What’s the Good Practice about?
Sustainable Energy Impact (SEI) is a student project that supports ongoing funded projects of the Sustainable Technologies Laboratory dealing with sustainable energy and mobility concepts for Sub-Saharan Africa. The output of students’ work is not meant for theoretical matters but has a real impact on ongoing research projects that are connected to Sustainable Energy Impact. The tasks in SEI are an integral part of these applied projects and the students’ results will have a direct influence on the project implementation in Ghana. Therefore, Sustainable Energy Impact offers participants not only the chance to work on ecologically and socially relevant business models in innovative fields of technology, but also provides them with the unique opportunity to gain experiences in working in an international research environment with real world impact.
Why implementing the Good Practice? What are the special features of the Good Practice?
It is very beneficial for students due to the wide range of developed skills and its problem-based learning approach. Students can participate in a variety of topics, such as social, economic, environmental, legal, technical, marketing, or others. Bachelor and Master students from different faculties are working alone or together in transdisciplinary groups. Students can cooperate with partner companies of the Sustainable Technology Laboratory. They can also work together with students from the Ghanaian universities Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR). Therefore, students learn to combine theoretical research with practical experience in an international environment. If the students’ research is applied in practice, it can have a positive environmental impact.
The concept of the good practice can be implemented everywhere since it’s regionally independent.
What are the challenges in implementing the Good Practice?
What’s the key to success?
The project team is international, students from Ghana and Germany are collaborating via Zoom. Therefore, a good internet connection is essential. This was and still is an issue which must be considered. Before starting the Good Practice, the project had to be implemented in the curriculum of the students in consultation with the university management. That has been quite challenging due to different curriculums of students from Ghana and Germany (different times of vacations, different number of credits gained for the project).
The key to success is good project management.