Supervisors: Mariane Frenay (IPSY), François Lambotte (ILC), Magali Paquot (ILC –spokesperson), Valérie Swaen

2019 researchers: Pauline de Montpellier d’Annevoie, Dennis Rivera Villa (IPSY), Jan Zienkowski (ILC)
Financement: Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles
Period: 2019-2024

Summary: (open) online education poses a variety of challenges for higher education, one of which is how to foster social interactions and induce beneficial socio-cognitive conflicts (i.e. differences in point of view that are socially experienced and cognitively resolved) to promote learning in an environment where interactions are primarily written and asynchronous. To address this challenge, we adopt a multidisciplinaty perspective that builds on theories from several disciplines from the humanities and social sciences (linguistics, natural language processing, communication sciences, education, and management studies) to analyse social interactions and investigate the presence and unfolding of socio-cognitive conflicts in massive open online courses (MOOCs). MOOCs are a unique environment where people from ail over the world -with different professional experiences, first languages, cultural backgrounds, etc. -are invited to discuss disciplinary concepts and/or society issues that eau potentially induce socio-cognitive conflicts. Methodologically, the project im1ovates by building on varions disciplinary methodological toolkits (from content analysis to natural language processing, corpus linguistics and social media analytics ), in a mixed-method approach.

More information on this porject here.

SDGs4U is a European ERASMUS+ project funded by Erasmus KA2 funds for a period of 3 years from 2019 to 2022. It was carried by European partners, including:

• 4 universities committed to transitions: the UCLouvain (Belgium), the Universidad de la Rioja (Spain), the Université Catholique de Lille (France) and the University of Wales (UK) 
• 3 associations committed to the SDGs: Time4society (Belgium), Cap Solidarités (France) and WCIA (UK)

The website dedicated to this project is available in French, English and Spanish on the Global Citizen Learning Lab website.

This project has resulted in three types of outputs:

Online courses:

The first output is a set of two online courses allowing the integration of the SDGs in the professional & civic pathway of each person ("SDG Entrepreneur" badge at stake). 
The two main objectives of these courses are to:

• (1) Understand the SDGs and their place in the economy and the ecosystem 
• (2) Reflect on one's own role and understand better the skills needed to acheive the SDGs

Educational contents, critical thinking, creativity, communication, case studies and experience sharing are all part of the course!  The course also allows you to complete a self-assessment of your skills via the Global steps.
More information here.

The SDGs4U guide:

The second output of this project is a companion guide to inspire universities willing to adopt a transition and implement the Sustainable Development Goals. How can this be done? By sharing good practices and experiences of different universities already engaged in the process.
More concretely, the SDGs4U guide aims to:

• Build its argument to convince and embark the actors of the university in the transition but also to present the challenges of the SDGs ;
• Create a committee for sustainable development in its university by identifying stakeholders and partners to work together on the project of integration of the SDGs;
• Discover the steps to implementation;
• Embark on a journey using 4 booklets to implement the 4Cs (Culture, Community, Curriculum, Campus). These booklets are tools to understand the different "Cs" and their importance, to implement them in your university, to evaluate their impact and to inspire universities through case studies from SDGs4U partners. All 4 booklets are accompanied by exercises to get you started.

You want to know more? Click here for the English guide.

SDG Living Lab & hackathon:

The third and last output of the SDGs4U project is a Living Lab that proposes a methodology to create partnerships between three groups of actors: students, university staff and the university ecosystem (companies, NGOs, associations, local authorities...). To implement this methodology, SDGs4U proposes a playful approach, namely a day of "hackathon" on the theme "Your university in 2050". 
Indeed, universities can be living laboratories of transitions to meet the SDGs. In a spirit of collaboration, the SDGs Labs will make the university an incubator of good practices and a gas pedal of projects for the SDGs. They will contribute to the emergence of new business models and foster innovation and regional economic development.

Eager to create your SDGs Living Lab? Let's go on this page!