We are living in a time of energy innovation: growing need for energy supply, energy (in)security, changing markets, climate change and other driving forces increase the need for new technological solutions. The resulting advances affect patterns of wealth, trade, power, and politics worldwide. These processes have an important international dimension and cannot be understood without taking international affairs into consideration. In this course, we study energy innovation from this international point of view. State involvement in energy innovation is an important starting point in that regard. Industrialised as well as upcoming countries are currently in a race for yielding the benefits of developing new energy technologies. Other countries struggle for their place in the future world of energy. By studying the race for energy innovation, the course aims at shedding a new light at the global energy transition. This includes the potential of international agreements such as Paris and organisations such as IRENA to distribute the benefits of energy innovation in a more just way. The module includes guest lectures from leading experts across Europe. 

**Learning outcomes**

*In terms of knowledge, students will have insights into the following areas:*

- energy innovation at different levels

- the significance of energy innovation for international affairs

- the fragmented system of global energy governance

- the impact of new energy technologies on geopolitics

*In terms of skills, students should be able to achieve the following:*

- description of cases relevant to energy innovation

- description of the relationship between innovationand politics

- discuss the politico-economic implications of energy innovation

- critically assess the challenges involved with the global energy transition

*In terms of general competencies, students should be capable of:*

- formulating and communicating social and environmental challenges associated with energy

- processing qualitative and quantitative data on energy and innovation

- making effective written presentationsshowing a good capacity for independent learning

**The challenge**

The topics of energy, innovation, and geopolitics are highly prominent in the academic literature. The concept of energy transition is central in that regard: it captures changes in the overall energy system, from one particular fuel source or technology to another. Numerous papers are dealing with these issues, many new papers are being published almost daily. Furthermore, the topic is becoming more and more prominent on the curricula of universities across Europe and worldwide.  

Energy innovation is an important aspect of today’s energy sector. Almost daily, we hear about the introduction of new processes, methods or devices that somehow improve how energy is being generated, transmitted or used. Classic economic theory assumes that these novelties are produced by the dynamics inherent to the capitalist, private economy. In that view, state intervention to change the overall energy system works against the progress (that is innovation). 

However, the energy sector is unique in a sense that state involvement – one way or the other – is very strong. The reasons for this can be found at the international level. The energy sector is of fundamental importance for the functioning of the economy; the state therefore has a high interest to ensure energy supply. Moreover, the state has an interest in keeping its national economy competetive. The energy sector is an important economic sector in many countries. State involvement is therefore very high.  

In short: energy innovation needs to be understood in relation to state policy, not least policy in response to pressures coming from the international level. The motives behind the promotion of energy innovation by the state (for example through science parks, university research projects, subsidies, or public private partnerships etc.) are, however, not mecessarily directly apparent. With this challenge, we want to shed light on the connection between energy innovation, state policy, and international affairs. 

**Exam information**

Your task will be to identify a significant case of energy innovation in your area (city or region) and to find information material about it (for example websites, brochures, policy documents, interviews, or surveys sent by email). Furthermore, you will describe this case by finding answers to the following questions:  

- What are the motivations and/or driving forces behind this case of energy innovation?

- Is this a case of private enterprise or is the state involved in any way?

- If the state is involved, in what form does it take part?

- Why is the state involved?

- Does the information material about the case refer to the national economy?

- Does your case include a form of international cooperation?

In the exam (short essay), you will discuss the information that you have collected against some of the contents of the course. This must also be presented at the end of the course.

Motivation Letter

This is a document from a Institution or University that proves that the Learner has specific knowledge and/or has taken University grade courses.

Transcript of Records

University of Stavanger

Energy Innovation Across the Globe

Study module and a practical challenge on energy innovation worldwide

Energy presents a fundamental challenge shared by cities and regions across Europe as well as globally, characterised by the ‘trilemma’ of seeking to achieve secure supply, affordability, and environmental sustainability. Tackling this trilemma involves maximising efficiency across the system, from the generation of clean energy to power buildings and transportation, the storage and distribution of energy when and where it is needed, and the smart consumption by end-users.

Energy and sustainability

The course addresses regional development planning, with a focus on EU memeber states. The  course discusses how EU's regional development policy and programmes are implemented through regional strategic planning. There is a  specific focus on how regional development planning manages challenges such as climate change, urbanisation, digitalisation and social equality. The course includes elements that provide insight into ongoing regional planning efforts and development projects as well as examples of how this is organised and how priorities are made within regions and at the EU level.

On completion of the course, the student should be able to:

- describe and critically reflect on regional strategic planning frameworks for regions in the EU
- explain and critically reflect on how regional strategic planning is designed and practiced through and in collaboration with various actors
- analyse regional strategic planning

This can be other types of document. Describe what document the Learner should upload in the Admission Information text.

Other

Linköping University

709A06 Strategic Planning - Regions and EU

Regional development planning, with a focus on EU memeber states

**Our challenge**  
Students, senior citizens and other interested citizens will work together to design and produce 3D printed solutions using sustainable filament from a local company. The aim is to address the challenges associated with ageing, such as mobility impairments, hearing loss, balance problems and visual impairments. During this challenge, senior citizens from a facility in the Hamburg district of Harburg will give feedback on their needs in direct conversations. For the project, in addition to product development, the focus is on the social aspect of intergenerational neighbourly help and on working in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams.

