THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS APPLIED TO THE FUTURE OF DESIGN EDUCATION

The current social situation makes designers face increasingly complex challenges, closely linked to environmental and social issues. Design education has to respond to this, since design competencies are required to manage them. In this context, the present research studies how designers face these challenges under a competency approach. This paper relates the designer’s competencies to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the action guide proposed by the UUEE with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. From this perspective, the competencies that designers acquire during their training must be aligned with the SDGs. However, recent research indicates that design students have competency gaps when working in social, environmental or sustainable design processes [1] [2]. In traditional education, core competencies for sustainability, such as Integrated Problem-solving, Strategic or Critical thinking, according to UNESCO 2019 Sustainable Key Competencies, are not considered particularly important. However, they are fundamental competencies defined in previous research on Design Creative Competencies. Moreover, authors point out that applying the competency approach to sustainability is relevant to solve real social challenges and opportunities [3]. That is why this article proposes a parallelism between designers’ competencies, in other words, those they use when developing creative processes, and the SDGs. It is also required to analyse the competencies that enable them to solve problems 'with respect to real-world sustainability problems, challenges, and opportunities' [4]. This context leads to innovative questions about design students' curricular profile in the 21 st century.