HOW TO ENHANCE SUSTAINABILITY AND INNOVATION IN THE COMPETENCES OF THE DEGREE/MASTER IN CHEMISTRY

The curricula defined by the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Burgos for the Degree in Chemistry [1] and for the Master's Degree in Advanced Chemistry established a competence framework that incorporates the concepts of sustainability and innovation.
Some of the transversal, specific and generic competences are: i) To commit to ethics and social responsibility as a citizen and as a professional, ii) To relate Chemistry with other disciplines, iii) To become sensitive to issues relating to the environment, iv) To apply mathematical and statistical methods to validate models from experimental data and to optimize chemical products and processes, and v) To assess the risks in using chemical substances and analytical procedures.
Already in 2006 the Tuning [2] stated the high correlation between the opinion of graduates and employers in relation to the importance given to different competences. These groups thought that one of the most important competences was "the capability of applying knowledge to practice". In the annex I of the same report (related to Chemistry) the same competence also appeared together with other two competences more related to the topic under discussion "To evaluate, interpret and summarize chemical information" and "To optimize products and chemical processes".
A Chemistry graduate, during his training, should be aware that reducing the number of laboratory experiments and minimizing costs is an unavoidable obligation to comply with the three dimensions of the triangle of sustainability: i) economic viability, i) environmental responsibility, iii) social responsibility.
For several years, our graduate and postgraduate students are learning these competences by dealing with the methodology of experimental design (topic that appears in several stages of the training process). The students should solve different cases of basic and applied investigation, so that the aforementioned competences and skills are naturally acquired. In that way, the future chemists can solve complex problems by considering not only the efficiency of the used methods but also the economic, environmental and social viability, that is, they are able to more efficiently manage the scientific knowledge assuming their role as potential innovators, because nowadays the innovation is not an option but an obligation.
The work will show three case-studies usually introduced during the training stage whether in the degree, master's degree and PhD studies in our Faculty.

References:
[1] Memoria del Título de Graduado en Química de la Universidad de Burgos (2009).
[2] Tuning Educational Structures in Europe. http://tuning.unideusto.org/ tuningeu/ (page 46, December 2006).