**Expected impact**  
One of the social responsibilities of engineers is to consider the safety of people and the protection of the environment in their designs and manufacturing processes. Unfortunately, such responsibilities sometimes collide with companies whose primary (or only) motivation is profit rather than social impact. Therefore, this challenge, which provides socially conscious engineering practices by fostering intergenerational collaboration between engineering students, citizens and seniors in nursing homes to find engineering solutions to the challenges of ageing, is of the greatest importance.  
  
**Target groups**  
Students (i.e. engineering, nursing school, social sector), social care employees (i.e. nurses, social sector), seniors.

**Supported by**  
“Landesinnovationsförderung Hamburg" (State Innovation Promotion Hamburg).

Hamburg University of Technology

Engineering solutions for a more inclusive society

3D-printed solutions for the needs of elderly people

Social capital is important to make communities resilient. European urban areas can learn lessons from this. It is clear that rural and rurban areas face demographic challenges. It has been recognised that although a high-quality digital infrastructure and capacity is a must for achieving resilience in rural areas, equally important is that such an infrastructure carries vital services. There is still no clear understanding of which services are useful and needed, and specifically those that lead to resilient rurban communities. Yet there are great opportunities to improve community resilience through self-sustained digitalisation. These include services for alternative forms of transportation and mobility, services that expand the delivery ranges of local shops, specialised e- health services, and advanced privacy-aware social-media services. Likewise, the digital government facilitated by online services strongly supports the resiliency of rural communities, improves quality-of-life and reduces road traffic. In the wider context, the role of digitalisation in resilience planning in rurban communities to mitigate the impact of climate change is becoming of increasing importance. In general, all services for the other pillars can help improve resilience if they exploit locality.

Resilient communities

**Program**

**May 1st: Welcome @ University of Twente**

We will welcome you and your fellow ECIU students on Monday evening, the 1st of May. The first evening is just to get to know each other a little bit and have some drinks and bites. 

**May 2nd-3rd: Create Tomorrow!**

And then… it all starts! Tuesday the 2nd of May and Wednesday the 3rd of May is Create Tomorrow. Get ready for workshops to follow and interesting keynote speakers to listen to on the first day. While working on real challenges from actual companies with your team on the second day, it is possible to ask questions and talk to your challenge provider all day. Throughout this day, there will be speakers and entertainment performing on stage. After the winner is announced, it is time for the after-party. Excited about the idea of joining? Experience more Create Tomorrow here: [CreateTomorrow](https://www.createtomorrow.nl).

**May 4th: Twente Experience**

For you, as ECIU students, this is however not the end of it all. On Thursday, we will gather once more and you will get to know the campus of the University of Twente and its surroundings a little better. After lunch, there will be an interesting workshop. 

**May 5th: Liberation Festival (optional)**

The official program will end on Thursday. However, if you want, you can stick around a little longer. Friday the 5th of May is Liberation Day in the Netherlands. Therefore, there will be a festival on campus. For more information and tickets, click here. Be quick, since it is often sold out beforehand! If you want to stay in the Netherlands on Friday night, you’ll have to book an accommodation yourself, as it’s not included in our offer.

**Practical information**

- We will take care of sleeping accommodation from May 1st until the morning of the 5th, free of charge for you. However, you need to bring your own sleeping bag and pillow case because you will sleep in cabins. Beds and pillows are present. Bring your power banks as well, since there are only a few sockets.

- Our campus is smoke-free, which also goes for the cabins and surroundings.

- Lunch will be provided on Wednesday the 3rd and Thursday the 4th of May.

- Dinner will be provided during both days of Create Tomorrow.

- ECIU University is all about international cooperation. An average of 4 ECIU students per partner could receive a financial contribution of 200 euros each. You will be contacted by the officer responsible at your university if you are among the students selected for the contribution.

- You can sign up for Create Tomorrow as a team, as a duo or as an individual. ECIU will cover the registration fee for Create Tomorrow. You need to register through this challenge page and not through the website of Create Tomorrow.
- Since we will cover a lot of your costs, you will be charged with these costs in case you do not join the whole program after signing up. You can cancel your application until March 29th.

University of Twente

Create Tomorrow

Edition May 2023
Join the world’s largest student think tank in The Netherlands!

The UAB Language Service organizes courses in Catalan language to develop foreign students’ linguistic and intercultural skills with the aim of helping them to integrate into the Catalan social and academic context.

These online courses are carried out in Parla.cat. Each level consists in 135 hours and students have 2 hours of online support from a professor of the UAB Language Service, including the correction of 2 activities.

All offered levels are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

**LEARNING OUTCOMES**

- Communicative approach
- Works on all communicative skills
- Specially aimed at university level students
- Stepping-stone to other Romance languages

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Language Studies - Catalan

Online course

Language learning, together with other transversal skills and competences are not specifically related to a particular discipline or area of knowledge, but are relevant to a broad range of occupations and sectors. They can be addressed as skills that contribute to the development of a person.

