The Blended Intensive Programme engages students in designing technology-supported solutions to enhance community well-being, with a specific focus on supporting marginalized community members in the society through social innovation. The course centers on developing socio-technological responses to real-world sustainability challenges, such as those related to vocational education and local entrepreneurship. Students explore how technology can be used not only to meet basic needs (e.g., in shelter, WASH, healthcare, or energy), but also to strengthen social inclusion and economic empowerment within marginalized communities.

Using a human-centered design approach, students work directly with community representatives to understand the social, cultural, and economic context—as well as the power dynamics—before proposing interventions. Emphasis is placed on aligning solutions with the community’s values and aspirations, and on empowering individuals by enhancing their capabilities. Moreover, the sustainability of the developed solution will be explored from an economic, social, and environmental perspective, i.e. by creating a sustainable business model canvas.

The programme is built around challenge-based learning, centered on a real-world case in collaboration with Tumaini Innovation Centre in Kenya. Tumaini supports at-risk youth through vocational education and social reintegration. While their students design and sell products and services to the local community, the organization faces challenges in achieving sustained impact and economic viability. Student teams are tasked with addressing this community-based challenge by designing socio-technological solutions that help increase the reach, relevance, and impact of Tumaini’s work with at-risk youth and make their effort more meaningful.

Motivation letter is a personal statement and it might include a brief introduction of yourself, explanation why are you interested in the learning opportunity you are applying to, any relevant experience or skills that you have, your goals and how this opportunity will help you achieve them, This document should not be more than 400 words.

Motivation Letter

CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a document that summarizes your educational and professional history. It must provide a detailed overview of your academic and work experience, skills, achievements, and qualifications.

University of Twente

a group of people standing next to a trailer with a sign on it

Humanitarian Engineering for Inclusive and Resilient Communities

Designing sustainable, technology-driven solutions for marginalized communities through human-centered innovation and social inclusion

Resilient communities

Entrepreneurship, technology and innovation

Critical and innovative thinking

Global citizenship

**Develop Sustainable Nanotechnology Solutions with a Global Team**

This course challenges you to co-create innovative, eco-friendly products using nanotechnology tools. Working in international and multidisciplinary teams, you’ll tackle real-world challenges with guidance from expert teachers. Your mission: to design a green product that contributes to solving society’s most pressing issues.

**Why Nanotechnology?**

Nanotechnology plays a pivotal role in sustainable development, offering solutions for **clean water, air, soil, and energy**—key pillars of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. By integrating advanced technology with a multidisciplinary approach, this course equips you with the skills to address global challenges collaboratively.

**What You’ll Do:**

- **Focus on four key areas:** Develop sustainable products targeting **water** purification, remediation, and reuse; **air** purification; **soil**remediation; and **energy** solutions.
- **Apply what you learn:** Use life cycle analysis and recyclability principles to design impactful solutions.
- **Collaborate globally:** Work in an international team to solve problems and learn to navigate cultural and time-zone differences.

**Skills You’ll Gain:**

Through a challenge-based learning approach, you’ll master teamwork, time management, and product development. You’ll also learn to apply academic knowledge to real-world problems, ensuring your solutions are both innovative and actionable.

Join this Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) course and be part of a global effort to create a sustainable future through nanotechnology! For more information, contact Arturo Susarrey Arce (a.susarreyarce@utwente.nl).

Sustainable Nanotechnology

Help co-create sustainable solutions using nanotechnology tools.

Energy and sustainability

Circular economy

Inter-personal skills

Media and information literacy

Intra-personal skills

The whole world is confronted with the effects of a changing climate. The challenge is how we deal with this situation. So how big is the problem in the city under study? What is at risk, and why? What is being done? What will happen if nothing is done? What would be the effect of adaptation measures?

In this course we follow the conceptual framework on risk defined by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, www.ipcc.ch), where risk is at the centre. [Figure 1](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/managing-the-risks-of-extreme-events-and-disasters-to-advance-climate-change-adaptation/summary-for-policymakers/spm_fig1/) presents this framework, where three core concepts of weather and climate, exposure and vulnerability interact (IPCC, 2014). The risk of climate-related impacts results from the interaction of climate-related hazards (including weather and climatic events and their trends) with the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems. Changes in both the climate system (left) and socioeconomic processes including adaptation and mitigation (right) are drivers for changes in hazard, exposure, and vulnerability (IPCC, 2014).

