Get help from university students to solve your challenges

Openlab’s creative master’s students develop solution proposals for societal and organisational challenges from the city and region. Submit your challenge for the upcoming term.

Openlab accepts challenges from Region Stockholm and the City of Stockholm for the interdisciplinary master’s course “Challenges for emerging cities, /Innovations for Societal Challenges.” The challenges should stem from real life needs in society and your organisations, and areas where you are interested in gaining new insight and/or finding new solutions.

Fill out the form at the bottom of the page to submit a challenge for the course!

About Openlab’s Master’s Course

In this multidisciplinary master’s level course, a team of qualified master’s students from various institutions and disciplines dedicate 20 weeks to your challenge. Generally four challenges are accepted per term, with one student team per challenge. The students work with the design thinking method, developing prototypes and ideas based on the needs of end-users, beneficiaries, and other crucial target groups, in order to create the best solutions. As a challenge provider, you will gain user insights and suggestions of solutions in a final report, along with student presentations and dialogue with the group. The course is conducted in English.

All student projects are presented at the bottom of our master’s course page, where you can explore previous student projects.

Selection: Openlab makes a selection among the submitted challenges. The selection is based on the extent to which:

• The challenge relates to Openlab’s mission to address complex societal challenges.
• The results have potential to be scaled up or spread.
• The challenge is connected to the global goals and Agenda 2030.
• The challenge is endorsed by the management of the applying organisation.

Tips: How to formulate a good challenge:

• Phrase the challenge as a question starting with “How might we…?”
• Choose an area where you need to think innovatively and test solutions.
• Identify concrete needs and a clear user/target group.
• Do not propose a solution.
• Connect the challenge to the global sustainability goals.

Your Commitment

Participating as a challenge provider in the course is free of charge and open to all entities funded by Region Stockholm or the City of Stockholm, from unit level to administration or corporate level. Your commitment involves participating in at least three occasions during the course and serving as ongoing support for contacts and questions related to the project. You are expected to present the challenge to students at the course start (January/February, VT or September, HT), actively participate in concept delivery midway through the term (March, VT or October, HT), and be actively engaged in the final delivery (May/June, VT or January, HT). The course usually includes many international students, and communication with student groups and course presentations predominantly occur in English.

Providing a Challenge to Openlab’s Master’s Course In May 2024, Openlab held a webinar about what it means to provide a challenge to the master’s course. Watch the Webinar Recording (swe, 23 min)

Submit a challenge via the form

Fill out the form to submit your challenge. Please double-check that all mandatory fields are filled in, to make sure your challenge will be sent. A confirmation message will appear at the top of the form after submission

You can also download the form as a Word file, in Swedish, fill it is and send it to ivar.bjorkman@openlab.se.

Challenges are accepted on an ongoing basis throughout the year. Selections for the fall and spring terms take place in November and May, respectively.