Sustainability Engineering Education – An Outlook On UK Higher Education Providers

The aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which United Kingdom (UK) universities are incorporating sustainability into their engineering curricula. To achieve this, data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) and university websites were analysed using a text mining approach. The findings reveal that UK higher education providers are gradually increasing their offerings of Sustainable Engineering (SE) courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The most prominent sustainability themes integrated into engineering curricula are energy, design, and construction. Furthermore, the analysis of courses and their modules shows that 50% of UK postgraduate sustainable engineering courses contain between 25% and 50% sustainable engineering content. In contrast, almost one-third of traditional engineering courses that incorporate sustainability contain between 10% and 25% of sustainable engineering subjects. The study also examined the SE courses and their module descriptions to identify gaps and how UK higher education providers are contributing towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The most dominant SDGs addressed in the UK SE courses analysed are SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SGD 13 Climate Action. This paper provides valuable insights into the integration of sustainability into engineering education and its alignment with the SDGs.