In the decade of transformation, businesses take a leading role in the transition to a green economy. To overcome the problems they face in their quest to drive sustainable innovation, they often keep a look-out for committed students who want to be their partners and help turn their challenges into opportunities.

1. What exactly do challenges in sustainable venturing entail?

Sustainable venturing challenges come in different formats. They may be organised as competitions, hackathons, workshops or even full-semester courses, to name a few. What unites them is their focus on student-business collaboration to develop innovative, sustainable solutions to companies’ real-world problems. This means that you will go much further than, for instance, listening to a guest lecture of a company presenting their business problem. Instead, companies are asking you to join the table and come up with new, exciting solutions to their challenges in a collaborative effort. This means you will work directly with the respective company (or companies) and engage with company representatives at eye-level.

2. What is challenge-based learning?

Challenge-based learning is an innovative approach to learning that focuses on students and their needs. According to the Challenge-based Learning Framework, students go through three interrelated phases as they work on real-life challenges provided by companies. In the “Engage” phase, the students get to know the problem the company faces and ask questions to study and look at the problem from various perspectives. This exploration phase is important for students as it helps them to understand and formulate the concrete challenge and move on towards the next phase, the “Investigate” phase. Here, students engage in in-depth research and collect information that is needed to build the foundation for developing ideas and solutions, guided by academic staff and company representatives who provide supportive materials and activities. In the final “Act” phase, students build on their investigations into the problem to come up with new ideas and concrete solutions which they present to the business partner and academic staff to receive feedback and determine potential for actual implementation.

3. What types of sustainable venturing challenges are there?

During a challenge that focuses on sustainable venturing, you will be involved in creating new business solutions within a company, such as innovating products, services and processes or developing new ventures such as start-ups or spin-offs. Challenges can typically be differentiated based on the following dimensions:

4. What are the different stages of the challenge process?

Student-business challenges in sustainable venturing will typically feature the stages shown below. During kick-off, business partners present their problem to you and supply all needed information and supplementary material for you to get started. Academic staff will provide you with all relevant information as to the planned challenge procedure, important dates and if applicable, requirements for examination. As you dive into generating ideas and developing your solution to the problem, both the business partner and academic staff will be available to co-reflect different perspectives and co-develop new knowledge and ideas with you. Towards the end, you will be asked to pitch your solution to the jury as a team. Both the business partner and academic staff will use pre-defined assessment criteria to evaluate your solution and to give you feedback. Should the academic staff have an impact monitoring system in place to evaluate the outcomes of the challenge, you might be asked to participate in short surveys after or both before and after the challenge.

5. What are the roles of students, companies and academic staff during a challenge?

Students

As a participating student, you will take the role of challenge solver. This involves applying your knowledge and any expertise and skills you might acquire during the challenge to co-develop innovative ideas and solutions in a mixed student team. You will do so in constant exchange with academic staff and company representatives who provide regular feedback and opportunities for open discussion. Towards the end of the challenge, you are expected to pitch your solution to company management and academic staff who will assess the quality of your solution. You might be asked to participate in surveys and provide feedback that help the challenge organisers to evaluate and further improve the challenge activity.

Companies

Company representatives will make sure to present to you the business problem their company is facing in an understandable way. They will provide you with input and all relevant information you need to get started on investigating and developing a feasible solution. During the challenge process, company staff act as coaches to provide you with expert knowledge, support and insights along the way. They will offer regular sessions in which you can openly exchange your ideas and thoughts and co-develop ideas. During the final pitch event, they will provide you with valuable feedback on your proposed solution.

Academic staff

Academic staff will provide you with new knowledge relevant to solving the challenge, such as important methods, approaches and tools in sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation. They are there to support you and provide direction throughout each of the challenge stages, whether during research, ideation or developing your solution. They can also support you in the communication process with the company and you can always reach out to them should any questions arise.

6. What is required of students who are interested in taking part in a sustainable venturing challenge?

First and foremost, you should bring an active interest in sustainable entrepreneurship and in collaborating with businesses on the ground. Ideally, you are open to learning, working in teams with diverse backgrounds and able to take on responsibility. You should also check the specific requirements of the challenge you’re interested in such as language, study level and evaluation requirements and check your time availability for participation. Finally, a portion of curiosity and willingness to discover new perspectives can’t hurt either.

7. How do I lobby my university to take part in sustainable venturing challenges or accept ECTS from other university challenges?

If your university does not offer challenge-based activities in sustainable venturing yet, you can reach out to inquire about options to accept ECTS for other university challenges or, going a step further, to integrate challenges into the curriculum. Check who would be most suitable to approach – might this be your lecturer or department dean? Or maybe your university’s entrepreneurship hub or sustainability initiative? As you enter into discussion, there are several advantages you can bring forward. Universities are key players when it comes to driving the sustainability transformation. Entrepreneurial university-business collaboration increases the university’s field of action and presents a good opportunity to use and apply its wealth of knowledge and resources for creating positive impact, all while strengthening its innovative profile. Besides, challenge-based learning is an innovative learning approach suitable to complement traditional teaching and learning practices and provides students with real-world experiences that better prepare them for work and life – another advantage to sharpen the university’s standing and attract prospective students.

8. What happens after challenge completion?

This differs from challenge to challenge. Usually, you will receive a certificate of completion. Depending on the challenge format and agreed upon conditions with academic staff, the business partner might take up the most innovative solution(s) for implementation and continue to work with you to translate your idea into reality. Some companies might offer to buy your idea.

