Design-Based Education as a Catalyst for Multidisciplinary and Multicultural Collaboration

In today’s interconnected world, addressing complex societal challenges such as youth social exclusion requires more than theoretical knowledge. It demands creativity, empathy and the ability to collaborate across disciplines and cultures. This raises the question: How do we prepare students for this reality?

The RUN-EU Short Advanced Programme (SAP) Preventing the Social Exclusion of Young People set out to answer this question. Jointly coordinated by the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences in Austria, and the Häme University of Applied Sciences in Finland, the programme brought together students and teachers from diverse backgrounds to co-create solutions for one of society’s most pressing issues.

Design-based education (DBE) was at the heart of this SAP. Design-based education (HAMK, 2025) is a pedagogical approach that emphasizes creative, practical problem-solving in collaborative settings. This method equips students not only with knowledge but also with the mindset and skills to navigate real-world complexity (Hero et al., 2024). The learning journey on this SAP programme mirrored the double diamond design process developed by the British Design Council which goes through the stages of discover, define, develop, and deliver (Design Council, n.d).

The practical implementation of this programme combined an intensive mobility week in the Netherlands with online sessions that were organised both before and after the in-person week. In the following, we, a participating student and one of the course teachers, discuss how the learning on the programme was organised along these four stages of the design process and share our own experiences.

Discover: Exploring new perspectives

Students began work on the course by immersing themselves in new cultures, professions and approaches to youth-related challenges. Representatives from each country presented authentic, real-world issues from different fields of social work, inspiring participants to seek innovative solutions in teams. Different fields of social work and education were diversely represented by delegates from non-governmental organizations, schools and public social work.

From a student’s point of view, meeting other students for the first time at this initial stage was exciting. Working in a small group helped the group to bond together and share personal perspectives. This also helped students to empower each other through each student’s unique expertise.

From a teacher’s point of view, these kinds of student experiences show the importance of starting collaborative work by forming a common understanding of the problem. According to DBE, this requires that learners collectively explore the context, negotiate meanings and build a shared understanding of both the challenge and its boundaries before moving on to the stage of solution ideation.

Define: Setting shared goals

Creating a safe and open learning environment is essential for this type of a course. For this purpose, the teachers structured the programme with clear assignments to guide the process and to support team building, exploration and free innovation.

From a teacher’s point of view, it seems that there is often a tendency to place a strong emphasis on the subject matter, perhaps at the expense of other aspects of learning. Teachers can act as facilitators who enable active and safe participation through collaborative learning and clear structures, with flexibility for innovation. This can provide a meaningful and rewarding experience for the teachers as well.

In their reflections on the course, the students highlighted the importance of this kind of peer-to-peer learning, and they suggested that future SAPs could include more dedicated team-building activities for small groups. From the student perspective, while a large group brought them out of their comfort zone, it helped to have choices, and the transparency from the teachers encouraged openness so that thinking about youth challenges both professionally and personally brought new insights.

At this stage, it also became apparent that cultural sensitivity emerged as a key area for growth, which made it possible to recognise and respect diverse ways of thinking and being.

Develop: Learning through experience

From a teacher’s perspective, as learning progresses, the insights from preceding stages can be turned into development through teamwork and open sharing. This, in turn, fosters trust that is needed in co-creation. To this end, the students were encouraged to give feedback, which was then considered and turned into adjustments to organising the programme whenever possible.

From the student perspective, it was particularly helpful to see the places where their solutions were aimed, as this helped to think about the practical application of the solutions they were planning. Visiting youth centres, community hubs and a maritime institute were valuable for learning, and they allowed for applying the learned skills in real world settings. One of the participants also reflected on a quiet moment of walking alone to a community centre, enjoying rare Dutch sunshine and chatting with locals about the weather. For them, this was a simple but memorable cultural exchange. These kinds of encounters can be crucial in imagining the effects of the solutions that the students are creating in these types of courses.

Deliver: From ideas to action

The programme culminated in the students presenting multidisciplinary and multicultural solutions to complex social issues. They demonstrated courage in tackling real world problems and recognized the value of diversity in collaborative work. The representatives, who at the start of the course pitched the real-world problems to the students, came back at this stage to provide the students with feedback and shared ideas about future implementation in their work and further development.

From the student’s point of view, this demonstrated how global challenges require global co-operation and how there is a need to design every possible support to work toward a more equal and sustainable future. For the students, then, this SAP provided international contacts, strengthened language skills and boosted confidence, making it worth stepping out of one’s comfort zone.

Reflecting back on the learning process, from a teacher’s perspective it is clear that the close interaction with representatives – which is a core element of DBE’s emphasis on authentic learning contexts – and the valuable feedback they provided, helped to reinforce for the students the impact that their work has on the world around them. The student reflections show growth in key DBE competencies, including intercultural and multidisciplinary teamwork, communication skills and confidence in tackling real-world challenges through development in design-thinking mindsets.

Building bridges for the future

Overall, the course Preventing the Social Exclusion of Young People demonstrated how a Short Advanced Programme can extend from a learning experience into a catalyst for change. By combining design-based education with international collaboration, the students gained practical skills, cultural awareness and confidence to tackle global challenges.

Also this text, co-written by a student and a senior lecturer, reflects the spirit of co-creation that defined the programme. This kind of co-creation also underscores a vital truth: when students and teachers work together, we can create solutions that matter. The writing process for this text itself sparked new ideas for future programmes and highlighted the importance of student involvement in development work. Together, we are more.

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