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September 2021

SEFI Ethics Special Interest Group Newsletter

Coming up in this month’s newsletter

Dear reader,



It is nice to be back after the summer holidays. Our September newsletter reports on the workshop dedicated to Social Justice and Community Engagement. It brings various perspectives and examples of how to include social justice themes in engineering education.



Engineering education does not exist in a power-vacuum. As Paulo Freire (1996) put it: “There is no such thing as neutral education”. Ethicist or engineers who teach a technical course or ethics always co-determine power and justice. That is a positive thing, as you as a teacher have your impact. It is also indicating your responsibility.



Classical theories used in engineering ethics do not mention power explicitly, neither do most theories of ethics and philosophy of technology. The issue of power, and the contribution of an engineering ethics class to power, therefore, remains often undiscussed.

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Msawenkosi Mkhize, undergraduate engineering student at University of Cape Town, South Africa, gives a strong personal story “Why social justice in engineering” is important. He expresses: “The hope is not that I build that asphalt road at home myself, but that a team of engineers, working together with the community, would do it.”

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Patricia Xavier (Swansea University, UK) in “Finding spaces for humility and different perspectives in engineering community engagement” expresses her concern that the norms of undergraduate engineering education do not develop the people and justice skills needed for development work. She discusses critical reflection essays in which taken-for-granted assumptions are questioned, focussing on social perspectives, surface power relations and aim for emancipation.

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Cristiano Cordeiro Cruz (Aeronautics Technological Institute, Brazil) in “Teaching and practicing emancipatory engineering: lessons from Brazilian Popular Engineering” pictures Brazilian Popular Engineering (PE) as another example. Popular Engineering aims at socio-environmentally changing the world through non-conventional or counter-hegemonic engineering practices. His claim is that ethics alone, or failing to include ontological, political and epistemological layers, will fall greatly short in supporting emancipation through sociotechnical interventions.

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Jason Borenstein, (Georgia Institute of Technology, US) in “Cultivating Student Concern for Public Well-Being: An Ongoing Challenge for Educators” confirms this with empirical research in which he and his co-workers defined factors that may contribute to, or erode, student social responsibility attitudes. They conclude that it is very important to tease apart different types of social responsibility attitudes and forms of community engagement activities.

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There clearly is no such thing as neutral engineering ethics education. These are but four contributions of an important field of how engineering (ethics) education can contribute to students and teachers being aware of the power relations they are in and how they can and will influence them. More experiments, research and actions will certainly be beneficial to make engineering ethics education more empowering and emancipatory.



Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed (revised). New York: Continuum.


Until soon,

Gunter Bombaerts and Diana Martin

Alongside these contributions, you can find our usual input on upcoming events and recently published articles on Engineering Ethics Education.


We wish you a good read, and hope you will react to the opinions expressed or share with us how you teach ethics on Twitter by using #SEFIethics

Invitation: SEFI SIG Ethics online seminar series

Wednesday, 20 October, 3-5 PM CET / 9-11 AM EST


Speakers: Yanna Lambrinidou (Virginia Tech, USA); Neelke Doorn (TU Delft, The Netherlands); Edmond Byrne (University College Cork, Ireland); Rafael Ziegler (HEC Montréal, Canada).



Ethics is an important yet frequently ignored aspect of water resource planning, policymaking or infrastructure development and management. Water conveys different types of values - emotional, spiritual, cultural or socio-economic - that need to be considered by engineers and policymakers. The value-ladeness of water has been recognised in the formulation of the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development in preparation for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. The paramountcy of safety and societal considerations when planning or devising infrastructure has also been revealed in incidents such as the Flint water crisis or the Love Canal contamination.



In our SEFI seminar dedicated to water and responsible engineering, experts and activists explore the ethical dimension of water for engineering and offer examples of how such considerations can be integrated in engineering education.

Register here

Wednesday, 10 November, 2.30-4.30 PM CET / 8:30-10:30 AM EST



Taking STS postures is about having fun and agency as teachers and students. How we hold ourselves and move about (literally our bodies) in relation to each other, STS, education, science and technology as key to having agency in the future of science and technology. Engaging and challenging STEM students to see themselves as socially responsible change agents in that world is key to building skills and techniques that will be helpful both in their personal and professional lives. 



Speakers: David Tomblin and Nicole Mogul (University of Maryland)

Register here

If you wish to propose a theme for a future ethics seminar, or are interested in organizing such a seminar yourself, please contact Diana ([email protected]).

News and initiatives



Busy September: September was an active month for the SEFI SIG Ethics Community. At the annual conference organised by TU Berlin between 13-16 September, there were several dedicated paper and workshop sessions.

A Maffioli among us: SEFI SIG Ethics member Gunter Bombaerts is this year’s recipient of the prestigious Francesco Maffioli award of Excellence for Developing Learning and Teaching in Engineering Education. The details of his nomination are posted on here.

Seminar recording: Before the summer break, the series of online seminars ended with a webinar on social justice and community engagement. The recording of presentations given by Khalid Kadir, Jason Borenstein, Cristiano Cordeiro Cruz and Patricia Xavier is available here.

Open calls - Upcoming events

SEFI SiG Ethics seminar: Water ethics and responsible engineering

Wednesday, 20 October, 3-5 PM CET / 9-11 AM EST – Registration

SEFI SiG Ethics Workshop: Participatory tech assessment in engineering education

Wednesday, 10 November, 2.30-4.30 PM CET / 8:30-10:30 AM EST – Registration

31st APPE Annual Conference

24-27 February 2022, Cincinnati, Ohio, the US - Call for abstracts (dl 4 October)

Special Issue “Environmental Ethics”, Teaching Ethics

Call for papers open (deadline 15 October)

Special Issue “Hybrid Praxis: Transforming Society from Diverse Theories and Actions”, International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice and Peace   

Call for papers open  (deadline 29 October)

The 18th CDIO International Conference
13-15 June 2022, Reykjavik, Iceland – Call for Abstracts (dl 15 November)

Frontiers in Education “Envisioning Convergence in Engineering Education”

13-16 October (Nebraska, US, hybrid) - Registration

IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society28-31 October (online) - Registration

World Engineering Education Forum and the Global Engineering Deans Council

15-18 November 2021 (Madrid, Spain, hybrid) – Registration

REES and Australasian Association for Engineering Education

5-8 December 2021 (Perth, Australia, hybrid) - Registration

Recent articles and publications

Recent publications and articles dedicated to engineering ethics education are now available at our website.

The Ethics SIG Newsletter is issued 10 times per year and aims to share information on latest engineering ethics research and practices. If you would like to join the mailing list please use the form on the SEFI Ethics SIG website.


If you have something you want to share in the newsletter (great ideas, upcoming workshops, nice experiences …), let us know: Diana ([email protected]) and Gunter ([email protected]) Or connect with us on Twitter using #SefiEthics to signal publications, initiatives or events for inclusion in the newsletter

SEFI thanks its corporate partners for their support:

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