Abstract:

The new challenges of the labour market, such as the social and environmental ones, mean that the new generations have to be prepared on basic competences that are consistent with sustainability, so that they can make appropriate decisions during their personal and professional lives. In good accordance to this fact, the Association of Spanish University Rectors established in 2011 a series of guidelines for the inclusion of Sustainability in the curriculum of Spanish Universities.

Although actions are being carried out within the Spanish University system in order to promote and develop the skill of sustainability and social responsibility in grades´ curriculum, nowadays there is neither a clear definition of this competence nor tools to evaluate it.
The “Food Responsibility” Working Group at the University of Basque Country has detailed the criteria that define sustainability and social responsibility competence for the degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics. In addition, a matrix has been developed to evaluate the competence in all its dimensions.

The general competence of sustainability and social responsibility is determined by three sub-competences: Systems-thinking competence, Anticipatory competence and Strategic competence. For each of these sub-competencies, evaluation criteria have been adapted to different years, implying different degrees of depth in terms of competence development.

The definition of the sustainability and social responsibility competence developed for the degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics, as well as the tools proposed for its evaluation, aim to be also useful for other degrees, mainly from the health field.

References:
[1] Association of Spanish University Rectors (2002). Guidelines for the Inclusion of Sustainability in the Curriculum. Available at: http://www.crue.org/Sostenibilidad/CADEP/ [Accessed 18 March 2017]
[2] Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., & Redman, C. L. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability science, 6(2), 203-218.

Keywords:

Sustainability, Social responsibility, Competence, Evaluation tools.