Search results

As higher education institutions (HEIs) have increasingly turned to consider sustainability over the last decade, education for sustainable development (ESD) has emerged as a way of imbuing students with the skills, values, knowledge, and attributes to live, work, and create change in societies facing complex and cross-cutting sustainability challenges. However, the question of how HEIs can actively embed ESD more broadly in and across curricula is one that continues to challenge institutions and the HE sector as a whole. While traditional teaching practices and methods associated with subject-based learning may be suitable for educating students about sustainable development, a re-orientation towards more transformational, experiential and action-oriented methods is required to educate for sustainable development. The need for educators to share their practices and learn lessons from each other is essential in this transformation.

This paper presents a selection of practical examples of how to embed a range of interactive, exploratory, action-oriented, problem-based, experiential and transformative ESD offerings into HE teaching practice and curricula. Presented by a group of academics and professional services staff at the University of Strathclyde who lead key modules and programmes in the institution’s ESD provision, this paper reflects on five approaches taken across the four faculties at Strathclyde (Humanities and Social Sciences, Science, Engineering and the Strathclyde Business School) and examines the challenges, practicalities and opportunities involved in establishing a collaborative programme of ESD.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for handling end of life (henceforth EoL) scenarios of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) panels, which includes different options available to businesses and end-users, as well as promoting the collaboration between government and all relevant stakeholders.

This paper adopts purposeful sampling, secondary data and content analysis to develop an appropriate conceptual framework that helps to create awareness of the appropriate options for dealing with the EoL cases of solar PV panels.

From the data analysis, it is revealed that reuse, repair and recycling of solar PV panels can ensure value creation, public-private partnership and a solution for education in sustainability, and thus, prolonging the useful life cycle of the products.

This paper limits the analysis on developing economies and the use of selected literature based on the recycling of solar PV panels.

This paper is an initial attempt to create an awareness by identifying, analyzing and educating the stakeholders to handle appropriately any EoL scenario of solar PV panels.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how far technology and information enable, facilitate or support the planning and implementation decisions in humanitarian vaccine cold chains for vaccination campaigns. The authors specifically focus on three emerging technologies that have the potential to create more flexible conditions in the field, and identify the need to further explore the link between uncertainty, information and irreversibility.

The authors present a basic structure for the analysis of cold chain disruptions in terms of three distinct yet connected layers of deficient infrastructure and capacity, information gaps and failures in decision making. The authors then review three humanitarian technologies and their impact on vaccine campaigns along these layers. From there, a research agenda is developed to address research gaps this review brought forward.

Three critical research gaps in the areas of technology innovation for humanitarian vaccine cold chain management are presented. The authors argue that technology to improve capacity, information and decisions need to be aligned, and that the areas of uncertainty, information and irreversibility require further investigation to achieve this alignment. In this way, the paper contributes to setting the research agenda on vaccine cold chains and connects humanitarian logistics to technology, information management and decision making.

This paper presents the humanitarian vaccine cold chain problem from an original angle by illuminating the implications of technology and information on the decisions made during the planning and implementation phases of a vaccine campaign. The authors develop an agenda to provide researchers and humanitarians with a perspective to improve cold chain planning and implementation at the intersection of technology, information and decisions.

This paper aims to share the University of Strathclyde’s experience of embedding research-based education for sustainable development (RBESD) within its undergraduate curricula through the use of an innovative pedagogy called Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP), originated at Georgia Institute of Technology.

This paper discusses how aligning VIP with the SDG framework presents a powerful means of combining both research-based education (RBE) and education for sustainable development (ESD), and in effect embedding RBESD in undergraduate curricula.

The paper reports on the University of Strathclyde’s practice and experience of establishing their VIP for Sustainable Development programme and presents a reflective account of the challenges faced in the programme implementation and those envisaged as the programme scales up across a higher education institution (HEI).

The paper is a reflective account of the specific challenges encountered at Strathclyde to date after a successful pilot, which was limited in its scale. While it is anticipated these challenges may resonate with other HEIs, there will also be some bespoke challenges that may not be discussed here.

