Knowledge, Skills, Values and Behaviors in Sustainability Education for Engineering Students in Europe: A Systematic Review

Engineering education should be expected to equip students to contribute to sustainability. Although a wide range of initiatives have been reported across Europe, their outcomes for students and the strength of the evidence supporting these outcomes remain inconsistent. To examine the latter, this study conducts a systematic review of the literature using the Scopus and ERIC databases, following PRISMA 2020 (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses). The databases were last searched on 9 October 2026 for peer-reviewed journal articles published from January 2020 whose educational setting was in Europe. A total of 32 relevant studies published between January 2020 and October 2026 were scrutinized and analyzed, and their methodological approach was appraised with the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT): 24 studies were rated high quality, three moderate and five low. The studies show that European engineering programs rely mainly on active pedagogies (project, problem and challenge-based learning, redesigned courses and modules, and digital, creative or gamified formats), alongside program-level initiatives and, less often, community and industry-engaged learning. These initiatives are concentrated in a few countries, with Spain alone accounting for nearly 14 of the 32 studies. Questionnaires were the most common data-collection method (21 studies), while pre/post, comparative and longitudinal designs remain rare. Knowledge is the most frequently addressed dimension (29 studies), followed by skills (27), values (26) and behaviors (20). Reported changes were demonstrated in only seven studies for knowledge, four for skills, five for values and three for behaviors. These findings highlight a gap between the breadth of sustainability education initiatives and the evidence available to establish their outcomes. Engineering educators and researchers should therefore combine curriculum-wide sustainability integration with more rigorous, longitudinal and comparative evaluation to determine whether educational initiatives translate into sustained changes in students’ knowledge, skills, values and behaviors.