Decision Making for Sustainable Solutions (UoA)

Many real-world engineering studies belong to the class of wicked problems. This means that they are generally ill-formulated, lack clear direction and information, have many clients and decision-makers with conflicting values and do not have a 'right' or 'wrong' solution. In this course, students will gain first-hand experience of working on a wicked engineering problem (e.g. renewable energy transition, water resources allocation and management) by adopting the role of one of the stakeholder groups involved. This will provide an opportunity for students to utilise and build on a range of the technical and professional skills they have acquired during their degree program and to explore a range of factors affecting environmental decision-making that need to be considered to achieve sustainable outcomes. These include the need to understand different perspectives on an issue, the need for trade-offs and compromise between competing objectives, the importance of communication, research, critical thinking and negotiation skills, the importance of using appropriate evidence to support arguments and the importance of acting ethically and professionally.