About Grand Challenges - for Professional Services staff

What is Grand Challenges?
What are the 21^st century dilemmas?
How will the Grand Challenges programme be introduced to students?
What do students do after the ‘taster’ sessions?
How will students sign up for dilemmas?
What are the key dates?
Who will lead the dilemmas?
Who is responsible for the logistics?
What else is going on in the Programme?
Who should you contact?

What is Grand Challenges?

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

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 12 dilemmas. They will divide into about 10 sub groups which will be explored by enquiry 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 will have been trained in this approach to learning.

How will students sign up for dilemmas?

There will be a dedicated section on Career Hub for students to sign up to dilemmas. This will be open after all taster sessions have taken place in Opportunities Week.

What are the key dates?

Who will lead the dilemmas?

Academic staff 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.

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 will be managed centrally.

What else is going on in the Programme?

The 11 day 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. We are working with the Students Guild, student societies, the local community and colleagues in arts and culture to develop these further.

Who should you contact?

Vhari Finch, Project Assistant: V.Finch@exeter.ac.uk

Michelle Hale, Project Manager: M.Hale@exeter.ac.uk

Student enquiries: grandchallenges@exeter.ac.uk 

Telephone: 01392 726536