Global environmental challenges are among the most pressing social and economic issues we face today. And while engineers are often the source of needed inventions and solutions, engineering can inadvertently generate new problems through the products, structures and services that are designed, built, distributed, consumed and thrown away. There is momentum and demand to instill sustainability and environmental and social considerations as core tenets of the engineering profession.

Higher education faculty, leaders and institutions need resources and tools to support the scale and urgency of the curricular transformation that is required. With funding from The Lemelson Foundation and under the umbrella of the signature EOP (Engineering for One Planet) Framework to equip engineers with skills, knowledge and understanding to protect the planet and the life it sustains, ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) has developed and is deploying a Mini-Grant Program (MGP) aligned with transforming US higher education.  

The ultimate goal of this program is to incentivize faculty to take on and follow through with this EOP work by supporting them with a Community of Practice, Mentoring and Mini-Grant funding as they design and pilot curricula that focus on instilling concepts of sustainability.  

This program launched in spring 2022 with an inaugural cohort (Cohort I) comprised of 13 faculty teams. This was followed by Cohort II, which launched in spring 2023 with 14 teams. Cohort III commenced in spring 2024 with 18 faculty teams.

Each cohort has worked diligently on course pilots that infuse concepts of sustainability into the engineering curricula. Cohorts I and II faculty teams have showcased their sustainability work during online public symposia.

View the Cohort I Online Symposium and Cohort II Online Symposium.