Humanitarian Engineering is the use of science and engineering to invent, create, design, develop, or improve technologies that promote the wellbeing of communities facing grand humanitarian challenges.
This degree explores the same broad themes as our main Humanitarian Engineering degree, but with a specific focus on sustainability through tailored core and optional modules.
Core modules
Humanitarian Engineering: Ethics, Theory and Practices
This module is an introduction to humanitarian engineering viewed from ethical, cultural, and practical perspectives. It is designed to enable you to reflect upon the history and meaning of Humanitarianism and Humanitarian Engineering.
An Introduction to Global Health
The module aims to give you a comprehensive knowledge and critique of key global health issues. You will be introduced to the global burden of disease and the social determinants of health.
Water and Environmental Management
The main aim of this module is to present a global topic such as water in its so you can discover, research and experiment the great potentialities of an interdisciplinary approach to the matter.
One Humanity; Shared Responsibility
The international community is expecting that we come together and tackle global challenges from poverty to gender quality and climate change, and to create a better world for future generations. Now it is time to turn promises into action for this generation, and uphold people’s safety, dignity and the right to thrive.
The Agenda for Humanity outlines five core responsibilities in which we must take collective action. One of the core responsibilities is 'Leave no one behind'. It is our responsibility and commitment to transform the lives of those most at risk of being left behind. This means reaching everyone and empowering all women, men, girls and boys to be agents of positive transformation. It means reducing displacement, supporting refugees and migrants, ending gaps in education and fighting to eradicate sexual and gender-based violence and increasing disaster management.
Urban Resilience, Disasters and Data
This intensive module is aimed at introducing the topics of disaster risks and urban resilience with emphasis on the use of innovative digital technologies to gather and analyse urban data for improving disaster resilience. It approaches, theoretically and practically, the main issues involved in disaster resilience and the way in which social media, mobile technologies and the web 2.0 are related to our collective experience of disasters and crisis events.
By means of a practical project and potential fieldwork conducted in the city of Coventry, you will learn how to collect urban data using open-source mobile data collection software (OpenDataKit), process and analyse this data with Geographic Information Systems (QGIS) and produce interactive digital maps to visualise urban aspects related to disaster resilience.
Renewable Energy
This module aims to impart an advanced understanding of the principles of modern renewable energy technologies, including biofuels from a variety of sources, wind power, solar energy, geothermal, ocean and hydro power and ethical and practical considerations. The particular focus will be given to the limitations and restrictions in developing countries.
You will gain a diverse theoretical understanding of the future and current renewable technologies for power production, evaluate the fundamental principles underlying the energy production/conversion and interrogate the social and environmental impacts of renewable energy technologies.
Specialist core modules
Sustainable Cities and Infrastructure for Emergencies
In many developing countries, basic infrastructures; housing, power, water, sanitation, information and communication technologies, and roads, are insufficient, or non-existent. Inadequate access to infrastructures is a key barrier to economic growth. It inhibits access to health care, education and markets, it is tested even more at times of emergency.
On this module you will explore the planning and conceptual design of sustainable cities and infrastructure improvements for low-income urban communities. You will also become familiar with the range of infrastructure needs for affected communities before, during and following emergencies such as technologies for security, shelter, water supply and engineering management of liquid and solid wastes.
Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Engineering
This module is designed for students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and aims to provide you with critical knowledge and skills to analyse and contribute to sustainable technical solutions in industry, consultancy, governmental agencies, and research. The module covers aspects including, but not limited to, key concepts of industrial ecology (industrial ecosystems, industrial symbiosis, and industrial metabolism), industrial ecology tools (lifecycle, input-output, techno-economic, and material flow analyses), sustainable engineering and design for environment, environmental impact assessment, sustainable production and consumption, resource/material efficiency and circular economy strategies (e.g. reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling), pairing disruptive digital technologies with the circular economy, sustainability in the supply chain, multi-criteria decision analysis, energy and transportation (e.g. battery systems and electric vehicles) amongst others.
Project
You will study projects individually or as a group depending on your choice, guidance provided by the module leader and discussions with potential project supervisor. The group projects aim to give you experience of working within a team, and parallels the way teams formed with people with different background to tackle challenging projects similar to project teams formed in real life situations. Individual projects will be more focussed on in-depth studies in line with your interests and in line with the supervisor’s expertise. Projects are proposed by academics, industry partners or students.
(One chosen from the list below)
- Humanitarian Law
- Design Thinking for Social Impact
- Challenges to Global Food Security
