BLUEPRINT

Master of Sustainable Development - Track ICP Master of

Science in Sustainable Development
Faculty of Science

OCTOBER 2018
 Master of Sustainable
Development
Track ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development

Faculty of Science
KU Leuven
 The ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development aims to train
students to become the agents of change that will imagine, trigger and
implement the sustainability transition of the 21st century, both in the
Global South and in the Global North. The programme nurtures and
objectifies the societal debate on current topics related to sustainable
development with well-founded arguments.

Spearheads
The ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development is a research
driven education programme with a societal impact aiming at
creating sustainable development agents of change through:

 Research based courses taught by academic experts leading

research in different sustainability domains and parts of the
world;
 A combination of a transversal, interdisciplinary common core, delivering fundamental
expertise on sustainable development, and two optional specialization tracks in “ecology” and
“space and society”;
 Training in research stimulating critical learners, systemic thinking and creativity in the
solution of complex socio-ecological problems and triggering real change;
 The active integration of fieldwork in the South, internship, thesis and portfolio development
in the professional preparation of the students;
 The KU Leuven Sustainability Living Lab as the itinerant platform through which the vision and
goals of this Master are tested and implemented in a real world setting.

Educational vision
The ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development develops a contemporary and internationally
competitive educational curriculum. The content of that curriculum is based on high level scientific
research in sustainable development The pedagogical methods are based on recent developments in
research on educational innovation and on (science) education.

The programme applies several innovative teaching and learning methods. Research-based courses,
interactive teaching, critical learning and systemic thinking, and courses combining theory and
practical illustrations are the main principles and tools underlying the teaching and learning
philosophy of this programme.

Target audience and influx

The ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development aims at attracting students from both natural
and social sciences, willing to bridge both ecological and societal domains of the interdisciplinary
sustainability problematic. The programme expects candidates with excellent results with a
background in the following (or related) fields: geography, ecology, biology, sustainability studies, bio-
economy, spatial planning, development studies, environmental management, environmental
sciences, biodiversity, conservation biology, landscape ecology, political ecology, human ecology,
social ecology, etc. Students with a more general background in social sciences (economics, political
sciences, sociology, anthropology) and applied sciences (bio-engineering, architecture) are also
invited to apply. Notions of ecology and biodiversity are required for admission in the ecology track.

The ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development has a distinctive international character and
aims at attracting students from the Global South as well as from the Global North. VLIR-UOS offers
12 scholarships for excellent candidates from eligible developing countries.

Goals and learning objectives

Throughout the ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development, the knowledge and skills acquired
in the discipline are further deepened and extended. More specifically, the student is thoroughly
trained in at least one area of specialization (major), which is still situated in a broad scientific and
social context. The student learns to design and carry out a scientific study within a multidisciplinary
team, to draw conclusions and to communicate about it. The student is capable of doing this in
compliance with the highest scientific and ethical standards. Furthermore, the student learns to
critically and creatively optimize and update their knowledge and skills, in a lifelong learning fashion.

Learning outcomes Master of Sustainable Development

Substantive choices and level

The KU Leuven also offers an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Sustainable Territorial Development (SteDe).
The STeDe programme aims at training students who gain capacities and understanding from their
mobility path and intercultural embeddedness, while approaching sustainable development from a
contextual (territorial) angle. The two master programs partly overlap while maintaining their own
specific profile. Each of the programmes incorporates two tracks. While the tracks of the ICP master
(Space & Society on the on hand and Ecology on the other hand) are different; this is not the case for
the tracks of STeDe. The tracks Space & Society of ICP and STeDe resemble without being identical.

Benchmarking revealed that the ICP Master of Science in Sustainable Development is unique, because
of its Living Lab approach and/or intertwining social and natural sciences and the focus on different scales
(local, regional…) in terms of socio-ecological systems. ICP stands out in particular by its Global South focus
(whilst many of the reviewed degrees mention the Global South dimension of sustainability research and
education, very few actually privilege it in their program structure, content or student selection) and a
research driven education program that foregrounds research methodology while very few other programs
allow for the application of those methods in extended periods of fieldtrip research.

Organization and didactical teams

The programme is the responsibility of the OC (Education Commission), presided by the head of the
Education Commission. The pedagogical tasks in the ICP Master of Science in Sustainable
Development are carried out by didactical teams of teachers, teaching assistants and tutors. These
didactical teams are responsible for guiding the students through the content of a certain course, but
also with issues of study progress and psychosocial concerns. In this team everyone can contribute to
the pedagogical process from their own particularity and expertise and with respect and openness
for each other. This team, led by the coordinating professor functions as a coaching environment and
supervises a balanced division of tasks within the team with respect to other tasks (in research and
service delivery). Communication and transparency are essential to accomplish this.

Alumni, work field and community

The master programme aims to actively include the professional fields and socially relevant themes in
the learning environment. The Sustainable Development Living Lab, for example, is designed as a living
space of encounter and dialogue between the different agents and institutions involved in the
implementation and assessment of the development goals of the Master. Key agents participating in
the lab include students and alumni, KU Leuven professors, global South partners but also relevant
practitioners and policy makers, development institutions and representatives of the private sector.
Also the annual “workshop on sustainable development in practice” actively bridges the master
programme with the professional field and with relevant policy discussions.
 Structure and educational curriculum
The full programme, comprising 120 ECTS, offers a common
interdisciplinary core programme and two tracks of specialization:
Space and Society track and Ecology track.

