Postgraduate Course
in Community
Service Engineering
Technology for empowerment,
quality of living, present-day
social profit organisations …
Faculty of Engineering Technology
Faculty of Engineering Science
in collaboration with Thomas More
A postgraduate course for you?
Are you an engineer with an affinity for the social sector? Are you convinced that
technology is an important lever for more independence and a better quality of life
for vulnerable groups in society?
Do you think you can make a significant contribution to social profit organisations as
an engineer?
Do you also believe that the sector can keep pace with the rapid technological and
societal changes by innovating and by making adequate use of existing solutions
and services on the market?
This postgraduate course bridges the worlds of technology, of the social profit and
the profit sector.
Above all as an engineer you solve problems for ... people. This programme helps you
to extensively get into the social aspects of engineering problems. Once you really
understand people and their challenges, you can change lives.
This course focuses on technology for social inclusion, empowerment, accessibility of
public space, websites and media. It goes into the efficiency of social profit organisations
and into the quality of their services.
p Huize Zonnelied Ieper - RFID tag detects
runaway behaviour of elderly people with
dementia (Cera Award project)
p MS Center Melsbroek - Cognitive signal analysis
(Cera Award project)
Admission Requirements
The following criteria apply for this course:
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The course is open to:
• Masters of Engineering Technology,
• Masters of Engineering Science,
• Masters of Engineering Science: Architects,
• BioScience Engineers,
• Business Engineers.
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Candidates have to demonstrate a good command of English, CEFR B2 is advised.
(cf: www.coe.int/lang-CEFR)
Admission and Registration
Submit your application before September 12, 2014 through www.fet.kuleuven.be/cse/apply.
We will inform you about admission no later than September 19. After admission,
you can enroll via www.kuleuven.be/registrations
The tuition fee amounts to € 3,000. This postgraduate course is recognised as
‘paid educational leave’. Fees can be paid with employer or employee training vouchers.
Some students are partly or fully sponsored by the companies they work for.
Certificate
The postgraduate programme consists of 30 credits. At the end of the curriculum there is a
viva about your project for a professional jury. The processes and work done throughout
the year are equally important as the project’s technical end result. You will report on your
progress and demonstrate that you acted as a socially aware engineer. If you pass, you will
receive the official certificate ‘Postgraduate Course in Community Service Engineering’.
Cooperation with Cera Award
We work closely together with Cera Award.
Our graduates are encouraged to compete for a Cera Award
(www.cera-award.be). The Cera Award is:
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a recognition of your social, communicative and creative skills that you showed as
an engineer in a social context;
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a beautiful statue that symbolises the cooperation between science and social profit.
Our approach?
As engineers/professionals you are constantly in touch with and learn from each other.
Project work is an important part of the training. Projects are carried out individually
or in teams. We start from real needs of people and organisations. Technics remains
important but so is the process that you go through. By targeted questions this process
comes to the surface and you learn with and from one another about different contexts,
the co-creation of technology, technical criteria, user criteria, viable business models,
implications for other fields, etc.
The project work is supported by course content, which is divided into four modules:
1 . Vulnerable groups in society
You will meet the challenges of various vulnerable groups in society. You meet experts
by experience who tell their stories and explain what role technology plays in it.
Often, they can also say what 'wrong technology' is. Then they mean tools that have
been developed with the best intentions, but which do not meet their needs. You will
learn about the concept of 'appreciative inquiry' and gain insight into terms such as
participation, empowerment, emancipation and inclusion.
2 . Organisations in the social profit sector
In this module you will learn about the role and future of the social profit sector.
You are introduced to various parties, such as the government and umbrella and
advocacy organisations to get a clear picture of the sector. You will learn about
the various subsectors and about international perspectives. You reflect on questions
such as: How much does the social profit sector cost to a country and what are
the returns? How is the sector funded? How difficult is it to manage a social profit
organisation and to what extent does it differ from managing a regular business?
What are business models for the social profit sector? What is Social Accounting
and Social Return on Investment (SROI)? ...
3 . Technology and the social profit sector
In this module, the social profit sector and technology are placed in relation to one
another. When do people win with technology? You extensively discuss a number
of cases and the ethics of technology. You are introduced to the industry of assistive
technology. You will study and analyze the accessibility of buildings, public space
and accessibility in the wider sense (e.g. regarding ICT). You examine the acceptance
of technology and services to enhance the use of technology. We look into how sad
is it when the technology developed is not used? In this section you will also study
the socio-technical system design, since because of their analytical skills engineers
can contribute significantly to the design of organisations.
