Samenvatting

In our vision engineering students become sustainable practitioners by focusing on their learning process instead of focusing on their engineering results. By focussing on the learning process we create a learning environment in which there will be innovation because it’s permitted (or even requested) to make mistakes and learn from these mistakes. The learning of the students is driven by assessments for learning and emphasis on competence, relatedness and autonomy, the key factors of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). We believe that profound learning and sustainable education are inseparable.

In the minor program Innovation, Engineering and Design in our Industrial Design Engineering course we combine assessments for learning, SDT with sustainable design methods and LCA. In this minor program student are working on real live projects. All projects are demand driven, the demand owners are private companies. Beside the companies, the research department of our university provides open research questions. We translate these research questions to objectives for the companies and professional products for our students. In this way, we apply the triple helix of industry, research and education. Even more, we try to make it a sustainable triple helix by inviting the entrepreneurs to join our learning processes and, by doing so, constructing a basis for innovation. We try not to solve problems for the companies, but to learn and innovate with the companies.

In the paper we will explain the process by sharing a recent project:
The project for the company Visser Group, 's-Gravendeel, the Netherlands, is aimed at developing a new production technique of injection moulding cores. The main question that was brought in by the company and the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, research department of Sustainable Development, was to develop injection moulds using additive manufacturing techniques.

The students and teachers started without deep knowledge of additive manufacturing processes and they never used a injection moulding machine. The project focused on learning new skills and knowledge and not on the end result. The learning is driven by the collaborative action research method and an uncertain but sustainable goal; a perfect example of engineering by doing.