Imagine 40 students in class the first day of the semester. They have only been informed that it will be a long day of 10 hours and that they should bring a bottle of water to drink. Mie Femø Nielsen briefly introduces the course and then invites a manager from a large corporation to talk to the class via video link. He tells them about a challenge they have and asks the students if they would help them solve it. "Yeah!" The students shout back. "Okay," he says. "Outside is a bus waiting for you. Come visit us and we will tell you more about the challenges that we face." Mie gives the students 15 minutes to get ready to leave, and in the bus awaits coffee and rolls for the ride. A university media journalist and photographer joins them to make a feature story of it, interviewing the exited students during the four hour ride to the company. After returning to the university, the students spend the semester working on the challenge, guiding by the teacher and the course curriculum. And then they go back to present their solutions to the company. A group of managers applaud the work of the students and begin to implement their ideas. The external examiner is also on the bus, observing the students. The students are happy, they all get good grades, the company pays the expenses, and the teacher goes to bed at night tired but with a smile on her face.

The teaching has a workshop format, and the final exam is integrated with the case process. Either the external examiner participates in a workshop that the students arrange and facilitate, or assesses a number of products from the process which are gathered in a portfolio, or there is a subsequent oral or written examination. Sometimes a combination.

The end product may be a well-designed A3 report delivered to a government minister, a presentation at a meeting, a workshop for up to 100 people, a mini-conference, a national conference, or a presentation show with subsequent mini-convention at the business partner's premises.

Providing a large and professionally ambitious challenge in addition to learning purposes has the function of contributing to the students' individual identity projects. When an authoritative teacher show people confidence that they can solve the task, then they will also take on the assigned positive identity, and even do so with great enthusiasm. It challenges the students to get a big task that they can afterwards brand themselves on having solved. Because the task is so academically demanding, they have to read the syllabus to be able to solve it – which ensures the common preparation and professional frame of reference. Because the task is so big, they cannot solve it alone, but have to work together in groups – which strengthens social cohesion and development of team competencies along the way. Moreover, the students get to identify, articulate and make visible their own competencies for themselves and others.

Over a period of +20 years Mie Femø Nielsen has developed the ambitious AIM case teaching method. Further reeding is provided in Nielsen (2022). Different iterations have been made. In some cases, three different courses were involved in the case work, and other teachers participated. On request of the department chair some of the colleagues at the department have been trained in using the AIM method. Throughout, students have been involved in co-creating a dynamic and reflexive learning environment while working to create value for industry partners. It would thus be pertinent to let the students take it to the next level by scaling the method internationally. The ambition is to let a research methodology class explore the need, let a process facilitation class develop a strategy for the scaling process, let a communication strategy class and a social media class develop strategies for branding the concept, and let a communication advisory class develop the training modules for future teachers. Winning this award will help University of Copenhagen promote the concept and let future classes and their teachers benefit from it.

Nielsen, M.F. (2022). The AIM method: Bringing teaching, research and businesses together in authentic industry mega cases. Chapter 10 in Mahnke, M., Nielsen, M., Petersen, M., Tjørring, L. (Eds). Business Meets the Humanities. The Human Perspective in University-Industry Collaboration. Routledge. Open source ebook (download from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003195658/business-meets-humanities-martina-mahnke-mikka-nielsen-lise-tjørring-matilde-petersen).