We know all
about the social
profit sector
We know all
about
engineering
4 . Interdisciplinary Module
In this module you continue to build bridges between different worlds. You discuss
the economic, ecological and legal implications of technology and the need for a
multidisciplinary approach and how this can be achieved in practice. Topics include:
open innovation, business models, ‘creative commons’, the co-operative type of
business ... You train your social skills: storytelling, active listening, dialogue, leading
groups in co-creation ... Several learning activities in this module are interdisciplinary
and international thanks to the European Lifelong Learning Project Community
Service Engineering. This means that you are in touch with students from other
professions and other countries to learn from and with each other.
Easy to combine work and study
Face-to-face contact time is kept to a minimum so the combination with a job is feasible.
Classroom activities are organised on Fridays and Saturdays: a nice compromise for
the investment of your personal time and that of your possible employer.
About one third of the time you meet each other face-to-face. For the other two thirds
learning is made possible thanks to an interactive online learning environment. On this
platform you can find a lot of learning materials. Our classroom activities are largely
recorded (video) so you can consult the presentations again or catch up.
Group interaction and individual assignments (including feedback) are mainly organised
virtually. You can make your own arrangements and work on a self-selected time,
place and pace.
The ‘real life’ project that you choose will depend on your technical background and
preference of a subsector in the social profit sector. You can select a project idea from
the KU Leuven pool, but you can also start from a project idea of the organisation that
you work for. In this way this postgraduate course offers an opportunity to examine
the potential of products or services in the social profit sector or to get one-step further
in their development or implementation. You get the chance to work on a project for
your employer. Without this course time for such projects may not have been found.
International Dimension
The postgraduate course is fully taught in English. The interaction between actors
in the curriculum will be in English. The programme is open to an international
audience of graduate engineers.
The pool of project ideas from the university has a number of project proposals
from foreign organisations. This means you can work for an international employer
if you wish.
Both KU Leuven and Thomas More are partners in a European consortium for Community
Service Engineering. There is a close cooperation with the University of Porto (Portugal),
The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and University West in
Sweden. These partners work on projects in the same context. In the curriculum there
is room to compare topics across country borders. As a student, you are invited to get
to know each other, work together and learn from one another.
The course has been developed in cooperation with the Olin College of
Engineering (USA). International guest lecturers from the US and elsewhere
will take part in the virtual environment.
Why take this course?
Engineers with the additional profile of ‘Community Service Engineering’ can play a role in:
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the social profit sector itself;
companies in assistive technology;
companies that seek market and/or product potential in the social profit sector.
Based on their projects’ end results, graduate engineers can start their own business
in an international niche market or perform consultancy assignments for the social
profit sector.
Socially aware engineers are particularly widely employable in the labour market,
because they have been trained at the crossroads between different disciplines and
have interacted with a range of audiences and organisations. Thanks to these contacts
with partners in the field, our graduates build an extensive network within the field of
Community Service Engineering.
Organisation, location and timing
The course is an interdisciplinary programme. The bridge is made between engineering
and social work. The organising partners are the faculties of Engineering Technology and
Engineering Science at KU Leuven in collaboration with Thomas More’s group of Health,
Wellbeing and Teacher Training. Face-to-face activities are alternately organised on
the campuses of the Faculties of Engineering Technology and Engineering Science in
Geel and Leuven.
The course starts in October 2014 and ends in May 2015. Classes are on Fridays and
Saturdays. The curriculum is largely organised through the virtual learning environment.
Actors
Various actors are involved in the curriculum:
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Professors and teachers of both KU Leuven and Thomas More;
‘Real life’ experts/end users of technology; representatives of vulnerable groups
in society;
Representatives of social profit organisations;
Entrepreneurs;
Representatives of intermediate organisations; including advocacy organisations;
Policymakers;
Guest lecturers or experts.
Given our ideas on project work, there is room for specific subjects at the request
of students.
KU LEUVEN
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY
W. de Croylaan 6 box 2000
3001 LEUVEN, Belgium
www.fet.kuleuven.be
More information
KU Leuven
Faculty of Engineering Technology
Faculty of Engineering Science
in collaboration with Thomas More
Group of Health,
Wellbeing and Teacher Training
www.fet.kuleuven.be/cse
cse@kuleuven.be
Contact:
Inge Vervoort
tel. + 32 14 56 23 10
With the support of the Fetzer Institute and the Lifelong
Learning Programme of the European Commission
v.u.: Kris Willems, W. de Croylaan 6 bus 2000, 3001 Leuven
Partners: