University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

A degree like no other: Industry Innovation Project in the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence & Innovation at UTS

Positioned within the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII), the subject Industry Innovation Project (IIP) involves final-year students working with industry partners in small transdisciplinary teams to develop solutions to real-world ‘wicked’ problems. Most of these challenges have complex sustainability and social issues at their core and students work in a porous ‘third space’, positioned outside the traditional confines of ‘education’ and ‘employment’.

Working collaboratively with industry partners, students are encouraged to re-imagine the challenge they have been set and are taken through a process designed to facilitate creative thinking and innovative problem solving. 

Since it began in 2014, the BCII has quickly earned a reputation amongst students and partners as a “degree like no other” - a world-first transdisciplinary degree that brings together students from 25 different fields. IIP has been instrumental in the BCII winning recent awards from AAUT and BHERT for collaboration and problem solving.

What it Means to Win

This was a very strong submission and the judges were particularly impressed with the framing of 'wicked problems' as the base for incorporating substantial partnership working and collaboration as well as including learning about the breadth of sustainability throughout the programme. The challenge now is sharing the model of this course with the rest of the sector!

Top 3 Learnings

1. Industry partners are eager for students and graduates who are creative thinkers and solution-focused.
2. Achieving both sustainability and educational outcomes requires innovative ways of teaching and working together.
3. Transdisciplinary approaches and thinking can help to develop responses to complex wicked problems.