The course is held in English and the proposal/oral presentation are to be prepared in English. Participants must attend all presentations and attendance is expected in lectures & tutorials applying an innovative concept of project and student based learning. The resulting proposal is the property of the student and can be utilized for scholarship applications in continuing studies if desired.

Effort: 5 LP which requires typically an effort of 150 hours, of which 56 h (4 SWS) are contact time during lectures and tutorial time, 54 h group and self-study and 40 h preparation of assessments and participation at the group presentations (one full day week 14, see below).

Assessment: Research proposal of 10 pages and an oral presentation of 10 minutes (individual work). The grade will be a composite of the proposal (submission in week 13 before class) and oral presentation (all day workshop with IAMT researcher participation). The use of AI is not permitted.

Course Contents: In a time of limiting resources, climate change and ever-increasing demand for resources the concept of a circular economy is inevitable to create a more sustainable utilization of our key resources, water, energy and ‘environment’. Concepts of zero liquid discharge, water reuse, carbon net zero, resource recovery and environmental pollution reduction are all part of this concept, where waste is returned to use. The water – energy – environment nexus is the particular focus of this course. Global water issues, water and wastewater treatment, desalination, water reuse, micropollutants, decentralized systems, water & sanitation in international development, renewable energies, environmental pollution, climate change, resource recovery – and many more topics will inspire future research.

Learning Goals: The goal of this course is to get an overview of current challenges in the circular economy focused on the water – energy – environment nexus. Based on individual student interest a topic will be identified and a research plan developed encompassing a thorough background research to establish the state-of-the-art, identification of a specific research problem and research questions suitable to solve this problem. Concepts of novelty and excellence will be explored in an international context. Following the individual topic choice, the research proposal will be developed individually in a tutor group (divided into water, energy, environment) while lectures on required skills will accompany this process. As an outlook beyond this course, criteria to consider when looking for research careers such as applying for funding/scholarships, considering choices in research environment and supervision, performance indicators in research and university rankings will be introduced to enable informed decisions. The proposal will be communicated in writing, as a brief presentation and as a poster, which equips students brilliantly not only for a master thesis but also a future research publication or a PhD.

Course Organization and Student Information: The course is a project and student based learning course with a small number of technical introductory lectures that introduce research topic areas and keywords with the aim to stimulate student interest for topic selection. Supporting lectures are designed to facilitate the proposal writing tasks. In tutorials the students are supervised in small groups to perform their proposal work assisted by a tutor. The proposal topic is chosen by the student and will be discussed for suitability early on. The choice is discussed in week 7 and finalized in week 9, at this point exam registration is required with no possibility to deregister.