The Grand Innovation Challenge: Introducing students to interdisciplinary team-based learning to solve complex problems

Richard Burke, Monia Mtar, Gan Shermer, Brian Rutter, Alisha Tuladhar and Adria Ametller Picart

The world of work requires graduates (and professional people) to act in transdisciplinary teams to solve a range of complex problems without obvious solutions. It is vital that we equip our students with real-world transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, creativity and critical thinking, in order to meet the needs of our future society, but opportunities to do this within traditional degree programmes can be limited. This event will present a new transdisciplinary team-based challenge which we have run with a diverse cohort of students at different stages (first year Undergraduate to PhD level) and from a range of disciplines. The challenge introduced students to human-centred design thinking and innovation with a view to leveraging their creativity and realising outcomes in collaborative teams. This team approach to solve commercial and global societal challenges is in keeping with current business approaches. The project has been co-created by an interdisciplinary group of academics alongside an industry expert and postgraduate student partners and aligns with many of the principles of Curriculum Transformation.We will discuss the learning from our experience of running these projects and highlight the strengths and challenges that may be faced. The transferable skills developed and students’ perceptions of value will also be presented, along with ideas of how projects such as these can be implemented in the curriculum.

Sandwich lunch and hot drinks available from 12:15. Please bring your Keep Cup with you, wherever possible, to help us reduce our use of disposable cups!