There are options for risk reduction through adaptation, because adaptation measures can reduce risk by addressing one or more of the three risk factors: vulnerability, exposure, and/or hazard.This can be achieved through various policy and action choices. A visualisation of this process is in [Figure 2.](https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/technical-summary/ts-0-introduction/ipcc-srocc-ts_4/) Risk reduction measures through adaptation (Source: IPCC 2019).

The three core concepts of hazard, exposure and vulnerability can be linked to the three core domains of Spatial Engineering: Hazard - Technical Engineering, Vulnerability - Spatial Information Science, and Exposure - Spatial Planning and Governance.

Adapting to Climate Change with Spatial Engineering

Help the city of Valencia (Spain) to adjust sustainably to climate change with Spatial Engineering

**Ready to Lead the Shift to a Circular Economy?**

The world is moving away from the wasteful linear economy toward a more sustainable, circular one, and it’s shaping the future of business. Engineers, business leaders, managers, and policy-makers are all needed to drive this change. Want to be one of the graduates leading the way? Circular Sustainable Business Development is the course for you! This exciting, multi-disciplinary course is open to all master’s students at UT.

**Why Circular Economy Matters**

In a world focused on sustainability, the circular economy is key to transforming how we produce and consume. As future decision-makers and leaders, it’s essential for students to understand the circular economy in relation to the triple bottom line: People (social impact), Planet (environmental impact), and Profit (economic viability). Through this course, you'll learn how to integrate these elements into business strategy and explore corporate social responsibility from all angles.

**What You’ll Learn**

The course kicks off with the basics of sustainable and circular economies, packed with real-world examples of success stories at the global, national, and regional levels. From there, you’ll work on a challenge-based group project (worth 25% of your grade) to tackle specific sustainability problems.

**Core Topics Covered:**

- **Sustainable Business Models:** Discover how companies can create value from an economic, environmental, and social perspective using the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (BMC). This tool will allow you to think beyond just profits, incorporating life cycle and stakeholder perspectives.
- **Real-World Impact:** Explore how different sectors, from manufacturing to pharmaceuticals and agri-food, are affected by sustainability, and learn the techniques for measuring sustainability effectively.
- **Sustainability in Supply Chains:** You’ll dive into value recovery from end-of-life products and learn how businesses can shift from linear to circular models. A serious game simulating real-world decision-making will reinforce your learning (worth 25% of your grade). This game will take place at the campus of the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands (see Participant information).
- **Hands-On Experience:** From Life Cycle Assessments to agent-based modeling and game theory, you’ll develop practical skills that will help you lead sustainable business practices.

**Engage with Big Ideas**

In the final weeks, you’ll explore cutting-edge topics driven by your own interests—like food waste, electronic waste management, or the evolution of eco-industrial parks. You’ll finish the course with a final individual written exam (worth 50% of your grade) that ties everything together.

This course is your gateway to becoming a key player in the circular economy transition. Ready to make an impact? Sign up for Circular Sustainable Business Development and start building the future!

Circular Sustainable Business Development

Shape the future with a circular economy game!

Under the flag of ECIU University, the University of Twente, together with Kaunas University of Technology and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, is organising four sessions on adventure, chemistry, physics, and biomedical engineering in tackling challenges crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

The lectures are entitled *One Man’s Atlantic Ocean Odyssey: Uncovering the Secrets of Chemistry, Physics, and Biomedical Engineering Innovation* and are inspired by Lithuanian adventurer Aurimas Valujavičius, who completed a solo rowing journey across the Atlantic.

The lecture, crafted for curiosity-driven students/researchers and a broad UT-wide community, combines adventure with scientific exploration, drawing from the story of a solo transatlantic journey. Through this lens, participants will discover the interdisciplinary nature of science, the environmental and chemical challenges in extreme conditions, the role of biomedical engineering, and the process of applying innovative solutions that successfully enable Aurimas to cross the ocean.

Attending the lecture is open to everyone, there are no requirements regarding study backgrounds.

Challenges in extreme conditions: A solo rowing across the Atlantic

One Man’s Atlantic Ocean Odyssey: Uncovering the Secrets of Chemistry, Physics, and Biomedical Engineering Innovation

## Leading Systematic Change

In this course we will holistically assess complex system behaviors by examining their various complexities, including technical, human, political, resource, and environmental processes. Thereby, we aim to understand how changes and various design solution alternatives impact the extended life of systems and organizations.  

Exploring how to manage changes in the design, development, and deployment of systems requires individuals to conceptualize and understand the inherent complexities. It also requires ongoing planning and implementing organizational, team, or individual change within the working environment.  

