19 June 2024 – The Vice-rectorate for Education of the UPNA has approved the teaching innovation project entitled Promotion of sustainability competences in primary education from September 2024 to September 2026.

Based on the methodology of the NEMOS project (see NEMOS’s Methodological Handbook in Food Sustainability through Service-learning), this new initiative aims to develop tools that promote sustainability competences and contents that are useful for future primary education teachers.

The development of a Methodological manual for the incorporation of sustainability competences in the Degree of Primary Education will allow the transfer of the NEMOS project’s learning and methodology to primary education teaching degrees at further universities, primary education centres and other organisations related to primary education.

Furthermore, these learnings could serve as a starting point for extending this knowledge to other educational levels, including secondary education.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

18 June 2024 – Coordinator of the NEMOS project, Maria J. Cantalejo, from the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) is a member of the Intersectoral Monitoring Committee of ENEAS 2030 (Navarre Strategy for Environmental Education for Sustainability 2030). A stable forum for intersectoral meetings, the Committee aims to promote the participation and coordination of social agents, companies and professionals involved in Environmental Education for Sustainability, representatives of the Government of Navarre in Spain and other Public Administrations related to the Strategy.

The Navarre Strategy for Environmental Education for Sustainability 2030 seeks to define a new framework adapted to the new approaches to environmental education, closely linked to international debates on climate emergency and sustainability, to the new socio-environmental challenges facing us and to the regional, national and international commitments made by the Government of Navarre.

These challenges, which Environmental Education for Sustainability must address, allow us to define it as a key tool in the search for and implementation of solutions that make it possible to reduce impacts and improve our relations with the environment – from the local to the global scale – as well as to advance towards sustainable development in its social, economic and environmental dimensions.

The ENEAS 2030 Intersectoral Monitoring Committee was launched at a meeting on 23 May 2024, where a draft was presented of the first Environmental Education Action Plan for Sustainability 2023-2025.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

17 June 2024 – A Networking Activity was presented on 13 June 2024 by some of the partners of the NEMOS Consortium at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

The aim of this Networking Activity was to transfer the lessons learnt in the NEMOS project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, which are contained in the Methodological handbook in food sustainability through service learning. This is intended to be a practical tool for teachers helping them to provide students with the skills necessary for addressing sustainability within the curricula, to other subject fields and educational levels.

Also, some NEMOS case studies were shown, along with a short project video and the Methodological Handbook (translated into 5 languages) as a quick practical guide for integrating sustainability competences through service learning in a systematic way throughout the degrees. The onsite moderators (Maria J. Cantalejo, the main coordinator of the NEMOS project, and Sami Ghnimi, one of the local partners from ISARA-Lyon) and an online moderator (Maite M. Aldaya from UPNA-Spain) enabled the exchange of ideas and discussion on different implementation options and collaborations for improving the Methodological Handbook in the future. The feedback and implementation interest from the participants were collected through direct inputs and through a Google Form. The impact was measured in terms of the number of participants interested in implementing the Methodological Handbook, the number of different educational fields and levels covered, and, after the Activity, the number of participants implementing in practice the Methodological Handbook.

In the case of ISARA-Lyon, the renewal of the accreditation DD&RS (Sustainable development and social responsibility) is one of its main outcomes in recognition of the improvement achieved thanks to the NEMOS project. ISARA got the renewal of DD&RS accreditation and is progressing in this strategy and moved from level 2 (initiation) (at the beginning of the NEMOS project) to level 3 (conformity) (during the NEMOS project) and still more challenges to be addressed to reach the level 4 (mastering). According to Sami Ghnimi, they are applying now to achieve this level and level 5 (Excellence) in the coming years.

About the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress

Since 2021, the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI) has united global leaders in research, government, civil society, and business to meaningfully advance progress towards sustainability. The SRI Congress has offered an exceptionally inclusive and inspiring global platform for co-creating state-of-the-art solutions and innovations and building a coalition of the willing to achieve a sustainability transformation. In 2024, SRI was organized in collaboration with Sustainability Science Days (SSD), which for over six years has been the largest sustainability science conference in Finland (source: sricongress.org).

