The Future of Education

Universities are increasingly expected to contribute to innovation, sustainability, and regional development alongside their traditional missions of education and research. Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) has emerged as a pedagogical approach that connects students, higher education institutions, and external stakeholders through engagement with real-world challenges. While prior research has predominantly examined the effects of CBL on student learning and skill development, limited attention has been given to its outcomes for industry and organizational partners acting as challenge providers. This study addresses this gap by exploring how regional actors perceive their participation in CBL and whether such collaboration supports meaningful university–industry engagement. Using a qualitative exploratory research design, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with six organizations from diverse sectors that collaborated with a university through CBL projects. The interview data were thematically analyzed to identify perceived benefits, outcomes, and challenges associated with CBL collaboration. The findings indicate that CBL provides organizations with access to new perspectives, supports reflection on organizational practices, and contributes to early-stage problem exploration and innovation processes. At the same time, challenges related to time constraints, feasibility of student-generated solutions, flexibility of the collaboration model, and variability in student motivation were reported. Despite these limitations, all participating organizations assessed the overall value of CBL collaboration positively, emphasizing its long-term potential for knowledge exchange, relationship building, and future collaboration. The study contributes to research on university–industry collaboration by providing empirical insights from the perspective of external stakeholders and by positioning CBL as a pedagogical approach that can create reciprocal value beyond student learning, supporting the broader societal role of higher education institutions.

Keywords: Challenge-Based Learning, University–Industry Collaboration, Student Engagement, Knowledge Exchange, Higher Education

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