Post-secondary education is falling behind in delivering the talent and skills development needed to support the growth of biology-based economies and the demands of professional and research-based graduate degree programs. Here, we describe an applied research program, the BioExperience Research and Entrepreneurship Challenge, launched in May 2020 to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate experiential learning programs at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The program provided undergraduates with meaningful talent and skills development opportunities by implementing a student-centred, project-based learning approach inspired by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. We present evidence from participant exit surveys suggesting that the program delivers a high-quality learning environment and improves learning outcomes compared to traditional work-integrated learning. Notably, 84% of respondents reported an excellent or exceptional learning experience and significant or profound improvements in skills, such as leadership (72% of respondents), problem-solving (42% of respondents) and research preparedness (52%) that are difficult to develop in conventional academic programs. Remarkably, 60% of respondents report that the job-readiness training provided by the program is better or much better than traditional work-integrated learning. Our study demonstrates that a cost-effective and scalable alternative to the iGEM competition can improve talent and skills development in BIOSTEM fields.
The IgNITE Medical Case Competition is an annual research case competition organized by students across North America. Our mission is to provide high school and university students the opportunity to gain valuable research experience while networking with industry professionals. Each year, students in teams of 1-4 are paired with an experienced mentor to develop and present a novel research proposal within a specified theme of the competition. Students are taught the fundamental scientific principles underlying three lab techniques that they can then use during the competition in their proposal or their future research career. This year's theme was Immunity, and competitors learned about Tissue Culturing, ELISA, and Flow Cytometry. Furthermore, this year, the IgNITE community grew internationally with 670 high school and university students competing. This booklet presents the Top 40 teams' abstracts, and we invite you to visit our website (www.ignitecompetition.org) to watch the associated elevator pitch videos. We hope you enjoy reading through some of this year's top proposals and hope you will join our growing community.
The IgNITE Medical Case Competition is an annual research case competition organized by students at the University of Ottawa. Our mission is to provide high school and university students the opportunity to gain valuable research experience while networking with industry professionals. Each year students, in teams of 1-4, are paired with an experienced mentor to develop and present a novel research proposal within the specified theme of the competition. During the competition, students are taught the fundamental principles underlying three lab techniques which they can then use in their proposal or their future research career. This year’s theme was Regenerative Medicine and competitors learned about Immunofluorescence, Western Blot, and CRISPR-Cas9. In 2020-2021 the IgNITE community grew internationally with 570 high school and university students across the world participating in the competition. In this booklet we present the Top 40 teams and invite you to visit our website (www.ignitecompetition.org) to watch their pitch proposal videos. We hope you enjoy reading through some of this year’s top proposals and invite you to join our growing community.
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