Abstract:

Higher education institutions increasingly emphasize the development of transversal competencies alongside disciplinary knowledge. Within this context, the Universitat Politècnica de València has defined five institutional dimensions of transversal competencies: social and environmental commitment (TC1), innovation and creativity (TC2), teamwork and leadership (TC3), effective communication (TC4), and responsibility and decision-making (TC5). This work describes and analyses a consolidated teaching practice designed to contribute to these competencies through a challenge-based learning approach.

The experience is applied in a senior undergraduate biotechnology course and simulates the full process of participation in a scientific conference. Students work in teams to address a challenge related to contemporary global problems connected to the Sustainable Development Goals, identifying and analyzing potential biotechnological solutions. Throughout the semester, they carry out a structured research and synthesis process based on scientific literature and other academic sources. The activity reproduces several stages of real scientific dissemination, including the submission of an abstract, the preparation of a scientific review, the design of a conference poster, and the presentation and defense of their work before a panel of external experts.

This educational design has been implemented and progressively refined over several academic years. This contribution analyses how the different stages of the activity support the development of the transversal competencies defined at the institutional level. In particular, the activity promotes students’ awareness of the societal and environmental impact of biotechnology (TC1), encourages creative proposal of solutions (TC2), requires collaborative work and task coordination within teams (TC3), and places emphasis on written and oral scientific communication (TC4), while fostering responsible decision-making during the research and preparation process (TC5). By describing the pedagogical design, assessment strategies and competency alignment, this work aims to provide a transferable model that other instructors can adapt to their own courses. Sharing the methodology, procedures and evaluation approaches may facilitate the integration of authentic professional simulations as an effective strategy for developing transversal competencies in higher education.

Keywords:

Transversal competencies, Challenge-based learning, Active learning, Scientific communication, Sustainability education.