Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Sustainability Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0546-5 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Toward designing sustainability education programs: a survey of master’s programs through semi-structured interviews Yusuke Kishita 1  · Michinori Uwasu 2  · Keishiro Hara 2  · Masashi Kuroda 3  · Hiroyuki Takeda 4  · Yasushi Umeda 1  · Yoshiyuki Shimoda 3 Received: 26 January 2017 / Accepted: 21 February 2018 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract With the emergence of sustainability science as an academic feld, sustainability education (SE) has increasingly been discussed in terms of nurturing students’ competencies to bring about environmental innovation and global sustainability. The requirements of SE include covering a wide spectrum of knowledge from diverse disciplines and collaborating with real-world stakeholders to solve the sustainability issues being faced in society. A number of SE programs have been imple- mented at university level, often teaching various methods and tools (e.g., life cycle assessment) and ofering project-based learning. However, relatively less knowledge is available to understand how existing SE programs were designed, particularly in terms of the relationship between vision (e.g., expected competencies that students will obtain), curriculum, and admis- sion policy. This paper aims to clarify the opportunities and challenges in designing SE programs at master’s level, through semi-structured interviews and online surveys at 14 leading universities that already run SE programs in Australia, Europe, North America, and Japan. Based on the interviews and surveys, the relationship between expected graduates’ careers, cur- riculum, and faculty organization was analyzed. The results of comparative analysis revealed that the existing SE programs can be classifed into two categories according to graduates’ careers—specialist-oriented programs and generalist-oriented programs. Although the core competencies with which students are to be equipped vary depending on the program, cur- riculum contents across the categories share identical concepts in sustainability science. From an institutional perspective, it is important to incentivize faculty members to sustain and enhance SE programs. Arguably, fair evaluation systems need to be established for faculty members and SE programs. Keywords Sustainability education · Curriculum · Competency · Master’s  program · Semi-structured interview · Higher education Introduction Sustainability education (SE) or education for sustainable development (ESD) has been increasingly recognized as one of the key pillars to achieving the ultimate goal of sustaina- bility science, which aims at understanding of, and providing solutions to, the complex interactions between natural and human systems (Clark and Dickson 2003; Kates et al. 2001; Kates 2011; Komiyama and Takeuchi 2006). To address a wide array of environmental problems, such as climate change, resource depletion, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and air pollution, it is urgent to incorporate the concept of sustainability into teaching and learning (UNESCO 2005). The purpose of SE is to foster sustainability literacy and competencies (e.g., communication skills, leadership, and management capabilities) and the ability to understand the Handled by Jordi Segalas, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology, Spain. * Yusuke Kishita kishita@pe.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp 1 Department of Precision Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan 2 Center for Open Innovation Research and Education, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan 3 Department of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan 4 Department of Management of Industry and Technology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan