Discussion sessions are a very important part of the course. In total, four discussion sessions are planned. The course is multidisciplinary with teachers and participants from several faculties. This is envisioned as a starting point for discussions and participants' reflections on their own and others’ approaches to the concept of sustainability.
During the group discussion sections, participants are discussing water and sustainable development with each other and invited experts. The sustainability goals and selected scientific literature are used background material in the discussions. There are also two discussion sessions where the lessons learned from keynotes and panel debates will be discussed.
Invited experts will give 10 min inspirational presentations. The experts will give their perspective on water issues and sustainability and define major obstacles and opportunities for sustainable development.
The key component in this course is the debate sessions. The objective of the debate sessions are to generate interaction between participants and experts, to better understand the views of participants with other background and to better understand the complexity of sustainable development.
The participants are divided into three or four groups depending on the number of participants. Each group organizes a debate session with three or four invited experts. Before the debate session, each expert should be interviewed by the arranging group. The interview should take around one hour. The form of the debate session needs to be approved by the course coordinator. As a starting point for the debates, one of the following subject areas is chosen; life, society, industrial, digitization or climate.
The participants interview the experts in advance and plan interesting issues and topics to address during the debate. The participants then lead the debates.
There is no set recipe on how to arrange a debate session. We encourage the participants to think outside the box. A debate session could include small workshops, role play, presentations and so on. The more diverse the sessions are, and the more interaction there is with the audience, the better.
The participants meet after the debate sessions and discuss the outcome. They will then write a report on their own reflections. The reflection should include a section where the student discusses the sustainability perspective in relation to their own PhD topic.