We’re excited to announce the launch of the 2025/26 Engineering for People Design Challenge!
Now in its fifteenth year, the award-winning programme has reached over 110,000 students across six countries, inspiring the next generation of engineers to think differently about their role in shaping the world. By working on real issues faced by real communities, students gain invaluable experience in designing solutions that are socially and environmentally responsible.
This year, in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders South Africa and CIVIC SQUARE, the challenge turns its focus to Ladywood, a neighbourhood in Birmingham, UK.
Why Ladywood?
Ladywood is a place of strong social connections, cultural creativity and resilience. Yet it also faces the pressures of economic inequality, under-investment in infrastructure and the escalating impacts of the climate and ecological emergency. These challenges are not unique to Ladywood – they echo in cities and communities worldwide – which is what makes it such a powerful learning context.
At the same time, Ladywood is home to bold and imaginative work led by local people and organisations, including CIVIC SQUARE, who are rethinking how neighbourhoods can transition towards thriving, regenerative futures. Students will explore this living example of community-led change while developing their own design ideas in response.
“We’re delighted that the Engineering for People Design Challenge is focusing on Ladywood this year. At CIVIC SQUARE, we believe that neighbourhoods like ours hold incredible knowledge, skills, and creativity when it comes to shaping regenerative futures.
Inviting the knowledge and expertise from the students into the heart of neighbourhoods creates a powerful opportunity to reimagine how engineering can contribute to thriving places and people. And we’re excited to reflect on how this shapes their practice as they move through their education and beyond.”
Imandeep Kaur, Co-founder + Director
Designing with people, for people
The Design Challenge is built around one simple but powerful principle: engineers should design with people, not just for them.
In Ladywood, students will hear directly from community members through video interviews, written case studies and an interactive map. This means projects won’t be developed in a vacuum – they will be shaped by the lived experiences, aspirations and challenges of those who call the neighbourhood home.
Students will be encouraged to choose from eight interconnected challenge areas – food, water, energy, sanitation, waste, transport, digital and the built environment. These areas reflect the systems that make up everyday life, and the way they overlap mirrors the complexity of real-world problem solving.
Whether it’s exploring how access to green space can mitigate extreme heat, rethinking local energy systems to support the transition to net zero, or imagining new ways to make streets safer and more connected, students will discover that engineering is not just about technical fixes, but about listening, collaborating and designing responsibly within wider social and environmental systems.
“By the end of the challenge, students won’t just have created design concepts – they’ll have developed the confidence to work with complexity, the empathy and humility to learn from different perspectives, and a deeper understanding of what it means to engineer for the benefit of both people and planet.”
Tom Whitehead, Programme Manager
More than a competition
Each university’s top projects will be reviewed by a panel of industry experts and community representatives, with the most outstanding ideas progressing to the national Grand Finals. Here, students from across Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa, the UK and the USA will showcase their work and compete for the First Prize, Second Prize and People’s Prize.
But the challenge goes far beyond winning awards. For many students, it is their first experience of designing in response to complex societal and environmental realities – a formative step in developing the skills and mindset needed to practise globally responsible engineering.
Nine in ten students report a deeper understanding of global responsibility after the challenge, and more than 80% say they feel better equipped to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
2024 impact report
Hear from the 2024/25 finalists at the UK Grand Finals:
If your university hasn’t signed up yet, it’s not too late to get involved. Find out more and register your interest.
With thanks to our partners