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

24 May 2024 – María J. Cantalejo Díez, Professor at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and coordinator of the co-funded Erasmus+ project NEMOS, will give a presentation on How to transfer the sustainability competences through green pedagogies and service-learning at the 12th International Conference on Sustainable Development – ICSD 2024, on 12 September 2024 in Rome, Italy.

In particular, UPNA’s presentation will focus on the final project result of NEMOS, consisting in practical sessions held to train university lecturers who teach in different degrees to effectively integrate sustainability in higher education.

The International Conference on Sustainable Development is organized by the European Center of Sustainable Development in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Technology – CIT. ICSD 2024 is inspired by the critical challenge of human, environmental, and economic sustainability concerning the present and future generations in a global-scale context.

The Conference theme will be Creating a unified foundation for the Sustainable Development: research, practice and education, aimed at emphasising the strong foundation that is provided by using research to inform our everyday practices, policies, and analytical approaches.

The 2024 edition will once again provide a forum for sharing ideas, presenting research findings, and discussing professional issues that are relevant to Sustainability Science. This ambition will proceed in a multidisciplinary way across various fields and perspectives, through which we can address the fundamental and related questions of Sustainable Development.

This interdisciplinary forum welcomes scholars, teachers, and practitioners from any professional discipline who share an interest in—and concern for— sustainability in a holistic perspective, where environmental, cultural, economic and social concerns intersect.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

24 May 2024 – Coordinator of the NEMOS project, María J. Cantalejo Díez will participate in the 22nd World Congress of Food Science and Technology – IUFoST presenting Examples of Food Industries With Zero Waste: Revalorisation of Whey By-products in line with Embedding Sustainability Through Service-Learning. Michael Murkovic, NEMOS local partner from TU Graz, will also attend the congress that will be held in Rimini, Italy, from 8 to 12 of September 2024.

Under the motto The Future of food is now: Development, Functionality & Sustainability, the congress programme will include industry-based workshops, distinguished plenary and keynote

speakers, industry led concurrent sessions, applied research presentations and a plethora of networking opportunities since it is expected to attract more than 2,500 delegates from America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and worldwide. The congress aims to outline the new challenges that the sector will face and for this reason the multi- and interdisciplinary meeting of all the scientific communities, that too often operate isolated from each other, will be welcome.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

23 May 2024 – The NEMOS consortium has recently released a new video to present the project NEMOS – A new educational model for acquisition of sustainability competences through service-learning, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.

The video, that explains the different phases of the NEMOS project and its results, will be presented at the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI 2024) to be held in Helsinki and Espoo (Finland), as well as online, on 10-14 June 2024.

Specifically, some of the partners in the NEMOS consortium will be conducting a Networking Activity to transfer the lessons learnt throughout the project,

which are contained in NEMOS’s Methodological handbook in food sustainability through service learning. Attending partners will be Maria J. Cantalejo, coordinator of the NEMOS project, and Maite M. Aldaya, from the Public University of Navarre (UPNA), as well as Sami Ghnimi, from ISARA-Lyon.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

28 March 2024 – The NEMOS consortium has officially launched its Methodological Handbook in Food Sustainability through Service-learning. The result of a two-year collaborative process within the Erasmus+ co-funded project NEMOS – A new educational model for acquisition of sustainability competences through service-learning, the Handbook aims to take a step forward in the transition towards education for sustainability, through practical and innovative educational approaches and interventions.

By pooling the knowledge and experience of the five higher education institutions involved in the project – the Public University of Navarre (Spain); Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria);

Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); with the support of the International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism (IGCAT – Spain) – NEMOS’s Handbook proposes possible ways of implementing new educational models to effectively acquire sustainability competences through service-learning in food-based degrees.

