Curriculum Change Initiative

The initiative at the core of the oikos mission, with the aim of adapting the curriculum to make education more sustainability-oriented, has recently seen some great developments! After the Curriculum Academy, in Spring, the Curriculum Action Squad was formed, from the initiative of the participants themselves. Since then, regular squad calls have been planned and carried to work together for greater impact on curriculum change towards sustainability. A curriculum Research Squad has also been created to work more on the content/methodology of curriculum including sustainability as well as on the organization of the oikos in Residence.

The second oikos Curriculum Change Academy was jointly organized by oikos Lausanne and the oikos international Curriculum Change Initiative team from April 3 to 5 2020. Due to the situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held only online. Despite this particular context, we were so grateful to have gathered more than 30 people from several countries in this inspiring Academy.

Over the course of 3 days, we tried to grasp the breadth of economics and management subjects and relate them to current social and environmental challenges. Professors, early career researchers, and students came together to understand each other’s needs and exchanged on how to collaborate in order to drive the curriculum reform towards sustainability. This second edition was conceived around the Curriculum Change Initiative’ s values, the multi-dimensional side of economics, and even practical examples of successfully reformed curricula at some universities.

oikos Curriculum Academy 2020

oikos International hosted its first “oikos in Residence” event in Basel, Switzerland from February 13 to 16 2020. The oikos in Residence is a new event format that is intended to accelerate the creation of materials related to curriculum change.

The Residence event in Basel brought together a team of representatives from oikos chapters, oikos International, and Rethinking Economics to discuss the relevance of a re-envisioning of what is taught in typical business bachelors programs.

oikos In (Your) Residence

Following the event in Basel, Switzerland, the next oikos In Residence was organized in summer and in an online format due to pandemic. The summer edition ‘took place in your residence’, with a series of 5 events held online between July 9th and July 26th. The sessions focused on topics like building arguments for curriculum change, working towards local curriculum change, doing curriculum reviews or student surveys, and designing options for alternative curricula.