About Grand Challenges - for academic staff

What is Grand Challenges?
What are the 21^st century dilemmas?
Who will lead the dilemmas?
Are there any benefits in participating?
What would you expect to do?
How much time will the Grand Challenges programme take up for academics?
How will the Grand Challenges programme be introduced to students?
What do students do after the ‘taster’ sessions?
Who is responsible for the logistics?
What are the key dates?
Who should you contact?

What is Grand Challenges?

The Grand Challenges programme is designed to provide all first year students with an exciting educational and social experience at the end of the academic year. They will produce solutions and ideas to tackle some of the key dilemmas of the 21st Century.

The programme will also feature cultural, social and sporting elements including a festival on campus during the middle weekend to really engage with our first year students.

What are the 21^st century dilemmas?

The dilemmas will involve students in innovative learning experiences working in cross-disciplinary groups to address some of the most significant issues facing society in the 21st century. They will investigate one of twelve interdisciplinary cultural, social, economic and/or environmental challenges. Each Dilemma will facilitate about 10 inquiry groups around a sub-dilemma or research question. The outputs of those inquiry groups will vary. Some ideas are: writing a policy paper, video, debate, awareness campaign, myth buster sheets, social media, play.

Who will lead the dilemmas?

Senior academics with a research interest in the dilemmas posed will take the lead. These Academic Champions will invite an external champion to work with them and together they will launch the dilemmas. They will lead a wider group of academics and postgraduate students and jointly this team will be responsible for the overall success of the dilemma.

Are there any benefits in participating?

The 21^st Century Dilemmas programme offers an opportunity to showcase the best of the University’s research to the wider University academic and student communities, enhance interdisciplinary collaboration with academics from other disciplines and develop the ‘research impact agenda’. You might also benefit from working with renowned external experts in the field.

What would you expect to do?

You would work with the Academic Champion and Academic Advisor to develop the ideas for the inquiry groups, and help liaise with external stakeholders and experts. You might be asked to give a taster seminar or seminar/lecture in June.

How much time will the Grand Challenges programme take up for academic champions and other academics?

We are very aware that we are asking for a major commitment of very busy people.

The Colleges will allocate time for your involvement in the project.  This will be the equivalent of between half and one module workload (spread amongst the academics involved), depending on the exact role adopted which would be determined by the Academic Champion and the College.

How will the Grand Challenges programme be introduced to students?

Students will be introduced to Grand Challenges through a marketing campaign that will run from around the time of A level results in mid-August, throughout Freshers’ Week and the first half of term one. This campaign will culminate in Opportunities Week (week 6) when there will be ‘taster’ events for each of the dilemmas led by a high profile external champion and Exeter academics. These will be available online after the event. The Grand Challenges programme then runs in June 2013 and will involve about 200 students working on each of the dilemmas. They will divide into about 10 sub groups which will be explored by inquiry groups of about 20 students. Each group will be focused on an output which will be communicated to a given audience.

What do students do after the ‘taster’ sessions?

In November students will select their preferred dilemma(s) and will be allocated to small groups to work collaboratively during the programme in June. They will be given a task to work on and will be using a problem based learning (PBL) approach. Their work will be supported by postgraduate students. 

Who is responsible for the logistics?

The Grand Challenges project team has responsibility for the selection process and for allocating students to groups. The booking of rooms and the logistics for external champion travel and accommodation will be managed centrally.

What are the key dates?

Who should you contact?

Education Advisors:

Sue Burkill - Sue.Burkill@exeter.ac.uk

Harriet Sjerps-Jones - H.Sjerps-Jones@exeter.ac.uk

Jenny Moore (Cornwall) - J.M.Moore@exeter.ac.uk