Bridging the Gap

Prof. Dr. phil. Carmen Leicht-Scholten, Professor of Gender and Diversity in Engineering, was presented with the RWTH Aachen University Teaching Award on June 20, 2022, as part of the “Talk Lehre” conference. This first-time award in the “Sustainability” category underlines our University’s commitment to future-oriented and sustainable education and research. The prize of 12,000 euros is awarded to educators who pursue a holistic approach to sustainability and integrate this into their teaching activities.

The award recognizes the outstanding and long-standing commitment of the political science graduate in the cross-faculty teaching of skills for socially sustainable technology design. Her award-winning teaching concept aims not only to provide students with factual knowledge about relevant frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals, technology assessment, and the responsibility of emerging scientists but also to enable them to discuss responsible decisions in their discipline.

The interdisciplinary orientation of the innovative teaching concept is particularly noteworthy. Dr. Carmen Leicht-Scholten’s professorship in “Gender and Diversity in Engineering” is one of two permanent professorships in the field of gender studies in STEM subjects at German universities. With her interdisciplinary professorship at both the Faculty of Civil Engineering with a second seat at the Faculty of Arts, she succeeds in inspiring students from different backgrounds for the topic of sustainability and social responsibility. Through active teaching, she encourages student engagement and interest in order to promote active and sustainable learning.

Prof. Leicht-Scholten sees the teaching award as recognition for the entire team, which has worked hard to develop innovative teaching and learning concepts. The prize money of 12,000 euros associated with the teaching award was used to further develop the innovative teaching concept. For example, social sustainability of and through AI and the associated perspectives on these skills for engineers will be newly integrated into teaching.

Overall, the award not only recognizes Prof. Leicht-Scholten’s personal commitment, but also emphasizes the relevance of sustainable education and the interdisciplinary teaching approach at our University.

Sustainability at the GDI

The academic and research activities at the GDI aim to promote sustainable, innovative, and future-oriented research and development. This is done by incorporating perspectives of diversity and heterogeneity at different levels in organizations and in research and development processes. The implementation is based on a participatory and interdisciplinary approach.

The focus is on integrating the social dimension in order to reflect on this for sustainable global development and to identify interdisciplinary fields of action for sustainability. The research results also form the basis for the teaching content of the teaching and research area. The aim is to train socially responsible engineers, combining interdisciplinarity and the teaching of interdisciplinary skills in practice-oriented teaching formats. By combining social and economic expertise with engineering and natural science disciplines, a holistic view of technical developments and their effects can be conveyed.

The aim is to sensitize students to the complex challenges of sustainable technology development and to strengthen their ability to reflect in order to promote the development of students’ skills and strengthen their personal and professional resilience.