful, just and sustainable world society, then science and engineering education should empower students to fulfil this responsibility. The contributions to this special issue present European examples of teaching social responsibility to students in science and engineering, and provide examples and discussion of how this teaching can be promoted, and of obstacles that are encountered. Speaking generally, education aimed at preparing future scientists and engineers for social responsibility is presently very limited and seemingly insufficient in view of the enormous ethical and social problems that are associated with current science and technology. Although many social, political and professional organisations have expressed the need for the provision of teaching for social responsibility, important and persistent barriers -013-9495-7 stand in the way of its sustained development. What is needed are both bottom-up teaching initiatives from individuals or groups of academic teachers, and top-down support to secure appropriate embedding in the university. Often the latter is lacking or inadequate. Educational policies at the national or international level, such as the Bologna agreements in Europe, can be an opportunity for introducing teaching for social responsibility. However, frequently no or only limited positive effect of such policies can be discerned. Existing accreditation and evaluation mechanisms do not guarantee appropriate attention to teaching for social responsibility, because, in their current form, they provide no guarantee that the curricula pay sufficient attention to teaching goals that are desirable for society as a whole.Sci Eng Ethics (2013) 19:1413-1438 DOI 10.1007/s11948
Zandvoort (2021) Initiatives, experiences and best practices for teaching social and ecological responsibility in ethics education for science and engineering students,
The need to make young scientists aware of their social responsibilities is widely acknowledged, although the question of how to actually do it has so far gained limited attention. A 2-day workshop entitled "Prepared for social responsibility?" attended by doctoral students from multiple disciplines in climate science, was targeted at the perceived needs of the participants and employed a format that took them through three stages of ethics education: sensitization, information and empowerment. The workshop aimed at preparing doctoral students to manage ethical dilemmas that emerge when climate science meets the public sphere (e.g., to identify and balance legitimate perspectives on particular types of geo-engineering), and is an example of how to include social responsibility in doctoral education. The paper describes the workshop from the three different perspectives of the authors: the course teacher, the head of the graduate school, and a graduate student. The elements that contributed to the success of the workshop, and thus make it an example to follow, are (1) the involvement of participating students, (2) the introduction of external expertise and role models in climate science, and (3) a workshop design that focused on ethical analyses of examples from the climate sciences.
The aim of this study is to explore how entrepreneurship sustains the barriers in the entrepreneurial process in a developing country like Pakistan. To reach these findings, a qualitative approach was used in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with young entrepreneurs in the region of Hyderabad, Pakistan. After collecting data, thematic analysis was conducted. The findings of the study in the form of final themes suggest that trust issues, family barriers, financial issues, gender issues, educational barriers, corruption, and legal barriers are among the challenges which trigger changes in the entrepreneurial process and its sustainability. This study provides implications for the regional government, academic institutes, financial institutes, entrepreneurs, and society at large when developing a support system and promoting a sustainable entrepreneurial environment by minimizing these challenges and suggestions for an entrepreneurial focus on sustainable entrepreneurship.
Many philosophers and sociologists of science have tried to understand the profound changes that have occurred in science, engineering and technology. In the first part of this paper, I present the work of one such scholar: Jerome Ravetz who, in collaboration with Silvio Funtowicz, has characterised what he calls 'postnormal science'. The purpose of this theoretical part of the paper is to describe what characterises contemporary science and to formulate which competencies contemporary scientists need to act ethically. In the second part of the paper, I present and analyse the course 'Philosophy of Science and Ethics' that I have taught since 2005 to biochemistry, chemistry and nanotechnology students at the University of Copenhagen. The course is intended to prepare its participants for postnormal knowledge production that is scientific work that is embedded in a societal context characterised by uncertainty and conflicting values systems. With this in mind, I analyse the course by relating its content to the concepts that describe postnormal science, and I discuss how the course develops the ethics competencies that contemporary scientists need to work in postnormal science. I will also briefly discuss the relevance of the course for engineering students.Keywords: University Science Education; Case-based Teaching; Philosophy of Science and Ethics Teaching; Ethics Competencies; Technoscience; Postnormal Science Science and engineering graduates can no longer expect a conventional university career with tenure. Neither is it likely that they will remain in the same job at a private business, in a government office or at a local authority for a long period of time.The jobs they hold will probably be project oriented, and their projects time-limited and involve many different partners representing an array of institutions. If they do research in the public sector, their research projects might very well be co-sponsored externally.Local research quality criteria have emerged, as science and engineering projects are expected to be useful to stakeholders. Today an array of actors invests cultural and financial capital in research projects, which in return are expected to produce returns. The societal and political context influences the questions taken up by scientists and engineers.Main-stream research projects used to be 'normal'; scientists and engineers were expected to produce clear-cut answers to the questions they investigated. Certainty expectations defined, or at least heavily influenced, what kind of research questions scientists chose to scrutinise and the
No abstract
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
334 Leonard St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.