Inspiring the future change-makers: reflections and ways forward from the Challenge-Based Innovation experiment

Since 2013, CERN IdeaSquare has issued thousands of “licenses to dream” to students, faculties, and stakeholders engaged in Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) inspired programs (CBI-like) together with universities and institutions willing to inspire future change-makers to tackle global challenges. CBI-like programs are educational projects where university students, PhDs, and MBA fellows work in multidisciplinary teams to solve innovation challenges while applying Design Thinking principles (Kurikka et al., 2016). Teaching the design thinking process includes implementing user-centered activities, building prototypes to test hypotheses, collaborating in multidisciplinary teams, and developing project-based teaching structures (Dym et al., 2005). The CBI-like programs widened the Design Thinking approach by incorporating additional elements such as international collaboration (Jensen et al., 2018), distributed collaboration (Kurikka and Utriainen, 2014), translation of fundamental research into societal applications (Kurikka et al., 2016), open innovation, and collaboration with companies and organizations.