- Gain credits through short-format, high-impact courses.
- Work directly with community and industry partners on current, meaningful challenges.
- Build practical skills in problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and innovation.
- Collaborate with peers from different faculties and backgrounds.
- Strengthen your resume with hands-on experience and community engagement.
- Connect with professionals, mentors, and changemakers.
Interdisciplinary challenges
Join forces to spark innovation and create real impact.
Faculty or interfaculty challenges are short-format experiential learning courses bringing students together across programs and/or faculties to tackle real-world challenges in collaboration with community and industry partners. Through fast-paced, hands-on projects or competitions, students imagine, design, and develop bold solutions to pressing social, economic, and civic issues.
Why participate?
Interdiscplinary challenges for 2026-2027
The list below presents the challenges offered by each faculty and open to eligible undergraduate students from all faculties. Registration and participation requirements may vary from one challenge to another, so it is important to review each faculty’s offering for details.
Please note that spaces are limited, and the registration process begins with an expression of interest form. Links to the expression of interest form for each challenge will be posted on this page as soon as they become available. Check back regularly.
Interdisciplinary1.5 units
Arts Innovation Labs
Arts Innovation Labs are intensive, short-form experiential learning opportunities. They invite you to apply arts- and humanities-based thinking to real-world social and cultural challenges, and earn credit toward your degree at the same time.
Fall
- Art and Science of Wellbeing: The Wellbeing Action Challenge – October 16-18, 2026
Winter
- AI + the Creative Experience – February 26-28, 2027
Interdisciplinary1.5 units
Telfer Innovation Sprints
Telfer Innovation Sprints are intensive learning experiences combining systems thinking, collaboration, and creativity to address complex community issues.
Fall
- Sustainable Production and Consumption | Green Academy – November 20-22, 2026
Winter
- Design Thinking in Practice – January 29-31, 2027
- Making the Business Case for Kindness – March 19-21, 2027
Faculty of Social Sciences1.5 units
FSS Challenges
The FSS Challenge is a weekend-long intensive experience that brings together students from across the University of Ottawa to design meaningful, practical solutions to real societal issues. Each Challenge emphasizes active engagement, collaborative teamwork, professional mentorship, and a structured process, from initial brainstorming to final presentations and reflective analysis.
Fall
- Accessing Community Services in the City of Ottawa – November 6-8, 2026
- Climate Change in a Multispecies World – November 13-15, 2026
Winter
- Theme to come – February 5-7, 2027
Interdisciplinary1.5 units
Civil Law Interfaculty Challenge
This interfaculty challenge, organized by the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section, offers an intensive 48-hour learning experience in which interdisciplinary teams from the University of Ottawa will design and launch a concrete initiative to transform a complex issue into a viable and sustainable solution. The activity will draw on a range of skills, including analysis, design, prototyping, strategy, legal considerations, and social impact.
Winter
- Écrans, algorithmes et influence : comment peut-on réduire la cyberdépendance dans un environnement numérique dominé par les réseaux sociaux et l’intelligence artificielle?
- Preparation session: March 5 from 7 to 9 p.m.
- Challenge: March 13-14, 2027
Earn credits for implementing your project
A self-directed course is a student-led course that provides a unique educational opportunity in which you design and direct your own learning experiences. Whether you’re passionate about research, community projects, or creative endeavours, a self-directed course will allow you to tailor your education to fit your interests and career goals.
Spotlight on interdisciplinary learning
Innovation Sprint
Turning ideas into impact: Students tackle youth homelessness in interfaculty I…
160 uOttawa students spent over 48 hours working in interdisciplinary teams, alongside community partners, in an intensive, fast-paced and credited educational experience finding solutions to one of the city’s biggest social challenges, youth homelessness.
CoCreate Health Sprint
CoCreate Health Sprint tackles food security on campus
Proper nutrition is essential to academic performance. However, rising food insecurity is forcing students to choose between groceries and rent, putting both their academic performance and well-being at risk. During this challenge, more than 100 students from seven faculties collaborated on interdisciplinary solutions to inform uOttawa’s food security strategy, gaining new skills and earning credits in the process.
Arts Innovation Labs
Students at uOttawa tackle polluted information systems
From March 13 to 15, around 50 students from a range of disciplines, faculties and programs gathered in groups. Their goal was to address a complex problem: how to identify and correct structural gaps, falsehoods and harms ingrained in digital information systems where shared knowledge is negotiated and formed.
FSS Challenge
FSS Challenge 2025: Students Innovate for Success at uOttawa
The fourth edition of the FSS Challenge took place from January 24 to 26, offering students from the Faculty of Social Sciences an exceptional opportunity to take on a major challenge: optimizing student success.
Contact us
Career Corner
University Centre
(2nd Floor – Room 216)
Ottawa ON Canada
K1N 6N5
Email: [email protected]
September 1 - May 30
Monday to Friday: 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
June 1 - August 31
Monday to Friday: 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.