A Honeypot of rich ideas – Building online communities to promote knowledge exchange and collaboration between creative arts and engineering

A project case-study is presented which uses an innovative platform to promote the development of entrepreneurial activity between engineering and design students at the University of Huddersfield. The principle of the networking-platform is formed on the open-innovation principles: increase capacity, research engagement, entrepreneurship, knowledge, understanding, employability and impact on learning (JISC, 2009). It provides a network for potential collaboration between second-year students across 8 subject areas and the opportunity to co-develop knowledge and skills. The open aspect of the platform is that it is situated outside the curriculum and provides the opportunity for UG programmes with no formal engagement to form multi-discipline teams to co-construct knowledge (knowledge building), share ideas (knowledge exchange) and build networks (knowledge communities).