Inform & Prepare

Select a challenge format suited to your company’s needs

Providing a challenge to students requires thorough preparation and planning. This entails becoming familiar with the challenge-based learning approach and getting to know the different features of sustainable venturing challenges. The following dimensions provide guidance as you decide on and select the right format for your company’s needs:

Providing a sustainable venturing challenge to university students can be energising for business partners and educators alike. However, given that it comprises a high level of co-creation, it requires additional effort in terms of involvement and time. During the challenge activity or programme, you will engage in multiple roles and it is important to develop a good understanding of what these individual roles entail:

You will be responsible for representing your company in academia, both to university staff and students. Acting as intermediary between your company management and the university, you engage in managing and maintaining the challenge process, ensuring smooth collaboration and communicating expectations on both sides.

Coach

Given the co-creational nature of challenges, you work side-by-side with students to develop a solution to your business problem. As you do so, you provide the students with expert knowledge linked to your specific field and give input on company- and industry-related topics. Besides engaging in direct discussion, you might also provide supplementary data and methodological insights, if useful for advancing the challenge process.

Mentor

As the students get to know the business problem you are facing and begin to develop new ideas, it will be important to provide them with support and the right tools along the way. Sharing your experience and giving insights into project management and planning, proper time management and delegation as well as communication and negotiation will provide them with necessary guidance and help to boost their motivation for solving the challenge.

Jury member and assessor

At the end of the challenge, it will be your task to evaluate the student ideas and solutions and check their potential for implementation at your company. Usually, this takes place in the form of a final pitch event. Here, the academic staff will ensure that all materials and systems necessary for you to fulfil your role as jury member are provided.

Connect & Co-design

Scout for suitable academic partners

Finding a suitable academic partner largely depends on the business problem you want to provide and how you envision to engage in the challenge process. But where to get started with your search for universities suitable for cooperation, in the first place? There are several possible ways to scout for the right academic partner:

Once you have identified a potential university partner, there are several key criteria that should be considered and cross-checked, and which, if met, lay the foundation for building a solid partnership, including:

Once you have identified a suitable academic partner, you should enter into discussion to discuss key requirements and together, begin to prepare the challenge. To ensure successful collaboration, the following topics should form the basis for discussion:

Implement & Reflect

Implement the challenge programme or activity following the different stages of the challenge process

Student-business challenges in sustainable venturing will typically feature the stages shown below. In each of these stages, companies and academic staff are involved to a varying extent. As a business partner, your input during the kick-off of the challenge format is extremely important for setting the stage and making sure that students can develop a sense of motivation and take ownership of the challenge they derive from your business problem. This includes supplying material which includes information on your company activities, structure and strategy, as well as background information about the problem associated with the challenge. You might also include information on your expectations to the students and pose specific questions related to the topic that you want the students to investigate for you. Academic staff will provide student guidelines which detail the planned challenge procedure and the expected role of students, academic staff and the business partner.

The assessment and evaluation will be managed by academic staff to a large extent, but will involve your support to assess and evaluate the outcomes of the challenge. This will ensure that all involved can grasp the impact of their commitment and in the case of continued collaboration, improve the challenge activity or programme with regard to efficiency and effectiveness.

If you would like to measure and improve the impact of your challenge activity or programme, the “Guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative student-business venturing activities” are a suitable resource. The manual is aimed at both company managers and academic staff and introduces approaches to make transparent the costs, benefits as well as the outputs, outcomes and impacts of student-business collaboration schemes in sustainable venturing. It also shows how to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing teaching and learning schemes, and provides insights on how to improve and develop them further.

Sustainable venturing challenges come in different formats – from competitions and creathons to ideation workshops and full-semester courses. At their core, they provide a great opportunity for students from all study levels to work collaboratively and develop sustainable solutions to real-world problems with support from corporate and academic mentors. As a participating student, you benefit from this experience in many different ways:

Taking part in a sustainable venturing challenge enables you to experience new ways of learning at university. Going beyond traditional learning formats, you get to directly interact with and learn from professionals who are at the forefront of innovation and sustainable business development in their companies and who would like to work with you at eye-level to develop your solutions to their corporate challenges. In this way, you get to learn about how to integrate innovative, sustainable ideas into existing business models or transform ideas into viable sustainable ventures, whilst also receiving the opportunity to immediately apply your new learnings into practice.

Besides valuable learnings about how to develop and implement eco-innovations and start a new green business, you also get to expand important competencies needed for 21st century learning such as collaborative working, communication, and critical as well as creative thinking. These are crucial skills to build along your student journey and can help you further succeed in your studies, boost your career readiness and help you achieve your professional goals.

Throughout the challenge process, you get to meet and interact with people from all over the world. Working in multidisciplinary and international teams will help you cultivate an open mindset, build your intercultural skills and allow you to exchange different perspectives and ideas with other students as well as academic and company staff – all indispensable in today’s global and interconnected world.

By connecting with leading companies and working in direct exchange with company staff, you receive exposure to entrepreneurial careers and role models at an early stage in your studies. This can help you expand your professional network and increases your chances of gaining further practical experience in the future, such as internships, master thesis projects, or even employability when it comes to starting your career.

By partnering directly with companies and leading professionals to work on their existing challenges, you learn how to design and develop solutions such as new services, products and processes that have the potential to contribute to sustainable change on a local to global scale. In this way, you can make a real impact in the world as a university student. Highly innovative student teams receive the opportunity to further develop and implement their solutions, with the founding of start-ups and spin-offs being a possibility.