Interdisciplinary collaboration is considered a key competence for engineers and necessary to solve society’s wicked problems in environmentally and socially sustainable ways. However, designing and developing successful and sustainable interdisciplinary PBL-projects that provide students with opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary learning, is no easy task. It requires cross-cutting collaboration, not only between students themselves but also between supervisors and facilitators, study management and administration. This paper provides indicative and explorative insights into potentials and challenges related to designing interdisciplinary PBL, exemplified through an empirical cross-case analysis of the “System Projects” initiative at the Technical Faculty of IT and Design at Aalborg University. Through in-depth interviews with project coordinators, we identify eight dimensions of system project integration and develop a curricular model for mapping variation within system projects: the System Project curricular spiderweb. We discuss key drivers for success and typical challenges, finding that successful interdisciplinary PBL can be achieved when the definition of the type of project is not too rigid, when we provide space for prototyping, experimentation and co-creation between staff, students and stakeholders, and when the objectives are perceived by all involved as engaging and important with purpose extending beyond just academic goals.

This workshop introduces a framework to integrate PBL competences in the curriculum. Based on a short introduction to the framework used at the engineering and science faculties at Aalborg University, we invite participants into sub-groups to construct learning outcomes. Participants will use a tool developed for this purpose, presenting a set of dialogue cards including four types

In the networking session ‘Students’ perspectives and involvement in PBL processes’, Aalborg University students share their experiences and involvement in different educational initiatives, which will set the scene for participants to discuss and reflect on students and educators can collaborate, be co-creators and co-facilitators of educational processes for the future. Zoom

Grasping the complex field of interdisciplinary collaboration in education has been an ongoing topic of interest in both research and teaching practice. Research highlights several elements such as common goals (boundary objects), interdependency, shared mental models, trust, mutual respect, reflexivity, epistemological transparency, awareness of discipline specific routine behaviors, quality of communication, stability and construction of the team. However, research also agrees that interdisciplinary collaboration is complex and that educational attempts to create these settings often fail in practice. Further, the literature heavily focuses either on the actors’ involvement and actions within the interdisciplinary context or on the structural elements of said context, giving less attention to the interplay and interconnectedness between actors and structures in interdisciplinary collaboration. By introducing the concept of relational space, interdisciplinary collaboration is provided with a holistic approach to understanding the complex system students encounter when participating in an interdisciplinary collaborative space. Through a reconceptualization of Löw’s sociological model within education, this article expands the literature with an integrated perspective of interdisciplinary collaboration in education including both structural and interpersonal elements. By analytically bringing together actors and institutions, the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Space in Education (CO-SPACE) framework enables an examination of interdisciplinary collaboration as a relational participation space. This approach highlights interdisciplinary collaboration as a multidimensional system, including multiple interacting layers and aspects. Institutional structures, social goods and people all influence the “prefixed” space, affecting how students interpret and place themselves and others within the established participation space, in turn determining access possibilities and how power unfolds. The analysis particularly brings attention to the emergence of sub-spaces, temporal dynamics, and knowledge-related access asymmetries.