RT2: Academia - Stakeholder Collaboration in Challenge Driven Education
Background and purpose
This contribution is a basis for discussion about academia – stakeholder relationships in the context of challenge driven education (CDE).
The starting point is my own experience of developing and implementing a challenge driven course at Stockholm University in partnership with external stakeholders. The course was directed to masters- level students as well as professionals. The course extent was 15 ECTS credits over one semester and the overall theme was “cultural perspectives in sustainable urban development”. The course was established in the humanities faculty at the university, it first started in the autumn of 2020 and has been running for four consecutive semesters.
Finished work/ongoing work
Challenge driven education involves cross-disciplinary collaboration between students who work in open ended projects and interact with external stakeholders who provid complex real-world challenges often related to sustainable development (Rosén et al., 2022).
In our case, stakeholders were brought together with students in a challenge-driven course focusing on the overall theme, culture-led urban development. The goal has been to give students the opportunity to plan for and realize public space transformation projects in collaboration with partners in civil society, cultural institutions, public- and private sector organizations, as well as with municipalities. The course was partly funded by a grant from Swedish Innovation Fund Vinnova which was applied for together with a partner for the development of a digital tool for participatory urban planning.
The challenges have varied and are linked to specific places. One common thread has been co- creating public spaces with local stakeholders and making space for culture that is diverse, inclusive and that contributes to attractivity. Past course projects have for example focused on social engagement, e.g. promoting “public living room” spaces in a private-public partnership.
Results/observations/lessons learned
One purpose of the course has been to empower students in driving socially, culturally, and ecologically sustainable transformation of public spaces. This has been done by involving partner organisations that commit resources in terms of their time, know-how and support, sometimes also monetary to the course.
An important role of academia in contributing to the sustainable development of places has been to facilitate the meeting between the city administration and local NGOs as well as other stakeholders such as real-estate developers, housing companies and others. It creates a forum for developing a shared vision and for promoting a sense of shared ownership as well as pooled resources for different initiatives. In this way academia has a special position as an active actor in society which is valuable and quite unique.
Take-home message
- With a growing interest in challenge driven education and stakeholder collaboration among universities, we pose the following questions:
- What are the opportunities and barriers in academia - stakeholder collaboration? What advantages are there for students from a learning perspective?
- How can the educational format be adapted to facilitate collaborative learning between the university and external partners?
- What risks are there with integrating external stakeholder collaboration in higher education?
References
Anders Rosén et al., 2022 (Forthcoming) "Transformation-Driving Education: Perspectives Emerging in a Dialogue between Teachers with Experiences from Challenge-Driven Education", FIE conference.
