COURSES ON SUSTAINABILITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Core Program

The Core Program (Common Courses Department) is designed to unite all KHAS students of different departments with different competencies around a common academic curriculum in the semester of their education.

Core Program is an important step towards quality education that can be associated with sustainable development goals. Carried out with an equal approach towards all undergraduate students, the program encourages the principle of equality and enables each student to develop a basic understanding of sustainable development issues.

Compulsory courses in the Fall semester, such as Origins and Consequences, History of Humankind, Universal Values and Ethics, Computational Thinking, Design, Critical Reading, and Writing in Turkish present various perspectives to students and help them comprehend the sustainability concept. These courses enable students to gain core knowledge and understanding of reaching sustainable development goals by enhancing their scientific, historical, ethical, and critical thinking skills.

Elective Courses in the Spring term give students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of sustainable development in different areas. From economy to art and science to history, a wide range of courses offered give students a chance to do more research and analysis on topics related to sustainability. In this way, students can specialize in sustainable development topics according to their interests and increase their potential in ability to produce effective solutions in this field. The fact that there are different modules in course content taught by expert instructors enables students to obtain information suitable for different learning styles. Also, different assessment and evaluation methods are used in the students' learning process, which helps them to improve their deep understanding and critical thinking skills. Various sources used in course content offer different perspectives to students and enable topics to be addressed sophisticatedly. Students are encouraged to interact with visual, auditory, and written materials by using sources such as video, film, book, article, and documentary. This approach makes a big contribution to students learning the topics in depth.

Kadir Has University Core Program aims to provide students with a universal vision regarding sustainability and SDGs. Some of these courses can be seen below:

Compulsory Courses

HST 101 and HST 102 History of Modern Turkey
KHAS 103 History of Humankind
KHAS 105 Universal Values and Ethics
KHAS 110 Civic Responsibility Project Course
TLL 101 & TLL 102 Critical Reading and Writing in Turkish

Elective Courses

Undergraduate Programs

Undergraduate programs also offer courses on sustainable development:
EC 440 Sustainable Development

PROGRAMS ON SUSTAINABILITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Energy and Sustainable Development Master's Program

As a vital input of the economy, energy is one of the most strategic tools for the sustainable development of countries. The contemporary energy system, which is 90 percent dependent on fossil fuels, is not sustainable due to resource scarcity, environmental problems, and global climate change. Another factor increasing the importance of energy is that in today’s world, where natural gas is used as a transition fuel on the path toward a low-carbon energy system, the geopolitical rivalry among major energy players continues to heighten. This rivalry accelerates the struggle for resources and causes global economic and political destabilization.

The Turkish energy system is also faced with crucial problems. Turkey imports about a quarter of its energy in exchange for 50-60 billion USD, and its dependence on foreign resources threatens energy security as well as the national security of the country. Turkey’s import dependency on natural gas and oil, which are the most consumed primary resources, is currently more than 90 percent. Furthermore, domestic energy production is gradually decreasing while the gap between production and consumption continues to widen. In the 21st century, the state economy cannot be sustained under such circumstances in energy.

Another important feature of Turkey’s energy system is high energy demand owing to its rapid development, which attracts the attention of the world as a rising market. In the last 50 years, the primary energy demand increased by 5 percent while the demand for electricity increased by 8 percent, and this situation is expected to continue for a long time. Therefore, the efforts to increase domestic production, especially of lignite, should be accelerated while the demand for energy should be decreased by improving energy efficiency. At the same time, standing at the crossroads of major energy producers and consumers, Turkey’s unique geopolitical location provides the country with the opportunity to become an energy bridge and, more importantly, an energy hub. Therefore, it is crucial for Turkey to become a significant energy player in the region.

Due to all these reasons, energy is one of the most attractive sectors for investments in Turkey. The inability of the public sources to provide sufficient financing for investment necessitates most of the energy investments to be made by the private sector. The monetary and fiscal performance of the Turkish economy in recent years, the improvement of the investment environment, and the introduction of new incentive programs have increased the number of long-term energy investments by the private sector. In addition to energy-oriented investments, some of the companies that invest in Turkey are global construction and contracting companies. These companies have started to give more importance to energy efficiency in their housing and plant constructions in order to increase their competitiveness. All of these companies need qualified manpower and state-of-the-art technology. Considering the fact that energy companies are generally located in Istanbul and its surrounding area, it is necessary to open new higher education programs specifically focused on energy.

Even though a number of graduate programs on energy have been opened in recent years, these programs are far from meeting the needs of the sector due to their contextual and structural features. These programs generally focus on a certain aspect of energy, neglecting its interdisciplinary nature. It is expected that the Energy and Sustainable Development Thesis/Non-Thesis Master’s Program, which was opened in the 2016-2017 academic year at Kadir Has University, will fill the gap in this area as it brings together several disciplines in social sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. It is also important to point out that the program works in coordination with the Centre for Energy and Sustainable Development and thus maintains strong ties with interdisciplinary research and practice.

The Energy and Sustainable Development Master’s Program, which is designed by taking all of these factors into consideration, ensures students to specialize in several areas of energy. Students are provided with a wide range of departmental and non-departmental elective courses in addition to the compulsory courses in four main areas, namely, energy science and engineering, energy finance and economics, management of sustainable development and policies, and energy security and geopolitics. In addition to the theoretical knowledge provided by the courses, students are trained in real-life practices through seminars given by experts on the subjects. The most important advantage of the program, offered to students with bachelor's degrees in many different branches, is the opportunity to acquire expertise in sustainable energy, which is becoming more important every day. The program is designed to be conducted completely in English to increase the competitiveness of students in the careers they will pursue either in Turkey or abroad. The program has thesis and non-thesis options for the purpose of satisfying the varying needs of the students.

GSCESD- Graduate Student Conference on Energy and Sustainable Development

"GSCESD- Graduate Student Conference on Energy and Sustainable Development" is an annual conference organized under the coordination of CESD and Kadir Has University Energy and Sustainable Development Graduate Program.

Click to visit the conference website: http://gscesd.khas.edu.tr/