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Challenge-based learning is an approach that enables interdisciplinary teaching to engage students in solving real-life problems. This approach has been successfully integrated into Universities of Applied Sciences’ courses, where students work on project cases facilitated by private sector companies and other key actors at local level. The question is, however, how can we scale up these activities for an international audience and multidisciplinary contexts, involving different fields and universities in Europe? How to reach a shared vision about pedagogical methods and identify common challenges that students from different countries can relate with? How can we scale up challenge-based learning to an international setting? These are some of the ongoing topics being explored inside the Urban Research and Education Knowledge Alliance (U!REKA) (1). The vision of U!REKA is to gather real-life issues and needs from cities, regions, and industry networks associated with the alliance, and use those as input for designing new research projects, courses, micro-credentials or degree programmes. Since its creation in 2016, U!REKA has offered to educators the possibility of exchanging best practices in education and research with peers across different EU country borders. Based on lessons learned from the first U!REKA Educational Forum, which took place in Ostrava in June 2024, the adoption of challenge-based learning in an international context raises two sets of questions: Impact: What goals can be achieved from international collaboration, e.g.: How can we contribute from our own domains and fields of expertise to addressing rather unknown or unfamiliar challenges?  What is the goal we are ultimately trying to achieve by working together across borders, one that we would not be able to achieve otherwise? Enablers: How to achieve the intended impact, e.g.: How can we set up a more favourable environment and conditions for expanding research and teaching beyond our own local networks and ecosystems? How can we develop the necessary competences to succeed in an international environment? In this blog post, I will focus on the first point, impact. I will share experiences from one of the workshop sessions in the Educational Forum, titled “Towards a Shared Educational Agenda: Challenge-Based Collaborative Education”, where participants were given practical examples of urban challenge cases to develop challenge-based education in an international setting. Urban challenges: Two sides of the same coin The challenges from the U!REKA cities are known as “wicked problems”: Issues that are complex to understand, solve or measure, because they interweave technical, societal, and environmental dimensions. In most cases, there is no definite solution, and the boundaries of these cases can constantly change (2). On one hand, this provides an ideal context for students to get firsthand experience in solving real problems that they will likely have to face later in their working life. On the other hand, these challenges add complexity to the course design and implementation, because they can come from any of the countries participating in the alliance, exposing both teachers and students to contexts they are unfamiliar with. Real-life challenges from U!REKA cities expose both teachers and students to contexts they are unfamiliar with. In general, all the challenges of U!REKA partners are somehow connected to the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities (3). As part of this initiative, a group of 100 local public administrations around the EU, including U!REKA associated cities Amsterdam, Espoo, Helsinki, and Lisbon, are aiming to become climate neutral by 2030. Eye-Opening cases of wicked problems within U!REKA cities To prepare for the Educational Forum session, the organizing team within U!REKA SHIFT’s collaborative education taskforce asked institutional coordinators and research managers from U!REKA partner universities to send examples of challenges coming from their own cities and regions. The outcome of this request illustrated the diversity of contexts and richness of topics across partner universities. It also brought insight to the great opportunities for finding common issues that may affect multiple countries across Europe or pinpoint challenges that are unique to one specific location. To identify common issues and pinpoint unique challenges, it is essential to set up mixed groups of teachers. For this reason, we realized that it was essential to set up mixed groups of teachers, where at least one of them represented the challenge case provider. Other educators coming from different locations could bring the “outside of the box” thinking, i.e. offering different angles on possible educational activities that can be designed to help solve the issue. As examples of real-life issues distributed among the workshop groups: Amsterdam UAS sent a case related to improving the readiness of its buildings and infrastructure to resist water and heat stress Edinburgh Napier University provided a challenge related to developing sustainable and affordable housing solutions for students HOGENT sent a case scenario related to the energy efficiency of historic buildings in Ghent’s old town centre Metropolia UAS presented a challenge focused on the adaptation of local healthcare and social services to cope with budget cuts and demographic changes VSB - Technical University of Ostrava submitted a challenge related to engaging private investors in construction development projects to transform old coal mining sites. Workshop findings and next steps Who should solve this challenge: we the teachers, our students, or both? This question seemed to resonate with participants, who remained enthusiastic and engaged in active discussions throughout the workshop. However, we noticed that many struggled to fully grasp their own role in addressing the challenge cases, unsure of how to position themselves in the problem-solving process. The reason is that teachers were also putting themselves in the role of their students, as they were just learning about the challenge case contexts from another EU city or country. This issue raises the importance of engaging educators and researchers early on in employing foresight thinking, to better understand the needs of society and working life to be addressed by future U!REKA professionals. Who should solve the challenge: we the teachers, our students, or both? Cross-border collaboration among mixed groups of teachers has the potential to open new pathways for innovation in education. Most teams were able to successfully envision various educational activities that could address the case studies presented. There are still many unresolved points to be discussed inside the alliance, such as how to facilitate the creation of teachers’ networks to design new joint courses or programmes, or how to provide some common infrastructure, including resources, facilities, and/or equipment, to facilitate the interactions at international level. All these points relate to the second set of questions, i.e. enablers, mentioned at the beginning of this blog article, and which will be covered in a subsequent post. In the meantime, consider how the insights from this workshop could support your teaching activities. Do you apply foresight thinking to design your courses or programmes, and if so, how? Do you collaborate in cross-border/mixed networks of teachers to develop educational contents, and if so, how did you build those networks and what conditions facilitated the process? Writer José Carlos Camposano works as Research and Development Manager at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. He holds a doctoral degree in Software Engineering, and a double master’s degree in service design and ICT innovation. He is a strong supporter of European integration and motivated by the goal of building bridges to increase the impact of research and innovation. References ​​U!REKA European University. U!REKA. Kolko J. (2012). Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving. Stanford Social Innovation Review. EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. EU. The UREKA SHIFT project This article was created in the UREKA SHIFT project co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Erasmus+. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.