In this course you will increase your knowledge of and skills in the change making process which has many different layers: cognitive, behavioral, and affective. You will also learn to assess system behaviors by examining the various complexities of engineering systems, including technical, human, political, resource, and environmental processes.

The world is filled with messy, complex, ‘wicked’ problems. These issues are multi-layered, circular, and systemic in nature. Yet, many engineers, managers, and analysts attempt to simplify these systems into linear models with simple relationships. The consequence of this approach is that adopted interventions tend to only work for the short term, if they work at all, or have significant unintended consequences.

Leading Systemic Change

Learn how to manage the change-making process by designing, developing, and deploying holistic systems thinking

**Be the Change: Solve Global Challenges with Bold Ideas**

Societies all over the world grapple with socio-technical transformations that cause a divide between worldviews, political beliefs, interests, and ways of living. Moreover, we face grand challenges of climate change, inequality, health, and environmental degradation. This course prepares you to take up these challenges proactively and design interventions that co-shape societies for so-called pluriversal futures, in which multiple ways of being, knowing and making can co-exist. You will develop the mindset, knowledge, and skills to help transform - together with regional stakeholders - the social, environmental, and economic system. In this course you will work in a transdisciplinary manner, connect global challenges with local actions, histories with futures, academic with societal perspectives, action with reflection, and critical modes with creative modes of thinking and design.  

**Collaborate, Create, and Lead**

More concretely, this course centers around a real-world challenge-based project. It is partly carried out with the entire group, and partly in small teams. In the context of the project, you will combine a thorough socio-technical and historical analysis of the challenge with a deep understanding of its local context and conduct hands-on co-imagining and co-shaping activities with different representatives from academia, government, industry, and society. These activities allow you to develop advanced design, analysis, and leadership skills. In this course you will learn unique, transdisciplinary methods for framing and analyzing problems and for responsible futuring and prototyping. Together, you will make a difference in society.

**Make an Impact: Real Projects, Real Change**

Activating workshops, intensive coaching sessions, field trips and inspiring guest lectures will support the project. The final product is a challenge analysis and an experiential provocative prototype of pluriversal futures, aimed at engaging stakeholders in a transformation of society in a local context. The assessment of the final product, its justification, and its presentation is pass/fail, with extensive feedback for your personal and professional development. It will be carried out by a broad team of teachers and external stakeholders.

Responsible Futuring

Proactively take up societal challenges and design interventions that co-shape societies for pluriversal futures.

This micro-module is a collaboration between 6 ECIU universities: UAB (Spain), KTU (Lithuania), UiS (Norway), UniTn (Italy), INSA (France), and UT (the Netherlands). This means you get to gain knowledge from experts of all these different universities! This is therefore a unique opportunity that offers multiple perspectives and an intercultural experience.

### **Why learning about interculturality matters**

Interculturality is a crucial skill in today’s globalized world, enabling effective communication and collaboration across cultural boundaries. It fosters empathy, helps navigate differences with respect, and is essential for addressing global challenges like climate change and migration. In academic and professional settings, intercultural competence is highly valued, supporting teamwork in diverse and international contexts. Personally, it enriches your worldview, enhances self-awareness, and opens you to new perspectives. By embracing interculturality, you contribute to a more inclusive and collaborative global society.

### **What you'll learn**

This online micro-module is designed to give you a comprehensive understanding of interculturality through a structured blend of expert-led lectures and interactive discussions. The course is divided into three thematic blocks, each building on the previous one to create a cohesive learning experience:

**Block 1: Understanding cultural differences**  

You’ll start by exploring foundational theories of culture, learning what defines and distinguishes cultures around the world. This block highlights the importance of cultural diversity in today’s globalized world, helping you develop an awareness of how cultural differences shape interactions and perceptions.

**Block 2: Global perspectives**  

In this section, you’ll examine the effects of migration, media representation, and the concept of global Englishes. These topics will give you a broader perspective on how cultural narratives evolve and influence societies across the globe. You’ll gain insights into how these factors contribute to both challenges and opportunities in intercultural communication.

**Block 3: Practical intercultural skills**  

The final block focuses on practical workshops to equip you with effective communication techniques for interacting across cultures. You’ll learn how to navigate cultural nuances in professional and personal settings, ensuring your interactions are respectful, clear, and impactful.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of cultural theories, a global perspective on societal changes, and the practical tools to engage effectively in intercultural settings. This combination of theoretical and hands-on learning prepares you to adapt in diverse environments and address the complexities of global communication

Member university

University of Twente

Member university

University of Twente

Learning opportunities of University of Twente