Green Freeport Grand Challenge Hackathon

The Green Freeport Grand Challenge Hackathon, organised and hosted by UHI Inverness, offered an exceptional real-world opportunity for students to develop multifaceted skills to tackle a 'wicked problem', requiring different disciplinary perspectives on a range of relevant issues including environmental impact, reduction in inequality, fair work and competing stakeholder priorities.  The hackathon activated thinking from diverse disciplines through problem-solving clinics and enlightening talks delivered by experts in drama and creative practice, digital inclusion, nature and communities, business, youth inclusion and entrepreneurialism.

In line with the ESRC and AHRC guidance for postgraduate training and the National Performance Framework, students worked in a challenge-led environment to develop collaborative, interdisciplinary and cross-sector approaches to problem-solving.  Students developed appreciation of alternative approaches to research, including qualitative methods demonstrated through creative practice, and quantitative methods relating to demographic and economic analysis.  In negotiating between stakeholders, they appreciated the importance of alternative epistemological positions, and how these impacted on research findings and subsequent poilicy-making and project development.  This event encouraged students to transition from abstract conceptualisation to actionable outcomes with measurable impact.