Abstract:

Teaching in higher education institutions about the development of technical projects can no longer follow the same principles that were followed a decade ago. Nowadays, new criteria must be included in the development process and even the methodology for dealing with them must be modified. For this reason, a change in the academic curriculum in technical degrees, especially when related to natural resources projects, is not only necessary but also urgent.

The inclusion of concepts such as the objectives and goals of sustainable development, circular economy, social integration, and energy self-sufficiency, and others in the training phase of the future engineers, is essential for the development of new real industrial projects, and even more in the case of countries with scarce resources.

This paper discusses the design of a new methodology within the process of advancement and development of a project for the use of raw materials, with the intention of modifying the teaching methods used in technical careers such as engineering. This will allow those future professionals who will have to effectively develop those new projects, acquire the necessary skills. But together with acquiring those skills, it is important they fully internalize during their training phase the importance of addressing in parallel a decision-making process that is not only based on economic criteria but also on those mentioned above.

The real case selected for the creation of the new methodology is a project for the recovery of mineral resources in the Republic of Cuba. In it, the objectives and goals of sustainable development are classified according to their direct or indirect involvement, indicating at each step how it affects the decision-making and developing a new educational proposal for university training in technical careers.

Keywords:

SDG, circular economy, education methodology, projects, Cuba.