What can you expect ?

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INTENSIVE COURSES

What is the goal of the intensive course?

SciCultureD aims to build a culture of transdisciplinarity that highlights the benefits of cooperation between different fields, which is reflective of inclusive and sustainable societies and environments. SciCultureD wants to foster co-creative approaches, civic participation, a system thinking mindset and responsible innovation amongst educators, professionals, HEI students and academics to drive positive change and impact the wider community.

During the SciCultureD intense the 5-day intensive course, participants will be trained to develop their resilience and multicultural understanding while diversifying their skill set in project management, transdisciplinary team working, design and systems thinking, entrepreneurship, creativity, scientific processes, innovation and arts-related skills.

Learn how to address a complex societal challenge from multiple perspectives
Learn how to explore and collect inputs with different techniques
Learn how to challenge your own perspective and listen with empathy
Learn how to think & create in a transdisciplinary way (entrepreneurship, creativity, scientific processes, arts, social aspects)
Learn how to deliver ideas and concepts with originality and creativity (for example: theatre piece, arts, sounds, etc…)

What approaches will be used?

The course will use creative pedagogies with a core focus on embodied dialogue, together with a learning-by doing approach around a central challenge that groups of participants will address. The course will use an open-ended educative approach to ultimately help diverse groups of participants to work together to address major societal and environmental challenges.

Who will participate?

The course is targeted to a diverse group of people from different EU countries and cultures and with mixed expertise from the sciences and technologies, humanities, arts and creative practices, education, entrepreneurship to foster the development of ecological and innovative thinking, collaboration and social and intercultural competencies.

Learning that confusion is part of the process

One major take-away from this course is to go through a process of challenging your own perspectives and learn how to shift it with the inputs of other disciplines and backgrounds – so it is ok to feel confused or frustrated during some activities: it is part of the learning process! Shifting your own perspectives means enriching your ideas and experiences with complementary ones that could lead to innovative solutions.

How is the course structured?

The schedule

We aim to deliver a complete programme within 5 days – from Monday to Friday. Hence the activities usually take place from 8:30 or 9 AM up to 6 PM with multiple coffee break and lunch time (this is why it is called intensive course!)

You will be free in the evenings and all evening activities are optional.

Should you have any requirements, feel free to let us know.

The theme of the course

The Challenge will be inspired by the European Green Deal, and SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals, especially 3–5, 11, 13, 16–17]) and be a real problem or issue that the community faces. After being introduced to the theme of the course and the general challenge, participants join their groups to choose the topic they want to tackle and start exploring it.

The programme: a 'Double Diamond' process

You will address the challenge in four phases across five days: each day of the intensive course will be dedicated to each one of the Double Diamond phases adapted from Design Thinking: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.
The first days is usually dedicated to ice breakers, getting to know each other and the introduction to the challenge (problem) and the local context. The last day you will be involved in the presentation or sharing session (deliver) of what you have developed between day 2 and day 4.

Working in groups

Since day 1, you will be assigned to a group with other participants of mixed countries and backgrounds. During the week, the groups keep meeting and discussing ways to address their challenge following the inputs from the facilitators or external experts. Facilitators will always be present for questions or support. Together, you will learn how to collaborate in a multicultural and multidisciplinary context, overcoming challenges and seizing complementarity.

Mentoring & direct inputs by the SciCultureD facilitators

You will be mentored by SciCultureD’s partners (called facilitators), who are experts in specific areas relevant to the course during the group work. Besides, the programme will include direct input sessions and workshops during the week that give you some contextual knowledge on the theme and how to address it. For examples, sessions on transdisciplinary knowledge like entrepreneurship, science communication or the dialogue between arts and science. Other workshops may include Science Theatre, Storytelling, Soundscape, Makers Workshop and the Business Canvas Model – just to give an idea. The course also includes theoretical sessions about embodied dialogue and post-humanism, as well as design thinking that will challenge your way to see and address the initial issue.

Field trips & social activities

We wish to organise a fun and relaxing learning course that steer bonding and personal growth. For this reason, we also include field trips – i.e. visits to local communities, initiatives and locations to better learn about the challenge and local context.
Social activities may include dinners, networking events, games and visits to local cultural attractions – usually from 5 PM on.

Reflection time and feeback

We dedicate multiple sessions to self reflection and group reflection throughout the week: this activity can be really helpful in guiding you through the learning process. Examples of reflection activities are: building your photolog, group reflection facilitated by the tutors. Both at the beginning and at the end of the course we ask a small group of participants to volunteer for a focus group: in this way we can collect your feedback and improve the course experience!
We also ask all participants to fill in a final survey in order to collect everyone’s suggestions.