Welcome to the wonderful world of placemaking – where urban spaces are transformed into vibrant, engaging hubs that celebrate community, creativity, and connection! Placemaking is a people-centred approach to urban planning and design, with a focus that goes beyond the physical structure and functional purpose of a space. It aims to create places where the people who live, work and play in them can thrive. Imagine a place that you ?nd beautiful and meaningful, a place where you feel a sense of belonging and where every corner tells a story that resonates with you and your community. That is the essence of placemaking, and it is what Placemaking Europe aims to promote on a global scale.

In 2022 the Centre of Expertise in Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality (CELTH) adopted the Conscious Destinations Agenda as a framework for knowledge development on the social, ecological, and economic impacts of the entire hospitality domain, which by definition includes leisure, tourism, and accommodation services. The agenda is based on insights from academia, policy and practice that illustrate why our industry and policy-makers need to make more ‘conscious’ choices with respect to these impacts, both positive and negative. Bragging about the number of jobs created, about the number of nights visitors stay in a destination or about the benefits of placemaking, comes with the responsibility to also show the other side of the same coin and explain how biodiversity degrades in instagrammable nature; how social cohesion in neighbourhoods erodes when residents are pushed out by investors; and how immaterial cultural heritage evaporates in an increasingly consumerised society where individuals are enticed to prioritise ‘buying experiences’ over the needs of future generations.

The internationalisation of education has become controversial in the Netherlands, with calls to limit the number of international students and higher education courses in English. These negative attitudes reflect the success of Dutch international education, with 122,287 international students accounting for 15% of the total (Nuffic, 2023). Although programmes offered exclusively in Dutch have declined in recent years, the number of English-only bachelor’s programmes has been relatively stable since 2018. While growth rates have slowed, political debate on limiting international students continues. A proposed Education Bill requires two-thirds of content for standard bachelor’s degree programmes to be in Dutch.

In this article we will look back on the InnovaT project and highlight some of the key insights and lessons learned during the process, accumulating into an outlook on how to design higher education that is well equipped for the future. The InnovaT project was an initiative aimed at enhancing innovation in teaching and learning approaches, fostering modernisation in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in Chile and Peru. This project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

BUas is participating in a European Erasmus+ programme to design the sports venue of the future. This collaborative initiative involves partners from three countries - the Netherlands, Portugal, and Turkey - working collectively to innovate and validate sustainable sports facilities. There is a growing emphasis on how new sports centres in neighbourhoods and rural areas contribute to inclusion, social cohesion, mutual respect, and sportsmanship. Highlighting these aspects is crucial for fostering a sense of community through sports engagement. Sports is a powerful tool to unite people as it is accessible to many people of all ages and sports venues are places where people come together. Therefore, it could enhance social cohesion and inclusion.

BUas has joined the KreativEU University Alliance (Knowledge & Creativity European University), a decision that is going to shape our strategy for the coming decade. European Universities Alliances (EUAs) are collaborative networks of higher education institutes across Europe. They are established under the European Universities Initiative (EUI), which is part of the broader Erasmus+ 2021-2027 programme. The EUI aims to foster strategic partnerships among universities to enhance education, research, and innovation. By doing so, it seeks to improve the quality and international competitiveness of the European higher education sector. The initiative also emphasises community engagement and societal impact, positioning European Universities as models of best practices in these areas. Overall, the EUAs are designed to drive cooperation, enhance the global competitiveness of European education and research, and contribute to the innovation potential within Europe. The European Commission supports the creation of these alliances by providing financial backing, to form 60 EUAs involving over 500 institutes by mid-2024, of which 50 EUAs are already financed. The final call for Erasmus+ funding, which was published in autumn 2023, represented the last opportunity for institutes like BUas to join an EUA.

Leisure & Events Management students at BUas can opt for the ‘Urban Life & Placemaking’ (ULP) track. ULP uses events and leisure activities to help students develop and enrich cities, making them liveable and loveable. It encourages student participation in city event design and social interventions. ULP has an international perspective, learning from examples abroad and exposing students to the experiences of people with very different backgrounds. As part of ULP, students spend a semester (30 ECTS credits) in a European city with a small group of peers. This part is known as ‘Living in the City’ (LITC).

For several years, Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas) has been involved in the development of an international master's programme in the field of attractions and theme parks management. Together with Universitat Rovira I Virgili (URV) in Spain as a steadfast partner, efforts have been underway for several years now to establish such a programme, with quite some milestones having been reached already. While several other partners have both joined and departed along the way, the entire process has brought forth many valuable and precious outcomes going beyond the development of a master’s programme alone. In that sense, the development process of this master’s programme is a textbook example of how international academic cooperation can lead to genuine mutual value creation.

In this article we will explore how the insights generated and lessons learned from the STEPup project enhance and nurture a strategy towards future collaborative processes and social entrepreneurship of a new level within higher educational institutes (HEIs).