What is a Design Challenge?

Welcome to the Design Challenge Events (DCE) of the GLOBE-STEAMSS project! Here, students, companies, researchers, and educators work together to tackle real-world challenges in sustainability, digital transformation, and societal impact.

Across the project, four full Design Challenge cycles will take place: one hosted in Belgium, Spain, Romania, and Slovenia. Each country organises a design challenge event based on the winning challenge where students collaborate to explore the challenge, develop creative solutions, and showcase their ideas.

Although every cycle centres on a different challenge, the process remains the same: learning, proposing, voting, creating, and celebrating innovation together.

A Design Challenge is a focused, time-bound innovation sprint where international student teams work together to solve real-world sustainability challenges proposed by companies and organizations. Using design thinking, participants analyze the problem, generate creative concepts, and pitch impactful solutions.

On this page, you can follow each step of the DCE process. Every step links directly to the tools and submission forms you need to participate, explore challenges, and share solutions.