Student Projects

College student holding her robotic toy at robotics classroom at school
FeME Student Teams for Environmental and Participatory Solutions (FeME Steps) is a space where multidisciplinary student teams can take risks and develop ideas creatively to solve the challenges associated with climate change and biodiversity loss.

FeMe Steps is a collaborative 5-week summer project for undergraduate students from the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, and Heriot Watt University running in July 2026.  The project is designed in collaboration with external partners across Edinburgh and Glasgow to help them find solutions related to climate change, resilience, mitigation, or justice with communities at the heart.

Students from across disciplines will be brought together to engineer fresh and innovative solutions. While engineering is at the heart of these projects,  they are all about problem solving through the creation of solutions that benefit society and the planet.

FeME Steps is supported by FeME worktstream Failure Mode 1, focused on diversity.

FeME Current Opportunities

Student applications open for FeME Steps 2026

Spend five weeks of your summer working on something that actually matters. FeME Steps brings students from the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow, and Heriot-Watt University into multidisciplinary teams to take on real climate and sustainability challenges set by external partner organisations.
This year’s partners include Booth Welsh, NHS Lothian, BlazeBalm, Etex, and Cefas — and the challenges they’ve brought are genuine, open-ended, and properly worth your time. From landslides on the A83 to hospital waste, wildfire protection, glass wool reuse, and the future of Scottish seafood, your team’s ideas will be shared directly with the partner and taken seriously.
You don’t need to be an engineering student — in fact, we’d rather you weren’t all engineers. Every team includes at least one engineer, but we actively want students from the arts, social sciences, design, humanities, law, business, and natural sciences to bring different ways of seeing to these problems. We particularly welcome applications from women and students from underrepresented communities, and financial support is available for caring responsibilities or other participation needs — please don’t let cost be a barrier.

For more information, contact Jeanne Michalon at jeanne.michalon@ed.ac.uk 

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