The students will work on two challenges in separate workshops. The workshops will be held from 15. to 19. April. The challenge are sponsored by the industry:

• Sustainable materials for ocean renewable energy systems (sponsored by Flex2Power AS)

• Conflict-free development of large construction yards for offshore wind (Sponsored by Energy Innovation AS

A specific method is used in the workshops: Challenge Based Learning (CBL). 

(CBL) has three distinct phases, Engage, Investigate and Act. The workshop begins with the Engage Phase which moves from the Big Idea (green transition in offshore) to a concrete and actionable challenge by using the essential questioning process (Swiden, 2013).
Once this has been decided upon, participants can then proceed to the Investigate phase. Here, participants develop guiding questions to gain the knowledge needed to develop a solution to the challenge. Guiding questions continue to emerge throughout the challenge (Nichols et al., 2016). These could be gathering relevant data for their challenge. A problem-solving technique for this stage such as fishing techniques will also be presented. By these tool participants will understand problems in a more holistic and in-depth way and be enabled to structure their investigations. Participants will then develop their own guiding questions and resources to better understand their challenge. The learnings from this phase provides a foundation for the eventual identification of potential solutions to the challenge (Nichols et al., 2016).

In the Act stage a technique to develop potential solutions will be presented. This includes the ‘six thinking hats’ technique which encourages each participant to take a different role for developing solutions and help choose the best solution. These roles can include thinking more innovatively, or more cautiously, in a more risk-averse manner or in a more bold and experimental way. This is a key part of CBL as it demonstrates how participants do not have fixed roles and are able to change their roles to have different perspectives on their challenges. Solutions should be evidence-based and implemented with an ‘authentic’ (real-life) audience. They should evaluate the effectiveness of the solution and make adjustments, which will deepen their subject area knowledge (Nichols et al., 2016). Within each of the phases there are opportunities for mini-investigation cycles and if necessary, a return to an earlier phase.