This paper offers a practical and scalable method of integrating SDG research and research-based education within undergraduate curricula.

The paper has the potential to deliver SDG-related impact in target communities by linking research-based teaching and learning with community outreach.

The alignment of VIP with the SDG research area is novel, with no other FE institutions currently using this approach to embed SDG research-based teaching within their curricula. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary feature of the VIP programme, which is critical for SDG research, is a Strathclyde enhancement of the original model.

Emergency humanitarian medical cold chains (HMCCs) depend heavily on their supporting energy services due to end-to-end temperature requirements in volatile disaster situations. Most energy sources powering emergency HMCCs are fossil-based due to well established processes, regardless of their environmental impact. In response to the recent energy crisis and climate change, a solution to tackle this issue relies on renewable energy sources (RES), whose use has increased to promote climate resilient development. Nevertheless, RESs’ capacity to replace conventional energy services in emergency HMCCs remains poorly understood. This study aims to investigate opportunities for, and barriers to, increasing the use of RESs in emergency HMCCs, thereby enhancing their environmental sustainability.

Based on a review of academic and practice literature, interviews with expert practitioners on emergency HMCCs and sustainable energy, and case study examples, this research aimed to analytically generalise the phenomenon by investigating opportunities for, and barriers to, increasing the use of RESs in emergency HMCCs. The phenomenon is illustrated in a novel framework of typical HMCC, that forms a contextual basis for future research.

A conceptual framework of typical emergency HMCC shows energy-consuming sections where RES can best be increased. This research is put forth in four propositions to manage the opportunities and barriers of the transition.

This research is, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the first attempt to operationalise sustainability by linking energy with HMCCs’ logistical activities in complex emergency settings. The cross-findings from literature, example cases and interviews together demonstrate the need to increase the use of RES in HMCCs, and how to do it.

This paper aims to report on a case in which encouraging climate-smart agriculture in the form of better irrigation techniques in India can contribute to both climate change mitigation and adaptation goals by improving resource-use efficiency. It provides grounded institutional analysis on how these transformations can occur.

The authors based their research on three complementary approaches: institutional, sociological and technical. The institutional approach analyzed actors and interests in the water-energy nexus in India via over 25 semi-structured key informant interviews. The sociological approach surveyed over 50 farmers and equipment suppliers for insight into technology adoption. The technical component analyzed water and energy consumption data to calculate potential benefits from transitioning to more efficient techniques.

Because policymakers have a preference for voluntary policy instruments over coercive reforms, distortions in policy and market arenas can provide opportunities for embedded actors to leverage technology and craft policy bargains which facilitate Pareto superior reforms and, thereby, avoid stalemates in addressing climate change. Enlarging the solution space to include more actors and interests can facilitate such bargains more than traditional bilateral exchanges.

The analysis provides insights into crafting successful climate action policies in an inhospitable institutional terrain.

Studies about climate change politics generally focus on stalemates and portray the private sector as resistant and a barrier to climate action. This paper analyzes a contrary phenomenon, showing how reforms can be packaged in Pareto superior formats to overcome policy stalemates and generate technology-based climate and environmental co-benefits in even unpromising terrain such as technologically laggard and economically constrained populations.

Silicon photovoltaics technology has drawbacks of high cost and power conversion efficiency. In order to extract the maximum output power of the module, maximum power point (MPP) is used by implying the nonlinear behavior of I-V characteristics. Different techniques are used regarding maximum power point tracking (MPPT). The paper aims to review the techniques of MPPT used in PV systems and review the comparison between Perturb and Observe (P&O) method and incremental conductance (IC) method that are used to track the maximum power and gives a comparative review of all those techniques.

A study of MPPT techniques for photovoltaic (PV) systems is presented. Matlab Simulink is used to find the MPP using P&O simulation along with IC simulation at a steady temperature and irradiance.

