Combining interdisciplinarity and creative design - A powerful strategy to increase palliative care awareness within a university community

•Interdisciplinarity and creativity are key ingredients to solve a persistent problem.•Raising awareness about palliative care is important.•To do so: Generate many ideas, solutions; use disruptive tools, rapid prototyping.•Action Research can be combined with Design Thinking and Public Engagement.•Such a combination will add quality to palliative care research.