Since 2022-23, EEECS and Chemistry and Chemical Engineering have represented Queen’s in the Engineering for People Design Challenge from Engineers Without Borders (EWB-UK), engaging around 1,300 students so far across both schools. The entry from EEECS forms part of the group project in CSC2058 Software Engineering and Systems Development. Students learn about a place and its history, and about the problems faced by the people who live there. In recent years Goven in Scotland, Pu Ngaol in Cambodia, and Makers Valley in Johannesburg, South Africa, have been the focus of EWB’s Design Brief. Interviews, movies, interactive maps and a Discord forum give the students a strong impression of ‘being there’. Whether they take on a problem that concerns the Built Environment, Food, Water, Transport, Digital, Waste or Sanitation, their solution must be sustainable, and, for EEECS students, it must involve software. There is no single right answer. The challenge encourages collaborative working, cross-disciplinary systems thinking and a readiness to deal with uncertainty. EWB collaboration at EEECS is led by Ian O’Neill

Publications & Resources O’Neill, I., Gui, M.M. Changing focus: making sustainability a major theme in existing university modules. Discov Sustain 5, 226 (2024).