Health, Data and Climate: Looking for Solutions in Health Care

The U21 HSG Interprofessional Education Special Interest Group invites students from the U21 HSG member universities to take part in the 2024 IPE International Student Challenge.

(Click on the image to download the Poster). Please note the student Application deadline is 26 April 2024

This year, the U21 Health Sciences Group Student Challenge between 27 May to 8 July 2024 is about Health, Data and Climate: Looking for Solutions in Health Care.

In this simulation exercise, students meet together online to work in small groups of mixed healthcare professions to conduct research and formulate evidence-based actions which could be recommended to the World Health Organisation advisory group, by creating a five minute video to present their findings.

The general format for the challenge is that groups meet over a webinar for an introduction to the task and to meet their allocated teams. Groups have 4 weeks to prepare their findings, which are then shared at the presentation webinar. Winning and highly commended videos of the 2023 and 2022 Student Challenge can be viewed and more information accessed via the U21 HSG Website.

University staff can promote the IPE Student Global Challenge event internally within their universities, but also to arrange an internal application process, and put forward more than 7 nominees to the IPE Student Global Challenge sub-group. Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students (with less than 3 years of work experience) at any stage of a health related programme can attend. It is not expected that faculty staff will have expertise in climate change.

The introductory online webinar and workshop for students will be on 27 May 2024, and the final online session on 8 July 2024.  Students will be invited to attend a mentoring session on 10 June 2024.

Faculty are invited to attend all online sessions, but this is not compulsory.

Kind regards

U21 IPE International Student Challenge Team,

Marike de Ruiter, Arturo Grau, Ben Ellis, Lynne Hazell, Polly Chan, Sibusiso Mdletshe, Yasna Palmeiro-Silva, Ying Zhang


Timeline of the 2024 Student Challenge:

  • 20 March: Applications open

  • 26 April: Deadline for applications

  • 27 May: Introductory session

  • 10 June: Mentoring session

  • 28 June: Video presentation for submission (uploaded here)

  • 8 July: Final session

For students to participate in this Challenge, we would require a nominated faculty representative from each University to oversee the student selection process and coordinate the dissemination of information between the U21 HSG IPE committee and the final participation healthcare students. However, if you are a student from an institution without a named faculty representative (see details in the application form), please email your application to Alicia Lui, alicia22@hku.hk


All videos from 2023 can be found here. The theme was How can we address the climate change impacts on health? 57 students from across 10 universities completed the Student Challenge.

2023 Winners:

Group 3 Climate Change and Vector-Borne Diseases

Group 5 Reducing Medical Waste


Highly Commended Team: Group 1 Mental Health and Climate Change


All Groups