Global Challenges

The DCU BSc in Global Challenges is for people who want to challenge themselves to take on the world’s problems.  This unique program integrates social science and technology studies through challenge-based learning.  Technological advances can bring about huge changes to the way we live. Students will also explore the societal and economic impacts of new and emerging technologies and their effects on the future of work, environmental impacts, and community interaction.  Students will engage with concrete problems, such as climate change, gender stereotypes, fake news, global health, and global inequality. Solutions to these problems will be explored through challenge-based learning projects, simulations, hackathons, and interdisciplinary teamwork. Challenges will be inspired by examples from the public, private, and NGO sectors, as well as student-generated challenges. We will equip graduates to develop socially effective technological solutions to real problems. The program includes modules such as climate change, politics, design thinking, international development, data analytics, public policy, artificial intelligence, security and peace studies, ethics, and social science options to study China, Africa, Western and Eastern Europe, as well as the USA.

There will be technology options such as sustainable design, the Internet of Things, digital interaction, and opportunities for rapid prototyping of technological solutions.  The highlight of each year will be an extended team challenge, which requires the integration of social science and technology skills.

The third year will be a placement in the private or public sectors. Course modules will cover fundamental technical knowledge of electronic engineering, computer science, and data science, and also the fundamental theories of social science, policy, and politics, with an international context of these topics. Each year there will be an interdisciplinary project related to a global challenge. This project will involve creative problem-solving by proposing technological solutions while taking into account the social implications of the proposed solution.  Assessment will be the main project based on simulations and hackathons for a more engaging learning experience.