MATLAB simulations are used to implement the P&O method and IC method, which includes a PV cell connected to an MPPT-controlled boost converter. The simulation results demonstrate the accuracy of the PV model as well as the functional value of the algorithms, which has improved tracking efficiency and dynamic characteristics. P&O solution gave 94% performance when configured. P&O controller has a better time response process. As compared to the P&O method of tracking, the incremental conductance response rate was significantly slower.

In PV systems, MPPT techniques are used to optimize the PV array output power by continuously tracking the MPP under a variety of operating conditions, including cell temperature and irradiation level.

Advance the state-of-the-art on how frugal innovation links to sustainability outcomes and based on content analysis of empirical publications in the field of frugal innovation, analyzing when and how FI is connected with social, environmental and economic outcomes.

Quantitative content analysis on empirical papers published on frugal innovation, using data visualization techniques to disclose relationships among the constructs adopted. Materials were collected following a step-wise methodology. In total, 130 articles were identified, read in depth and coded according to five main categories: context; development; implementation, adoption, diffusion; characteristics; and impacts.

The potential of frugal innovation to drive sustainability outcomes is influenced by the type of actors developing the innovation, regarding their organizational form (large firms, small firms, non-firm actors), their geographical origin (foreign or local) or motivations (mostly profit-motivated or socially-oriented). Collaboration plays a key role along the various stages of the frugal innovation cycle and is thus relevant for its potential to drive sustainability outcomes. The results reaffirm the need for greater attention to where and when sustainability-enhancing outcomes of frugal innovation are more likely to occur.

This study provides a qualitative study based on content analysis of empirical studies to explore the associations between frugal innovations and improved economic, environmental and social sustainability outcomes. The key novelty of this study lies in the systematic coding of each paper regarding the features of the innovation, the innovators, and the outcomes achieved. This allows taking stock of the evidence emerging in such a scattered literature, quantifying the extent to which insights take place in the empirical literature, looking for correlations, and highlight research gaps to understand to what extent frugal innovation can contribute to sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge on business model transformation (BMT) by developing an integrative framework for BMT dilemmas, including strategies for shaping and stabilizing market structures.

The study uses a case-based approach, with data from the Swedish electric utility industry.

The findings uncover practices related to both shaping and stabilizing market structure. The study contributes with insights for firms to overcome the BMT dilemma. Shaping strategies involve disruptive innovations while stabilizing strategies concerns incremental improvements in existing structures; by balancing these efforts, firms can find ways toward successful BMT.

With a focus on incumbent firms and the balancing act of BMT in a network, the study covers areas that have scarcely been addressed in the existing literature. Even though most business model literature has focused on shaping consumer markets, the need to consider BMT as a dual-directional process in an industrial context is emphasized in this study.

The paper aims to present a grid-connected multi-inverter for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to enhance reliability indices after selected the placement and level of PV solar.

In this study, the associated probability is calculated based on the solar power generation capacity levels and outages conditions. Then, based on this probability, dependability indices like average energy not supplied (AENS), expected energy not supplied and loss of load expectations (LOLE) are computed, also, another indices have been computed such as (customer average interruption duration index (CAIDI), system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI) and system average interruption duration index (SAIDI)) addressing by affected customers with distribution networks reliability assessment, including PV. On the basis of their dependability indices and active power flow, several PV solar modules installed in several places are analyzed. A mechanism for assessing the performance of the grid's integration of renewable energy sources is also under investigation.

The findings of this study based on data extracted form a PV power plant connected to the power network system in Diyala, Iraq 132 kV, attempts to identify the system's weakest points in order to improve the system's overall dependability. In addition, enhanced reliability indices are given for measuring solar PV systems performance connected to the grid and reviewed for the benefit of the customers.

The main contributions of this study are two methods for determining the reliability of PV generators taking into consideration the system component failure rates and the power electronic component defect rates in a PV system which depend on the power input and the power loss using electrical transient analysis program (ETAP) program.