NWO Funding Awarded for Project on Indigenous Perspectives and Just Climate Transitions

The Delft Design for Values Institute is pleased to announce that a new project on engineering education and climate justice has been awarded funding through the Dutch Research Council (NWO) call Transformative Practices and Processes for Climate Transitions.

The funded project, “Indigenous Perspectives & Lived Experiences: Transforming Engineering Education Practice for Just Climate Transitions”, explores how Indigenous perspectives, particularly drawing on Igorot Cordilleran knowledge systems, can contribute to more just, reflective, and relational approaches to climate transitions within engineering education.

The project is led by Myra Colis in collaboration with researchers Anna Melnyk and Andrea Gammon. Together, the project partners will develop and test a transformative 90-minute educational method that combines Indigenous storytelling, lived experiences, systems analysis, and reflective learning practices within engineering and sustainability education.

Responding to growing concerns that technologically driven climate solutions can reproduce social and ecological injustices, particularly in the context of critical raw materials extraction, the project seeks to create space for relational, caring, and justice-oriented approaches to climate transitions.

The project includes multi-stakeholder roundtables, interviews with Indigenous representatives, development of a structured learning cycle, and testing across Dutch technical universities. The resulting educational materials and methodological insights will be disseminated through workshops, publications, and accessible educational outputs aimed at broader societal engagement.

The initiative closely aligns with the broader work of the Delft Design for Values Institute and its Special Interest Group (SIG) Design for Justice: A Pluralist Account, which explores how diverse knowledge systems, lived experiences, and justice-oriented perspectives can more meaningfully shape design and engineering practices in the context of societal and environmental transitions. This co-creative project aims to contribute to ongoing conversations on pluralism, climate justice, and transformative approaches to engineering education within and beyond Dutch technical universities.