Global Challenges II: The SDGs applied in Social Sciences contexts

The purpose of this course is to apply the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in contexts relevant to the Social Sciences. It is a follow-up to the Course “Global Challenges and the UN Sustainable Development Goals I: The SDGs relevance for the Social Sciences”, so participation in that course is highly recommended, but not absolutely necessary, to participate in this course. 

The case-studies – on the macro (societal) and/or individual (micro/firm) level – are selected for illustrating the background and the antecedents that impact the SDGs and their establishment and the management, but also as exercises for the students, e.g. when discussing trade-offs, barriers, opportunities and/or the implementation of the rules of the game. Historical and economic underpinnings of the SDGs, ethical considerations, the breadth of the SDGs and challenges of multi-criteria evaluation as well as the legal and political considerations in implementing the SDGs will be taken into account for selecting cases and exercises. The underlying context and background criteria can be described as follows:

• Historical and economic underpinnings of real-world cases that can benefit from application of the SDGs
• Ethical considerations of real-world cases involving efforts to attain the SDGs
• Breadth of the SDGs and challenges of multi-criteria evaluation in applied cases
• Legal and political considerations in implementing the SDGs in applied cases
• Video presentation skills via the Fab Lab
• Participation in SDU’s SDG-camp

• Impacts of EU Seal Fur Ban on Greenland
• Norwegian Investments in Forests in Liberia and Gabo
• Air Travel in the Age of Covid-19
• Community Effects of Circular Economy in Tourism
• Esbjerg’s Development as Energy Metropolis
• Project Zero: Sønderborg as a carbon-neutral city
• PlasticTwist project: How universities and NGOs can mediate between niche and regime actors to support sustainability transformation driven by grassroots-communities.
• Application of SDG in a company – case study of the Danish-German Interreg project SARA (Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs, Adaptable Indicators and Methods, Regional Development and Active Implementation)

By the end of this course, the students will have gained appropriate knowledge on the relevance of the central contents and applications of the SDGs in potential professional real-life situations of graduates of the different disciplines within the Social Sciences.

The students will:

• Know interconnected challenges, tradeoffs and synergies, inter- and intra-generational ethical and equity considerations in the development, implementation and impact of the SDG.
• Know how to apply the SDGs toopical cases, combining different SDGs, to understand interconnected tradeoffs and synergies, inter- and intra-generational ethical and equity considerations in the development, implementation and impact of the SDGs.
• Know communication tools for messaging on the SDGs.

By the end of the course the students will have acquired skills that enable them to

• identify current challenges within the area of the SDG and their implementation in real life situations. 
• critically analyze agendas, discussions and tool for working with sustainable development goals. 
• critically reflect upon non-academic discussions taking place across multiple media in the real world.
• scale the global goals to individual experience and choices in a social scientific context.
• apply the SDGs to topical cases combining different SDGs.
• critically assess synergies and tradeoffs amongst SDGs in applied cases.
• use classical but also new communication tools like videography and presentation for communicating the acquired the knowledge.

5 case study modules, online (15 contact hours)

participation in SDU’s two-day SDG camp (27 hours)

60 hour case study preparation/subsequent processing

3 hour Tuition from Fab Lab for final video

30 hour video preparation and processing

135 hours in total.