Project “Leonardo”

Since 2008, interdisciplinary courses on global societal challenges have been offered as part of the project “Leonardo”. Around 800 to 1000 students from all faculties take part each semester. A central project team with an academic director organizes the courses, which are supervised by around 15 to 20 alternating lecturers from different faculties. In addition to lecture series, the project now also offers more workshops that enable more interaction and interdisciplinary collaboration in smaller groups. The “Leonardo” project focuses on four principles for the design of teaching and learning formats: Interdisciplinarity, interaction, responsibility, and participation.

Sustainability is a key topic in many of the project’s courses. Topics such as the energy transition (e.g. winter semester 20/21, 21/22, and 22/23) or raw materials policy (e.g., summer semester 20, 21, 22, and 23) are examined from interdisciplinary perspectives. The Sustainable Development Goals (e.g. winter semester 20/21, 21/22, and 22/23) themselves also determine the range of topics covered in a module. In the Sustainability and Transformation format (summer semester 21, 22, and 23), students work not only in an interdisciplinary manner, but also across universities (RWTH, FH, and KatHo Aachen) on concept designs that contribute to sustainable transformation. Courses such as these are offered at regular intervals with new touches as recurring courses.

In addition, new formats are constantly being developed to address the requirements and challenges of sustainable transformation. These include Sustainable Agriculture (summer semester 23), Transformation to a Climate-Neutral Industry (winter semester 22/23), Successful Entrepreneurship in the Climate Crisis (winter semester 20/21) and Planetary Health (winter semester 21/22). In the winter semester 2023/24, the modules Economic Growth and Sustainable Consumption and Bioplastics place a strong focus on sustainability in the economy and in material cycles.

Further information:

Project “Leonardo”

Focused SDGs:

SDG 4 – Quality Education

The courses on offer cover a wide range of SDGs.

Organization unit:

Cross-faculty offer,
Structurally embedded in the cross-faculty HumTec Center, which is managed by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.