APPROACHING A CONCEPT FOR SOCIETAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Universities are major contributors to societal development, through the formation of aspiring young professionals. In addition to having responsibility for equipping these young professionals with knowledge and skills necessary for becoming attractive participants in working life, universities have responsibility for forming a society in responsible and ethical directions. The authors of this paper also published a paper on a closely related subject at the E&PDE 2018. In that paper, the concept of University Societal Responsibility (USR) was discussed through a practical case on cooperation between university and industry. Discussing the existence and content of USR, the present paper investigates whether there are more appropriate ways than others to convey ethics to the engineering students, including developing an understanding of the USR through teaching. This paper is a theoretical extension of the former paper, now discussing the foundation for conceptualising the topic. The conclusion represents an understanding of the concept, presented through a discussed model on how to implement the University Societal Responsibility in engineering education.