STEAM+ Innovating STE(A)M in Higher Education with Transdisciplinary Talent Programs

Innovating STE(A)M in Higher Education with Transdisciplinary Talent Programs (STEAM+) is a large-scale innovative project with a holistic approach, aiming to provide educational policy makers with instruments to prepare new generations for handling the challenges of our time.
Europe faces grand challenges, such as climate change and energy transition, which have a STEM subject at their core, but need transversal skills and knowledge from All other subjects (the extra A) to create STEAM solutions. We need to use brains, hearts and hands of all talents to tackle these challenges.
The STEAM+ project uses transdisciplinary talent programs as laboratories of innovation in higher education (HE). The project is co-created by a dedicated and qualified team of 18 partners from 9 countries, bringing together educators, policy makers and future employers, united in their aim to provide new generations with future-proof skills.

In the project, we run three international STEAM+ Innovation Labs, where students and teachers from 9 countries come together to co-create solutions for grand challenges. The experience from the Labs and a subsequent series of 54 workshops, 27 national policy meetings and an International Policy Meet-up are used to create two main products:
1. An instrument on how to establish transdisciplinary talent programs in HE: The STEAM+ Innovation Lab Implementation Path;
2. An instrument for policy makers at HE, local, regional, national and EU levels to support and recognize (development of) such programs: the STEAM+ Menu for Policy Inspiration.

STEAM+ combines three key innovative elements:
1. Applying a holistic approach, starting with grand challenges, using international, transdisciplinary and educational chain perspectives;
2. Using the proven innovative power of transdisciplinary talent programs;
3. Collaborating transnationally with 18 HE and policy partners and 34 enthusiastic associate partners to optimize dissemination of results and impact.