Designing Successful and Sustainable Interdisciplinary PBL in Engineering Education

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.