Language learning

Elements of AI is an online course that you can do at any time and in any pace at [https://www.elementsofai.com/](https://www.elementsofai.com/). The course is a self study course of the online material and is examined through self correcting and peer reviewed exercises. When you have completed Elements of AI (either the Swedish or the English version of the course) you can register to this course to get your results validated. To verify that you have really taken the online course, you have to upload your certificate from Elements of AI and do a validation test with questions similar to the ones in the online course. For more information see [https://www.ida.liu.se/~ETE318/info/courseinfo.en.shtml](https://www.ida.liu.se/~ETE318/info/courseinfo.en.shtml)[.](https://www.ida.liu.se/~ETE318/info/courseinfo.en.shtml.)

ETE318 Elements of AI

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION SCIENCES

Education in ECIU University drives European values and strengthens European culture and citizenship. We support the development of creative and resilient European citizens with an entrepreneurial mindset, critical thinking and agility. Essential skills such as project management, social innovation, entrepreneurial skills and the ability to adapt and work with technology are key in order to achieve keeping up with the needs of today’s labour market.

Entrepreneurship, technology and innovation

The UAB Language Service offers online courses in Spanish language organized in different levels to develop students’ linguistic and intercultural skills. 

The number of hours working on the platform vary by level (A1 and A2: 80-100 hours per level; B1and B2: 120-150 hours per level).

There is no final assessment. 

**LEARNING OUTCOMES**

- Communicative approach
- Works on all communicative skills
- Specially aimed at university level students
- Stepping-stone to other Romance languages

Language Studies - Spanish

## **Content**

**Package 1 : Philosophy and Law**

Conceptual introduction to the ways in which knowledge is produced and disseminated without paying attention to gender, age, race, and class differences and sexual difference as regards relations among subjects and among bodies, and, thereby, becoming what might be understood as rigid, immaterial, and disaffected knowledge. The impact of producing and disseminating knowledge in these terms will be made clear by analyzing the so-called neutrality of the Law and its effects in gender equality policy making. 

**Package 2 : Psychology and Literature**

(1) Applied critical consideration of epistemic violence, that is, of how gender differences have an effect on subjects and bodies and how they have an effect in their well being depending on the role that gender is given in Psi Disciplines.

(2) Applied critical deconstruction of gender stereotypes and of prejudices that symbolically limit the imaginary field of subjects and bodies and tie them to the immateriality of heteronormativity.  

**Package 3: Anthropology and Pedagogy**

Attention will be payed to a specific challenge in order to (1) make clear how to take into account diversity, difference, and inequality by means of situating knowledge and of feminist methodologies and feminist data analysis and how to (2) validate and make epistemically relevant different kinds of agency by gendering it (including age, class, and race differences). 

## **Learning Outcomes**

1. To identify the key concepts of feminist thought in its diversity and the methodologies therefrom derived and in relation to the ways in which knowledge is produced and disseminated and its results applied.
2. To acquire a complex understanding of how to apply a gender and queer perspective in the analysis of societal challeges.
3. To obtain a complex understanding of the role of the body and the marks of gender, age, race, and class when facing the design, the production, and the execution of social projects.
4. To grasp the mechanisms of the binary, heteronormative, and colonial system of gender in the processes of subjectivation/normalization.
5. To consider the material and affective dimension of the production and dissemination of knowledge and to share its impact in the context of challenge-based learning.

Gender as a cross-cutting tool for understanding, diagnosing, and solving challenges

Self-paced open MOOC (3rd Edition)

Critical and innovative thinking

This course seeks to improve the students' understanding of intercultural practices and policies in diverse cultures and institutional contexts. The course will focus on Cultural diversity. The aim of the course is to enable participants to reflect upon intercultural practices in diverse contexts. The course will be divided into the following themes:  
• Welfare systems as the context for discussing cultural diversity.  
• Transnationalism, migration and return migration and transnational lives.  
• Intercultural practices and reflection on welfare and social workers sensitizing activities.

Students will after having completed a five week study program, hand in an individual home exam.

**Description of learning methods and activities**

Lectures, seminars, group work and individual work adapted to different modes of study. All students are expected to read the syllabus and participate in group discussions and thereby develop analytical reflections in a productive environment with fellow students. The students will also go on field visit or collect information about relevant practices or/and welfare institutions. The students will themselves be in charge of the organization of field visits.

**Learning outcome**

***Knowledge:***

After completing the course, the students shall  
• Have advanced knowledge on intercultural practices in diverse contexts  
• Have an increased understanding of cultural diversity and transnationalism  

***Skills:***

After completing the course, the students shall be able to  
• Identify complexities within cultural diversity  
• Develop communication skills through the international classroom experience

***Competences:***  
After completing the course, the students shall be able to  
• Participate in a dialogue to improve awareness of and respect for cultural diversity  
• Development of reflective processes on how personal beliefs, values and knowledge influences welfare practices

Opportunities to enhance your education

International experience

Collaborate with actual companies and organisations

Make a real impact

Learning opportunities

ECIU core topics

ECIU University members