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Hard Questions, Human Solutions: Building Bridges Through Team-Based Research with Bass Connections
In its twelfth year, Bass Connections continued to unite Duke faculty, staff and students around urgent, complex challenges — locally and around the world. Through intellectually diverse, project-driven teams, students enriched their academic experience while learning how boundary-spanning research can generate insight and impact far beyond the classroom.
During the 2024-2025 school year, 1,489 members of the Duke community participated in hands-on research through Bass Connections. The program supported 79 year-long project teams, three summer research programs and 22 student research awardees pursuing faculty-mentored projects.
Participants from nearly every corner of the university engaged in projects spanning an extraordinary range of topics. Sociologists, theologians, psychologists and global health scholars examined the nature of hope — where it comes from and how it shapes individual and collective lives — while faculty and students from visual arts, neurology and computer science worked together to make cutting-edge neuroscience more accessible to public audiences. Other teams crossed geographic, cultural and disciplinary boundaries to explore political activism in Brazil, the social factors that draw patients back to emergency departments after surgery and the use of digital tools to understand alcohol use across global populations.
Working within demographically, culturally and intellectually varied teams, students learned to communicate across difference and approach problems from new angles. Nearly two-thirds of teams also partnered with external organizations and community partners in the Triangle and abroad, strengthening students’ cultural competency and helping them envision how their academic work can inform practice beyond the university.
This year was also marked by creativity and a willingness to engage difficult questions. In partnership with the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, Bass Connections launched a pop-up theme focused on geopolitical conflict and humanitarian crises in the region and beyond. Nine project teams examined issues ranging from water access in Gaza and aid distribution in South Sudan to the necessity of civil discourse amid deeply contested debates.
Bass Connections also released a collection of 17 case studies highlighting collaborative, project-centered learning initiatives from a variety of colleges and universities across North America. This open-access resource demonstrates the value of project-driven learning and offers practical models for institutions seeking to develop or expand similar programs.
Together, the stories in the report reflect the breadth of Bass Connections and the depth of engagement that defines the program.