Each institution had a different educational food-based programme and started from a different baseline in terms of experience and practice in implementing sustainability through service-learning. As the main outcome of their joint work, the NEMOS’s Methodological Handbook aims to bring together the key lessons learned, and the recommendations gathered throughout the process, hoping to facilitate decision-making for teachers and higher-level educational institutions that want to start or continue integrating and promoting sustainability competences in the curricula and classroom daily practice.

The Methodological Handbook, will soon be available in the rest of the languages of the consortium (French, German, Italian and Spanish) to serve as a reference for further institutions to implement the methodology developed by NEMOS and adapt it to their specific contexts.

Download the Methodological Handbook in Food Sustainability through Service-learning

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

26 March 2024 – Some of the partners in the NEMOS consortium will be conducting a Networking Activity at the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI 2024) to be held in Helsinki and Espoo (Finland), as well as online, on 10-14 June 2024.

The aim of the Networking Activity will be to transfer the lessons learnt in the NEMOS project – co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union – which are contained in NEMOS’s Methodological handbook in food sustainability through service learning, to other subject fields and educational levels, after piloting them in food-related degrees. The handbook is intended to be a practical tool for teachers, helping them provide students with the skills necessary for addressing sustainability within the curricula.

Translated into 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish), the Methodological Handbook is a quick practical guide for integrating sustainability competences through service learning in a systematic way throughout the degrees. At SRI 2024, it will be presented along with some of the NEMOS case studies and a short project video, already available on NEMOS’s website homepage. The onsite moderators (Maria J. Cantalejo, coordinator of the NEMOS project, and Sami Ghnimi, one of the consortium partners from ISARA-Lyon), together with an online moderator (Maite M. Aldaya, from the Public University of Navarre) will enable the exchange of ideas and discussion on different implementation options and collaborations for improving the Methodological Handbook in the future. The feedback and implementation interest from the participants will be collected through direct inputs and through an online form. The impact will be measured in terms of the number of participants interested in implementing the Methodological Handbook, the number of different educational fields and levels covered, and, after the Activity, the number of participants implementing in practice the Methodological Handbook.

The NEMOS project partners: the Public University of Navarre (UPNA, Spain) – the leading institution, the University of Pisa (Italy), Graz University of Technology (Austria), Technological University Dublin (Ireland) and Higher Institute of Agriculture Rhone Alpes I.S.A.R.A. – University of Lyon (France), and their networks are encouraged to participate in the Networking Activity. The International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism (Spain), an EU-wide network, is responsible for the dissemination of the Activity.

About the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress

Since 2021, the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI) has united global leaders in research, government, civil society, and business to meaningfully advance progress towards sustainability. The SRI Congress offers an exceptionally inclusive and inspiring global platform for co-creating state-of-the-art solutions and innovations and building a coalition of the willing to achieve a sustainability transformation. SRI is co-convened by Future Earth and the Belmont Forum with local co-organizers.

SRI has been held in Oceania, Africa, and Latin America, and is now heading to Europe. In 2024, SRI will be organized in collaboration with Sustainability Science Days (SSD), which for over six years has been the largest sustainability science conference in Finland. SSD is a joint collaborative effort between Finland’s two largest universities, the University of Helsinki, and Aalto University (source: sricongress.org).

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

25 March 2024 – The NEMOS consortium welcomed the opportunity to be involved in one of the first international workshops for Higher Education Institutions on the recently released Scaffold cards, held in the framework of the Education for Sustainability and European Greencomp Framework event organised on 14 March 2024 by the Technological University of Dublin’s Sustainability Education Unit and Faculty of Sciences and Health Sustainability committee, in collaboration with the NEMOS project.

The context was set by a presentation from Dr. Guia Bianchi, researcher at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Seville, author of Sustainability competences and co-author of 

GreenComp – The European sustainability competence framework, who talked the audience through the process that led to the development of the European sustainability competence framework and the creation of the Scaffold cards.

