Cocreating societal impact through transdisciplinary, challenge-based learning

Transdisciplinary and Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) methods help prepare graduates to tackle increasingly complex, interconnected global challenges and create societal impact. However, they are time-intensive for teachers, challenging for students to adopt, and often yield uncertain outcomes for external stakeholders acting as challenge providers. To address these issues, a longitudinal process study of an academic module was conducted as part of a Master's program integrating management and engineering courses. Using mixed qualitative methods, including the analysis of data from project meetings, diaries, focus groups, and observations, we identified the following key enablers: clarity about the challenge, structured course organization, and proactive teacher involvement. The transdisciplinary CBL process fostered intellectual stimulation, skill development, and practical theory application, enabled by open communication and reflective practice. Students enhanced their problem-solving abilities, challenge providers gained actionable insights, and teachers facilitated deeper, more integrative learning experiences. Findings demonstrate that transdisciplinary CBL creates mutual value for students, challenge providers, and teachers, provided that curriculum design and stakeholder engagement are deliberately structured and prioritized. This study advances practical strategies for implementing transdisciplinary CBL and also proposes a new ‘prepare’ phase to the CBL framework. • Integrating engineering and management courses through transdisciplinary CBL improves problem-solving. • Transdisciplinary CBL fosters mutual value for students, teachers, and challenge providers via proactive expectation setting. • Structured stakeholder engagement is linked with improved problem-solving skills and greater societal impact. • Our work offers practical guidelines for designing effective transdisciplinary, challenge-based educational programs.