As the world becomes smaller and more connected, it has been even more important to us to give students exposure to a global perspective, building on cultural understanding, communication skills and awareness of the wider world. Our education initiatives are providing the opportunity for students to explore the implications of multidisciplinary perspectives in addressing global issues and challenges.

The University of Exeter and QS have partnered to create Future17, The Sustainable Development Goals Challenge Programme. A transformative educational partnership between some of the world's leading universities and global organisations. We are connecting the brightest minds on the planet to the most complex challenges in the world. Launching in January 2022, teams of students from different disciplines and universities will be empowered and enabled to collaborate to solve real world complex challenges set by global organisations aligned to the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This initiative will give students the opportunity to develop new skills, think differently, push boundaries and inspire change for the better.

Our award-winning Grand Challenges programme has been running for a number of years and centres around working in interdisciplinary groups with other like-minded students to design innovative solutions to real world challenges. As a result of the pandemic, the programme ran online in 2021 as Challenges Online and brought together over 300 students from 10 different time zones. It is an opportunity for students to build transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, public speaking, interdisciplinary working and time management. Feedback showed how the interdisciplinary way of working used in Challenges Online helped students to broaden their career horizons, and even rethink their career path by opening up new fields they may not have considered.

There are many opportunities for students to interact, collaborate and work with students from different backgrounds, cultures and disciplines and learn from academics from international partner universities. We are immersing our students in virtual field trips to support them during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

One example of this is the College of Medicine and Health (CMH), and the opportunity for Medicine and Nursing students to take one of several potential ‘special study unit’ electives online in partnership with the University of South Florida (USF) and Colombia’s Universidad del Norte.

We have also developed Connected Classrooms, an initiative born through the Education Incubator. This exciting new project will start with a South Asian history module that can be taught and learned simultaneously and collaboratively in virtually connected classrooms, at the University of Exeter and the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), to allow students to interact with their peers from Pakistan.

We have also recently hosted the Higher Education Youth Talent Alliance (HEYTA), a major student conference with China. The aim of HEYTA is to offer students from China and the UK the opportunity to engage in debates around the role of Humanities in supporting better understanding and engagement between cultures.

Our initiatives provide dynamic and fresh approaches to existing problems and lay foundations for those yet to come. The experiences that our students stand to gain will inspire the type of diverse, collaborative and sustainable thinking that makes our global alumni community a source for world changing creativity.