From 21–23 July 2025, the IEEE German Education Conference (GECon 2025) took place in Hamburg under the theme Networking Education in Germany.

We were proud to contribute to this inspiring event with the presentation of our paper “Is it worth the effort.” Our research introduces three interdisciplinary challenge-based courses in engineering design, each differing in duration and intensity but sharing a common pedagogical foundation. The most extensive course—based on the well-established ME310 Stanford curriculum—demands roughly four times the effort of the shortest course examined. The study investigates whether time investment and course intensity correlate with students’ innovation capacities. By analysing 38 project outcomes, we assessed the innovativeness of the students’ solutions as indicators of their innovation potential.

The results reveal a clear relationship between course intensity and radical innovativeness: longer and more immersive courses enable students to develop far-reaching, technically challenging, and multidisciplinary concepts. In contrast, shorter courses tend to yield more immediately actionable and feasible outcomes—highlighting an interesting trade-off between depth and practicality in engineering education design.

GECon 2025 provided an excellent platform to discuss these findings among educators, researchers, and practitioners, and to exchange ideas on how to structure learning experiences that best nurture innovation.

We extend our sincere thanks to the organizers of IEEE GECon 2025 for hosting an engaging and thought-provoking conference in Hamburg. For more details, visit the GECon 2025 homepage.