The Open University asks UK charities to set challenges for the future

The Open University (OU) is pioneering a new approach to research by asking the UK charity sector to determine future challenges that we can collaboratively tackle. The “Challenge Us!” competition will open this week and the University will invest in ‘challenge teams’ that can make a long-term impact on the most important challenges faced by charity partners. The competition runs from 15 March to 15 May 2024.

Charities will be invited to enter their “open societal challenges” into a competition aimed at having an impact on society across the themes of Sustainability, Living Well and Tackling Inequalities.

The Open Societal Challenges Programme, the brainchild of Professor Kevin Shakesheff, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research & Innovation, is a unique approach to research introduced in 2022, which he designed to have a positive impact on society and align well with the OU’s mission to be open to people, places, methods, and ideas.

The Programme functions through organising a community of researchers into ‘challenge teams’ to address the crucial societal challenges facing people across the world.

Commenting on this approach, Professor Shakesheff said:

“Our University has a fantastic open mission, and we make a huge impact on people’s lives by opening opportunities to everyone across society.

“Our excellent research impacts on the lives of people in all four nations of the UK and globally. Our biggest impacts come from teamwork and especially projects that are stimulated by people and organisations outside of higher education who want to work with us for the long-term. This competition aims to bring more and more people into our Open Societal Challenges programme and to create new challenges that our research teams can tackle.”

Shortlisted entrants will develop their entries further with OU research teams and winners will receive funding and support with their research from OU teams. The Open Societal Challenges programme already has over 250 challenges on its online platform and more information and how to enter a challenge can be found on the ‘Challenge Us!’ competition’s webpage.

Professor Shakesheff added:

“We decided to run these competitions because we want more voices to have a say in our research and to find the most exciting research ideas tackling real-world problems.”