Disaster risk reduction for a resilient world: An online transdisciplinary course to enhance global awareness in training and education

In today’s world, we face many complex societal challenges such as climate change and disaster risk that require input from actors and stakeholders from different fields and disciplines. In higher education, this is made possible, in part, through transdisciplinary course programs. These programs offer courses that equip students and researchers with transdisciplinary competencies and expertise needed to co-create knowledge, develop and practice intercultural and problem-solving skills, and enable change collaboratively.

Despite such efforts, many higher education institutes have yet to adapt to the increasingly dynamic world. This is especially evident in geosciences, a field that plays an essential role in addressing key societal issues. While some advances have been made, there is still a significant lack of diversity and discipline integration in geosciences, where many courses are attended and taught by those working within the disciplinary boundaries. 

To address this issue, Global Awareness Education, a part of the Transdisciplinary Course Program at the University of Tübingen (Germany), has been offering courses on global issues related to geosciences. These courses engage students of all disciplines (not just geosciences) from both the University of Tübingen and CIVIS (an alliance of 11 leading universities across Europe). Topics covered include: disaster risk reduction, environmental impact assessment, environmental communication, global soil health, climate crisis, indigenous knowledge in climate change as well as art-science collaborative excursions. These courses are interactive and hands-on, and are taught by international teams of educators, researchers and practitioners from the social and natural sciences.

Here we focus on our recent (winter semester 2023/24) piloting of one course at the University of Tübingen titled Disaster Risk Reduction for a Resilient World. This course has been adapted from an online, self-led training module that was originally developed for natural hazard students and researchers interested in strengthening their engagement in disaster risk reduction (DRR). We altered the course to make it accessible to students from all disciplines. Specific topics include cascading multi-hazard environments, effective partnerships, stakeholder engagement, theory of change, cultural understanding and positionality, indigenous knowledge, equitable access to information, people-centered DRR, and DRR and sustainable development.

Using a survey questionnaire, we assessed students’ perspectives on their skills acquisition, knowledge and their levels of confidence to contribute more effectively to the integrated work needed to improve DRR activities. We also assessed what actions students plan to take as a result of completing the course. In this presentation, we share these results, discuss some challenges we faced in course implementation, and offer potential solutions to these challenges.