Beyond institutional boundaries

Addressing complex scientific and societal challenges increasingly requires collaboration across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. However, most interdisciplinary educational initiatives remain confined within a single course or institution, limiting opportunities for students to engage in learning environments that reflect the distributed and collaborative nature of contemporary research and professional practice. In this perspectives article, we present a design-oriented pedagogical framework for cross-institutional interdisciplinary education that integrates two independent undergraduate courses offered at separate post-secondary institutions. The model enables collaboration between biomedical engineering and immunology students through a shared interdisciplinary project centered on the emerging field of immunoengineering. We describe key design principles underlying this approach, including defining discipline-specific and shared learning outcomes, supporting the development of disciplinary competencies alongside interdisciplinary collaboration skills, and designing project-based assessments that facilitate collaboration across institutional and scheduling constraints. Drawing on two iterations of implementation, we also reflect on practical administrative and curricular challenges encountered and strategies used to address them. Together, this work provides a discipline-agnostic framework and practical considerations for implementing cross-institutional interdisciplinary education, contributing to ongoing efforts to prepare students for collaborative, interdisciplinary practice and problem-solving

Discipline · Engineering education · Higher education · Interdisciplinarity · Limiting · Biomedical and Engineering Education · Engineering Education and Pedagogy · Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration

• How to solve the world's biggest problems

  Open Access•Heidi Ledford•Nature•2015

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