ENGAGE.EU Expedition Week – A Week that Gets Things Moving

Students come together from all over Europe to develop solutions for real societal problems – in just five days.

How can we change the world in just one week? We can’t. But we can start by questioning things, developing new ideas, and taking a first step in the right direction. And that’s exactly what the ENGAGE.EU Expedition Week is about. During the Expedition Week, university students from all over Europe come together to address urgent societal issues – and craft viable solutions.

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Five days, interdisciplinary teams, real challenges. No theoretical drudgery, just hands-on solutions – practical, creative, effective. The students work on real issues facing society, come up with new perspectives, and design long-term concepts with an impact beyond the classroom setting.

The 2023 Expedition Week in Vienna focused on the topic of inequalities. The challenges – affordable housing, social exclusion, poverty – were presented by the City of Vienna together with Catholic charity organization Caritas. But instead of just theorizing about inequality, the participants explored the topic first-hand. They visited a housing project in Wolfganggasse and the Caritas day center at Vienna Central Station to see for themselves what social inequality really means.

Then it was time for the students to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Applying the design thinking method as a process for innovation, the teams set about developing long-term solutions. Support came in the form of keynote speeches by social entrepreneurs from the Social Entrepreneurship Network Austria (SENA), a pitch workshop with entrepreneurship expert Ahmad Hachicho, and an introduction to design thinking with Hannah Frost from the WU Innovation Office. The week was a mix of plenary events, input sessions, and intensive teamwork – everything you need to generate innovative ideas.

The big moment for everyone involved was the pitch on the last day of the event. Here the students presented their concepts to a panel of experts from the fields of academia, business, and society. The winning team impressed the judges with an innovative solution for reducing water consumption in Viennese apartments – a practical and feasible solution with real-world impact.

The ENGAGE.EU Expedition Week works – and it is growing. Further Expedition Weeks have already been held since the Vienna edition, focusing on the themes of sustainability (NHH, Bergen, Norway), sustainable cities (UNWE, Sofia, Bulgaria), or climate change (UT Capitole, Toulouse, France). The program will return to Vienna in 2025. New topics, new teams, new solutions.

Because change often begins with a simple question: What can we do better? The ENGAGE.EU Expedition Week shows that students not only learn – they also create.

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Studierende denken über Lösungen für die Herausforderungen der Zukunft nach.

“We are very impressed by the commitment, the interest and the creative solutions of the students, which were developed in only one week. It was very inspiring to accompany the group of students in this process and it has also given us a bit more faith in the future.”

Barbara Eibelhuber and Maria Sofaly, Caritas

Studierende der Expedition Week an der WU

“It was a pleasure for me to work with Caritas because we had the opportunity to exchange ideas and insights and receive valuable feedback from them throughout the process.”

Nikol Valkanova (WU student) about her experience in the Expedition Week in Vienna.

Key Facts

  • 29 students of 7 universities participated in the Expedition Week

  • This was the 4th Expedition Week of the ENGAGE.EU university alliance

  • 2 associate partners, Caritas and the City of Vienna supported the students

  • Academic input complemented by external presentations, Design Thinking Method and pitch presentations)

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