The common interdisciplinary core programme provides the

fundamental expertise needed on sustainable development, including
theory, methodology and practical applications. It comprises academic levelling courses, courses on
different dimensions of sustainable development, an individual research portfolio, as well as a fieldtrip
in the Global South, an internship, a thesis and a workshop on sustainable development in practice.

The “Space and Society” track concerns the societal component of the sustainability transition,
including social, economic, political and cultural dimensions. To fully grasp their relation with the
environment and ecology, these dimensions are considered from a territorial and multi-scalar point
of view. This track will confront the students with the challenge of applying the conceptual debates
on sustainable development to the analysis of concrete issues, such as climate change, energy
transition, biodiversity, water and soil management, cities and neighbourhood development,
sustainable tourism, disasters and resilience, land management, food security and alternative
agricultures, forest governance,… These debates involve the questions of use, ownership and
management of natural resources and how the use of these resources affects biophysical and social
environments. Relevant analytical perspectives studied in this track include, among others,
governance of socio-ecological systems, social sustainability and social innovation, environmental
justice, political ecology, political economy, ecological economics, resilience and North-South
relations.

The “Ecology” track focuses on both the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of
biodiversity, at all organizational levels (species, genes and ecosystems). Students will be trained in
analyzing how anthropogenic disturbances such as land use changes, water and soil pollution, the
introduction of exotic species, and climate change may affect biodiversity. Furthermore, the track
aims at raising awareness regarding the great importance of biodiversity in maintaining the crucial
services that natural and semi-natural ecosystems provide to man and society, including crop
pollination, conservation of genetic resources, soil formation, climate regulation and water
purification. The trained professionals will be able to recognize and to analyze the most important
anthropogenic mechanisms behind the loss of biodiversity and the associated ecosystem services, at
both local and regional scales, and to propose and implement mitigation measures.

Learning environment and didactical methods

This master programme embraces sustainable development beyond the walls of the universities and
classrooms to engage with real world settings and localities in their search for solution to the most
pressing problems. Research-based courses, interactive teaching, critical learning and systemic
thinking, and courses combining theory and practical illustrations are the main principles and tools
underlying the teaching and learning philosophy of this Master programme. Several innovative
didactical methods illustrate this learning philosophy.
First, the Sustainable Development living lab fieldtrip is the main working platform through which the
learning community will apply interdisciplinary sustainability knowledge problems to the Global
South. The lab will travel yearly to one of our core partner countries with the aim of applying
knowledge from the classroom to investigate and discuss solutions to real-world problems. Students
will work in teams examining different relevant aspects of the topic of the fieldtrip. Among others,
students will do data collection, critical analyses of cases, elaborate policy recommendations and
identification of knowledge ‘gaps’, as well as reporting and dissemination.

Second, the course assignments and case-study analysis for the different courses will follow a similar
logic and will be inspired by the pressing needs of the South and real cases.

Third, the Individual Portfolio will compile the engagement of students in a range of academic
activities i.e. attending conferences, lectures or seminars, elaboration of brief reporting on the
relevance of these activities; individual or joint contributions to the blog of the Lab, mutual peer
review of reports, papers and contributions, etc. This contributes to the learning goal on critical
judgements in relation to relevant sustainable development issues and, by doing so, they construct a
personal standpoint about the situation of the Global South vis-à-vis the Global North and to develop
self-reflection on their studies and professional future.

Finally, cooperation with practice and the development of professional skills will be triggered through
the Workshop on Sustainable Development in Practice. As of 2018, the ICP Master will organize a
workshop with professionals for students and staff, to reflect on the needs of the labour market in
terms of skills and knowledge for sustainable development.

Evaluation

The programme uses a large variation in types of assessment in a both summative and formative manner.
This is in line with the targeted learning outcomes which focus equally on knowledge and insights, skills
and application abilities and communication. Intermediate assessments are generally used in a
formative way to give students timely feedback, while final assessments are summative. Intermediate
peer assessment is used for the assessment of teamwork. If frictions are detected, a team meeting is
organized to reflect on the functioning of the group, or individuals are confronted with results in
private. Peer assessment results can influence the final mark of an individual (up/downgrading).

As for papers and reports, feedback is an important driver for a coherent system for marking. In all
cases, remarks on form and content are taken note of, directly on the manuscript or on separate
sheets which are available during feedback moments. In case of major reports and papers (such as
the master thesis) several staff members grade the manuscript while averaging the marks; they list
remarks which are available for feedback. For the evaluation of extended papers well-thought
assessment criteria are used, hereby ensuring the validity. These criteria incorporate the quality and
relevance of desk research, methodology (presentation and implementation), results (presentation
and discussion), conclusion and the relevance for the research question (including creative and critical
thinking), quality of references, quality of interview transcripts (if any), quality of statistical analysis (if
any), quality of lay-out (with special attention for the creation of original tables, maps, graphs etc.)
and finally the quality of writing (language). The assessment rosters are added to information
documents and manuals for the students.