Afterwards, post-doctoral researchers at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Pisa, Sabrina Tomasi Ph.D and Annapia Ferrara Ph.D, successfully organised and facilitated the workshop, involving teachers from TU Dublin, as well as local stakeholders. Divided into smaller groups, participants were called to design potential learning activities for students using the Scaffold cards, with the support of the NEMOS partners. To ensure the quality of the workshop, the UNIPI partners who conducted it, followed the recently published guidelines “Scaffold”, a deck of cards to design competence-oriented learning experiences”, authored by Margherita Bacigalupo and other colleagues from the JRC.

The exercise was especially focused on fostering the acquisition of green competences (GreenComp) and invited participants to reflect on the whole designing process of the learning activity, including aspects such as setting a specific target, learning objectives and resources, as well as planning for the most suitable teaching methods and assessment techniques to reach the set goals. The groups were also encouraged to create links with further sets of competences – digital competences (DigComp), entrepreneurial competences (EntreComp), life competences (LifeComp), as well as Transversal competences – using the suggestions reported on the Scaffold cards.

The outcome of the workshop was very positive, especially thanks to the capacity of TU Dublin to involve highly-motivated and competent educators and researchers with a high interest in integrating sustainability in the curricula, as well as actively engage local students. The role of the NEMOS partners was also fundamental in supporting the groups during the activity and compiling final reports, while TU Dublin’s NEMOS fellows followed the reflection process and reported about the discussion dynamics generated in the different groups.

The NEMOS partners were pleased to receive the participants’ favourable feedback on the experience and acknowledge their intention to explore the Scaffold cards further as a supportive resource in their future work.

About the Scaffold cards

“Scaffold is a tool, consisting of a deck of 102 cards, created to support educators in designing learning activities and guiding them step-by-step – from planning to assessment. Scaffold has been produced jointly by the European Training Foundation, in the framework of its Creating New Learning initiative, and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, in the context of its work on key competences with the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion” (source: European Training Foundation).

More in depth information is available in the Teaching different key competences at once report, focusing on the process that led to the production of the Scaffold cards. The document describes the initial concept of the cards, explaining what needs they address, and it summarises their design including the proof of concept, the design of a prototype for testing and evaluating their usefulness before production.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com

25 March 2024 – Education for Sustainability and the European GreenComp Framework was the theme of the closing event of the Erasmus+ co-funded project NEMOS – A new educational model for acquisition of sustainability competences through service-learning.

Organised on 14 March 2024 by the Technological University of Dublin’s Sustainability Education Unit and Faculty of Sciences and Health Sustainability committee, in collaboration with the NEMOS consortium, the event offered an overview of the NEMOS approach and the results achieved by the project, highlighted industry and community perspectives for education for sustainability, and hosted a practical workshop.

Following an opening speech by Lily Lee from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) of the Government of Ireland, the audience had the chance to attend online keynote address by Dr. Guia Bianchi, researcher at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Seville, author of Sustainability competences and co-author of GreenComp – The European sustainability competence framework. She illustrated the process that led to the development of the European sustainability competence framework and the creation of the Scaffold cards, explaining how these can be used by teachers to design any kind of learning activities.

Moderated by Julie Dunne, Head of the School of Food Science and Environmental Health (TU Dublin), the event continued with presentations by all university partners involved in the NEMOS consortium, reporting about the activities carried out to embed the development of sustainability competences into food degrees curricula through service-learning.

Coordinator of the NEMOS project and professor at the Public University of Navarra, Iosune Cantalejo outlined the NEMOS project’s aims and results, with a special focus on the NEMOS Methodological Handbook, that will soon be published as an open resource in all of the languages of the consortium (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) on the NEMOS website and the Erasmus+ programme platform. Aimed at providing a general framework of guidance to adopt service-learning as a tool for strengthening the sustainability competences of students, the Methodological Handbook will also include examples and best practices implemented by the different universities concerned.

