Interdisciplinary Health Challenge
Training future health professionals requires more than disciplinary expertise — it demands the ability to collaborate across fields, think critically about complex health problems, and translate scientific knowledge into patient-relevant solutions. This project develops and evaluates a two-phase challenge-based learning continuum designed to scaffold exactly these competencies across undergraduate biomedical and medical education at Utrecht University.
In the first phase, the Health Challenge Think Tank, over 600 students from Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, and Clinical Health Sciences collaborate to develop research proposals addressing a real, patient-initiated health challenge — introduced by patients, clinicians, researchers, and other stakeholders. Each year a new topic is selected, ranging from heart disease and muscle disorders to cystic fibrosis. The strongest proposal advances to the second phase, where a small interdisciplinary team of students from across the life sciences executes the proposed research in the Experimental Translational Medicine (ETM) and Research Project (RP) courses — ten weeks of full-time authentic research conducted within the Student Research HUB Network. This network of physical innovation spaces embedded within Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht connects students directly with wet laboratories, epidemiology, medical humanities, and other disciplines, as well as with patients and stakeholders throughout the research process.
This project studies how this continuum develops academic skills — including communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity — using a mixed-methods self-reflection portfolio across both phases. With over 600 students participating in phase 1 and students from six life sciences programs completing phase 2, the continuum offers a transferable model for linking large-scale interdisciplinary ideation with the execution of authentic research in undergraduate health sciences education.
Selected references
Uniting education, research, healthcare, and society to advance women's heart health. Journal of Experimental Medicine 2024
A challenge-based interdisciplinary undergraduate concept fostering translational medicine. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education 2024
