The Da Vinci Programme Short Track

Content

Sustainable development and the strive to make our economies circular are grand challenges the world faces. These can only be solved via an interwoven collaboration of society, science, and technology. Academic education should be at the forefront of training the new generation of connectors, who are skilled in collaborating outside their comfort zone and in creating viable and practical solutions with different stakeholders. This manner of working requires strong disciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge and skills. The Da Vinci Program focuses on this transdisciplinary knowledge and skills, and attitude required for sustainability problem-solving. Future professionals will be encouraged to challenge the status quo, to change what doesn’t work in the transition towards a sustainable world. They will be stimulated to develop strong connector skills so they can build bridges between scientific disciplines and between organizations outside the academic world. And they will be inspired to become innovators who can develop the solutions of the future.

The Da Vinci Program consists of 10 weeks (15 EC) of full-time challenge-based education in which students will work in innovation hubs at public and private partners outside the university. Students will work at the partner's workspace, like an internship, but in an interdisciplinary student team, dedicated to a challenge in the field of energy, feedstock, and materials transition. Four to five partners will facilitate a team and provide a real-life challenge, in this way shaping an innovation agenda. Industrial as well as societal partners have joined the Da Vinci Master Program. In several iterations and by applying design thinking methodology, the teams will move from a challenge briefing to feasible, viable, desirable, and sustainable solutions. Students spend two third of their time on this challenge. The teams are guided by a supervisor at the partner organization and by a mentor from the university to professionally master tackling real sustainability-related problems. The remaining time they co-work with fellow students in the Da Vinci community and build a personal development portfolio. The Da Vinci community is an important platform for knowledge exchange, peer learning, and personal growth. Students have workshops together and operate with fellow students from other teams to co-create the Da Vinci Program.