The following case studies were then presented by the NEMOS partners and fellows:

Sustainability focused, competency based learning through work placement by Michelle Giltrap, Lecturer in Environmental Health at TU Dublin and NEMOS fellow,

focused on the introduction of a new sustainability element into students’ work placement, including food businesses and social enterprises. After receiving training in different sustainability domains (e.g. sustainability strategy, packaging, air pollution, energy use) students were called to find solutions to existing sustainability-related challenges in the workplace and then reflect on their experience. In general, through service-based learning, students demonstrated a better understanding of sustainability practices in the workplace, and students’ competences such as problem-solving were greatly enhanced.

Safety and Sustainability Placement Action Plan (SSPAP) by Sara Boyd, Lecturer in Environmental Health Risk Management at TU Dublin and NEMOS fellow, reported about the experience of a group of Food Science students who went into work placements in the brewing and distilling sector, with the main objective of developing a safety and sustainability placement action plan and suggesting possible solutions for existing challenges. The students appreciated the exercise as a “transformative learning experience” and felt they had developed a stronger sense of responsibility towards ensuring sustainability on the workplace.

Final Year Project – Valorisation of Brewers’ spent grain for feed applications by Azza Silotry Naik, Assistant Lecturer in Food Science and Environmental Health at TU Dublin and NEMOS fellow, presented a case study whereby students worked with two community partners to improve the composition and rumen digestibility of cow feed based on brewers’ spent grain. The experience was successful in achieving specific sustainability-related learning outcomes: to search, access and ethically use information; and to demonstrate an ability to think globally and consider issues and knowledge from a variety of perspectives.

Implementing food sustainability through service learning: the UNIPI experience by Sabrina Tomani and Annapia Ferrara, post-doctoral researchers at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Pisa, explained the initiative Quanto ne sai di sostenibilità? (How much do you know about sustainability?) aimed at challenging students to find sustainable, original, innovative and viable solutions for local stakeholders in the agrifood sector. By means of pre- and post-experience assessment tools, such as surveys, reflective journals and rubrics, the team of UNIPI demonstrated that the service-learning activities generated a significant improvement of the participating students’ sustainability competences.

Acquisition of food sustainability competence through service learning by Sami Ghnimi, Associate Professor in Food Process Engineering and Coordinator of the MSc Sustainable Food Systems at ISARA Lyon, focused on the service-learning activities developed at ISARA and the assessment actions carried out to evaluate the enhancement of students’ sustainability competences. Service-learning experiences included helping local farmers achieve a sustainable animal production system; active projects involving an associative, civic or environmental community engagement; as well as projects on improving sustainable development in the food industries.

Teaching in Sustainability through Service-Learning: A Case Study by Iosune Cantalejo, Professor at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and Coordinator of the NEMOS project reported about practical experiences at UPNA aimed at enhancing the capacity of students to give sustainable solutions to real-world problems. Among them, the designing of paper-based sustainable packaging solutions for bread in collaboration with a social printing block employing people at risk of social exclusion. The experience turned out to be very positive for both the workers and the students, who were involved in active, hands-on learning, fostering community engagement, critical thinking and the development of leadership, project management and communication skills.

Implementation of Sustainability in the Curriculum at TU Graz by Michael Murkovic, Professor at the Institute of Biochemistry of TU Graz, focused on the activities carried out to integrate service-learning in TU Graz’s master programme in Biotechnology, in collaboration with the public waste water treatment plant. The objective was to improve the students’ technical knowledge of waste water, especially through laboratory work, as well as encourage them to interact with the plant’s staff about the technology and the implications of the laboratory results, with the ultimate aim of designing possible upgrades of the purification plant. In general, students were satisfied with the interaction of the staff and especially with the practical implications of their lab training.

Finally, Annapia Ferrara Ph.D and Sabrina Tomasi Ph.D successfully led a workshop involving teachers from TU Dublin, as well as local stakeholders, who were called to design learning activities using the Scaffold cards with the support of the NEMOS partners.

About the NEMOS Project

The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.

More information at www.nemosproject.com