About GEC

The Global Engineering Challenge

What challenges will you face as an engineer? How will your decisions impact on the people around you and throughout the world? How will you promote your projects?

To tackle the engineering challenges of the 21st century. The Sheffield University Global Engineering Challenge Week (GEC) will introduce and develop these transferable skills, which are highly valued by employers, through a cross-faculty group project.

Where do the projects come from?

In 2025, students will be working on projects based in Makers Valley in Johannesburg, South Africa. Whichever project your team is working on, you will be trying to find out what is strong about the community and how you can work with local expertise and empower citizens to create solutions that work for their communities.

Many projects are based on the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Challenge projects. In past years these projects have been based in Cambodia, Australia, India, Vietnam, East Timor, Nepal, Cameroon, India, Kenya, South Africa, Peru and the UK.

Your project may not fit neatly into your degree discipline. One goal of GEC is to encourage collaborative work with other fields and develop stronger solutions by doing this. In common with all engineering projects, GEC projects all have these features: 

• All engineering projects are intended to make people’s lives better, so your ultimate goal is to satisfy the people who will use the product.

• All engineering projects have constraints imposed by the external context, such as cost, environment, time, availability of resources, and legislation.

• All engineering projects involve investigating, evaluating, and applying technical knowledge, judgement, and communication.

How do I choose my project?

You will select your preferred projects in advance of the project week. On the basis of this information and with the need to have multidisciplinary groups, you will be indicated your project and group before the challenge. When you first meet your group, you will be led through activities that help you to begin engineering a solution. 

The project briefs concern the sustainable development of communities whilst raising questions about key 21st century issues: globalisation, climate change, sustainability and equality – the “Global Dimension”. 

Read the design areas (including the individual projects) and once you know what you want to work on, click here to tell us your preferences.

What work will I need to submit at the end of the week?

Through the week your team will compile a report. This will be marked by your facilitator and the mark adjusted by peer-review. The executive summary is an important part of your report, and you will be given feedback on this, by the teaching staff and industrial mentors allocated to your hub. On Friday, every team will present their solution to the other students, facilitator and staff member or alumnus associated with your hub. You will need to show that you:

• Have considered local strengths, needs and perspectives to design a sustainable and inclusive solution that empowers the community;

• Have followed a suitable design process: identified design criteria, researched and identified a range of solutions, evaluated their suitability, and recommended the most appropriate solution;

• Have considered sustainable development requirements in your solution: both impacts and benefits in the social, environmental and economic spheres;

• Engage with MySkills

• Can communicate your solutions effectively and appropriately to an audience

The presentation will be assessed by peer review on:

• The effectiveness of your presentation

• The appropriateness of your proposed solution*

* It is not expected that groups will develop a full technical solution or design to ‘solve’ the problem as there will not be enough time in the week.  Instead, you should research existing solutions and produce outline ideas /solutions showing consideration of, and adaptation to the wider social, ethical and sustainability concerns of the the community.

Prizes!

There will be a prize for the most professional and the best-communicated solution in each Hub!

Where team members contribute fully to a high quality Report and Presentation, they will be awarded a distinction. 

More information will be available at the start of the week