2026 Education Innovation
Higher Education is changing at pace in response to factors including emerging technologies and generative AI, shifting student demographics, as well as a rapidly changing global labour market. In this challenge we’ll invite you to engage in the complex issues around how university teaching, learning and assessment can and should respond to ensure that students are equipped to succeed. We’ll engage with critical questions about how learning is designed, how students can be supported to demonstrate their learning, and how universities can better prepare graduates to thrive in uncertain futures.
The challenge is linked to themes that are actively being explored by University of Exeter staff and to ongoing work to update our curriculum and transform the student experience. This Grand Challenge invites you to act as co-leaders of this work by designing activities and experiences for first year students that support these goals, that could be embedded in every programme. This is an exciting chance to make a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of future University of Exeter students.
Throughout the week, you’ll discover more about how we are currently transforming the curriculum and student experience, and have the opportunity to actively contribute to this transformation as co-creators.
There are five enquiry groups within this challenge. Please choose one when signing up:
Assessment is important as a mechanism by which as students you both consolidate and demonstrate your learning, but it can sometimes feel like you need to speak a special ‘academic’ language to understanding how to get the most out of your assessments. Your enquiry group will explore how students can be helped to engage effectively with assessment tasks and with the feedback they receive. You could design classroom activities, support and guidance materials, or tools for educators to support them with the design of effective assignment briefs. Your project will help ‘demystify’ the assessment process and set students up for success.
This enquiry group will explore how the University of Exeter can equip students with the academic, social and employability skills needed for success in all aspects of life – skills like critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, empathy and problem-solving. Your enquiry group will explore how the most important future skills could be integrated into your university experience, within the curriculum and beyond. You could design classroom activities and assessments, develop tools to help lecturers build skills into the curriculum, or develop ways to help students showcase their skills to employers. Your project could help set up current and future generations to thrive in their academic life, in their future careers, and beyond.
Generative AI is reshaping the worlds of work and education. We want to ensure students have opportunities to understand the workplace, environmental and social impacts of GenAI tools, and prepare you for a future in the ‘age of intelligence’. Your enquiry group will work on a project to support students to use AI responsibly, transparently and effectively. Perhaps you’ll design a way to create personalise and tailored learning experiences for students, or design a new assessment format that helps students learn to apply AI skills in the context of their subject. Perhaps you’ll design tools that help students understand the ethical and environmental impact of Generative AI and ‘big data’ processing. In so doing, you’ll help shape the university’s AI strategy and give students the tools to be creative and responsible leaders in an AI-enabled future.
At Exeter we want all students to have a global outlook, with the confidence, skills and awareness to communicate and work effectively with people from different cultures and walks of life. This is your opportunity to explore how we can internationalise your learning experience across all our university campuses, and help showcase students’ important global engagement skills. Perhaps you’ll design virtual opportunities for Exeter students and students from other international universities to work across institutional and international boundaries on joint projects – without having to leave campus! Or perhaps you’ll create an award scheme for students who are engaging in global citizenship activities. Your work will help to build cross cultural literacy, global awareness and teamworking skills for the next generation of Exeter graduates.
Students in this group will work on creative solutions to the real-life challenges that organisations such as AWS face in today’s business environment using emerging technologies including Generative AI tools without needing coding experience. The challenge will give students an opportunity to engage in innovative experiential learning through this industry-led activity. Test out your business acumen and transferable skills on the type of commercial issues and obstacles your future employers are facing.
Please note: this group will focus on how emerging technologies can be used to address industry challenges (e.g. transportation, marketing, logistics). In contrast, the GenAI and Data Powered Learning Enquiry Group will address the ethics and challenges of using AI and technology in higher education, whether in the classroom, supporting coursework and assessment or in upskilling students for their future careers.
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