Examination — the country-analysis poster
The examination for this course is a poster on a country or region case study, which you prepare in groups and present during the poster conference at the end of the semester.
Content and guiding questions for the poster
Students are expected to prepare a poster (DIN-A0) and to pitch it to the other students during the poster conference at the end of the course (max. 5 minutes per student). Each student will be asked questions about the content they were responsible for. Students will prepare the poster together in groups of up to 3 people.
The goal of the poster is to present an analysis of the main challenges faced by a specific country or region, which students selected during the second week of lectures. Make sure you choose a country or region whose documents are available in a language you understand and from which you can access the necessary data (see the data hints). In their analysis, students are expected to identify key socio-ecological challenges of the country or region, describe and evaluate current solution strategies, and critically discuss these strategies while suggesting improvements.
More precisely, the analysis involves three major steps.
First, students are expected to identify a set of challenges to the country/region, which they consider essential. They need to justify their choice precisely. Challenges can refer to economic, social and/or ecological problems, e.g.:
- Excessive reliance on fossil fuels
- Extensive externalization of ecological costs into other countries (‘living at the expense of others’) or serving as a sink for ecological problems caused by other countries (being ‘exploited for the sake of others’)
- Problems in ensuring a decent level of well-being for the whole population
- Relevance of national energy poverty
- Excessive levels of income and/or wealth inequalities
- Problems in achieving the SDGs
- Excessive inflation and political polarization
- Problems to remain within planetary boundaries1
It is crucial that you justify why you consider these challenges essential and worth examining. You also need to be clear about your value system, for example, when arguing that the current level of inequality in a country is ‘unjust.’
In a second step, you are expected to explain how the country or region currently addresses the challenges described above and to critically analyze the current strategy.
Here are some brief examples (your own analysis should go into much more detail, of course):
- One of the main challenges for France is the excessive reliance on nuclear energy. The current government does not perceive this as a major problem for various reasons. We believe that because of generational justice, water scarcity, and global justice arguments this needs to change. Investment in green energy is required and should be financed by a wealth tax.
- One of Bangladesh’s main challenges is the high poverty rate and gender inequality. Currently, the country tries to become more competitive through low prices and environmentally harmful activities. This is problematic; the country should focus on building a green technology industrial base. International development collaboration is necessary.
- One of Germany’s main challenges is decarbonizing energy production and consumption. The country aims to diversify its energy sources and strongly supports the development, use, and import of green hydrogen. Consequently, political leaders and German companies are not only promoting domestic green hydrogen production but also importing it from countries mostly in the Global South, such as Chile, Morocco, or Nigeria. This approach risks creating social injustices and resource exploitation similar to colonialism. Therefore, it is important to carefully design these hydrogen partnerships, for example by including sustainability criteria for green hydrogen production in the exporting countries, to ensure socio-economic benefits are created locally.
- Morocco has achieved success in developing renewable energy. One challenge in the Moroccan energy transition is dependence on foreign investments and ownership, which creates social injustices due to limited socio-economic opportunities for small actors and a lack of involvement and participation from rural communities. Supportive measures for small actors, such as implementing a feed-in tariff and government support for domestic actors, are necessary.
In the third and final step, students are asked to suggest ways to improve or even redirect the current strategy. This includes analyzing risks, opportunities, and success factors for the new approach.
For each step, if you have doubts or questions, please ask us for feedback.
Examination
The posters need to be printed individually and brought to the class on the day of the poster conference (16 December 2026).
A digital copy of the poster must be uploaded on Moodle by 13 December 2026, 23:59 CET.
The final mark for the course depends on the quality of the students’ poster and their performance during the final poster presentation. The criteria for the evaluation are described below.
We do not start from zero and add points up. Instead, every dimension has an average reference value — the level we expect from a solid, competent piece of work. A poster that hits that reference value in every dimension receives a grade of 2.7.
For each dimension we then ask a single question: is there anything that deviates from that average expectation, upwards or downwards? Something notably better earns an upgrade, something notably weaker a downgrade. Only these deviations move your grade away from 2.7, in either direction.
The “Weight” column shows the relative importance of each dimension for the overall score; the weights add up to 30 points in total, and the overall grade depends on the percentage of these points earned. The following specifics apply on top of that:
- A contribution that is not graded as at least adequate in dimension #3 (“formalities”) or #4 (“clarity, correctness and comprehensibility of the argumentation and the presentation of results”) will be graded 5.0.
- If the work receives only a sufficient or satisfactory rating in dimension #4, the overall rating cannot receive a grade better than ‘sufficient’ (4.0) or ‘satisfactory’ (3.0).
- If a student provides a certificate for diagnosed dyslexia before submitting the work, spelling and grammar are disregarded when assessing dimension #3 (“formalities”).
For the points in section I, only the poster itself is considered. For the final scores in sections II and III, both the poster and the oral presentation are evaluated, with the primary focus on the poster. Section IV considers only the oral performance.
It is very important that when submitting their poster, groups indicate precisely which student was mainly responsible for which part of the final work, or which parts were prepared by all students equally. Depending on how students distribute the work within their group, not all evaluation dimensions might be relevant for each student. In such cases, the corresponding dimensions will simply be ignored when computing the final mark.
Assessment dimensions
I. Structure and design of the poster — the entire group receives a joint grade
| # | Criterion | Weight | Guiding questions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Structure and outline of the poster content (“red thread”) | 3 | Do the individual parts build on each other meaningfully? Is the structure determined by guiding questions? Does each element contribute to answering them? |
| 2 | Design of the poster | 3 | Is the poster visually appealing and easy to read? Do design choices facilitate conveying the key message? |
| 3 | Formalities: consistent layout, correct citation, spelling and grammar | 2 | Have the formal requirements been met? Has sufficient and correct citation been given? Is the poster free of spelling and grammatical errors? |
II. General aspects and formalities — each student receives an individual grade
| # | Criterion | Weight | Guiding questions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Clarity, correctness and comprehensibility of the argumentation and the presentation of results (logical stringency) | 5 | Are assumptions, mechanisms, and conclusions clearly identified? Do conclusions follow logically? Are normative assumptions made explicit? Are the statements made correct in content and accurately reflected upon? Were results described systematically and reported comprehensibly? |
| 5 | Extent and adequacy of the literature and data considered | 2 | Is literature incorporated appropriately, scientific, relevant, and balanced? |
III. Specific aspects of the country analysis — each student receives an individual grade
| # | Criterion | Weight | Guiding questions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Justification and explanation of the challenges identified | 3 | Were the main challenges made explicit and adequately justified? Is their background explained well? |
| 7 | Justification and analysis of current solutions | 3 | Are the current solution strategies described and analyzed exhaustively? |
| 8 | Critical assessment of the current strategy and outline of alternatives | 3 | Are current strategies assessed exhaustively, transparently, and convincingly? Are viable suggestions for improvement made? |
IV. Oral performance — each student receives an individual grade
| # | Criterion | Weight | Guiding questions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Pitch of the poster and quality of the answers | 6 | Does the short pitch convey the key take-aways and motivate a closer look? Do students adhere to the 5-minute pitch? Were the answers correct, to the point, logically consistent, and justified with reference to theory or data? |
Footnotes
You should refer to the data provided by the good life and planetary boundaries working group from Leeds University. See the links to data sources in the data hints.↩︎