Uncover Internationalisation

Facts and figures

Introduction

Internationalisation is in our DNA

Internationalisation is the stable bedrock for Buas' ambitions

Demography is destiny

Nuffic grants everyone an enriching experience at international level

Internationalisation in the European arena

The transformative power of the Imagineering field trip

The role of leisure in transitioning towards inclusive cities

STRETCH ideas, visions, exchange and international projects

The STEPup project

A rollercoaster process of genuine mutual value creation

The European class room of Urban Life and Placemaking

European Universities shaping Higher Education

The sports venue of the future

The InnovaT project

Internationalising Tourism and Leisure Education

Why global and cross-sector connections are essential for the experience economy

Industry associations provide rich context for student development

ESNS as a booster for the European music industry

CELTH emphasizes the importance of looking across borders and cultures

The power of Placemaking Week Europe

Erasmus Student Network Breda

War-Life balance

Connection to Industry

Exchange and the value of intercultural perspectives

Student exchange experiences

Participating in a workshop in Barbados

The city belongs to everyone

The intercultural classroom

Navigating cultural crossroads

International vibes and enrichment by connecting

I am INTERNATIONALisation

It's all about the people

The future of education is Glocal

Inside Breda Guardians

Inclusive education towards more sensitive leisure managers

How can we make leisure more accessible to people with mild intellectual disabilities

Organising intercultural encounters in the city

BUas stimulates a diverse community with BUas Clubs

The experience of an international icon

The Internationalisation perspective of WLO

Fostering education initiatives in an international environment

Leisure as a national strategy for a better life

Hoping the WLO can help resist voices of the illiberal right

Exploring the dynamics of Canada's World Leisure Centers of Excellence

& Introduction

The dynamics of internationalisation

These are dynamic times, characterised by widely differing opinions about and movements around internationalisation. Creating a themed Uncover issue at this time could be seen as choosing the right moment to take a breath of fresh air amidst the storm. With the current turbulence, taking stock of where we actually are, where we have come from and where we are going is a meaningful process. For BUas and ALE, it is clear that internationalisation has been in their very fibres from the beginning and that the added value of intercultural classroom settings is something to be nurtured sustainably.

We start this Uncover with the chapter on Perspectives , in which we zoom out progressively. From the perspective of BUas, we move via a Dutch and European perspective to an even broader global view of internationalisation, including contributions from Nuffic and EAIE. All these contributions strongly reflect the importance of inclusive internationalisation.

We then zoom back in on the Leisure & Events domain. In the Projects chapter, we immerse you in a diversity of international collaborations in education and research involving professionals, students and/or the professional field. A common thread that stands out here is the appreciation of the diversity of intercultural perspectives involved, which is enriching, combined with the actual search for solutions together through an interactive process in which face-to-face meetings are crucial. Herein also lies the essential lesson of moving together towards the global challenges ahead, which we cannot solve within national borders.

This is a logical prelude to the chapter on Networks in which we highlight a number of important networks and platforms that help us to make relationships and projects sustainable,

and at the same time, often act as catalysts facilitating exchange and dialogue, providing food for further exploration of issues, and also facilitating the search for new partners. In this context, the contribution around ATLAS deserves special attention, in which the emergence and development of higher leisure education in the Netherlands is intertwined with the internationalisation of leisure education in Europe and worldwide.

Personal stories take centre stage in the next chapter, where students, lecturers, support staff and researchers use their own narratives to make sense of the value of being and moving within an international context. It is awe-inspiring to see the richness and diversity of personal and professional perspectives on this theme come to light.

This also brings us to the perspective of internationalisation@home. Not everyone can or wants to travel across national borders. And diversity and the intercultural classroom are not just about international differences. That is why BUas and ALE are strongly committed to educational programmes and a campus environment where connections are sought in various ways from within Breda itself to create intercultural contexts. Just think of cooperation with experiential experts who have a disability, or with citizens in numerous neighbourhoods in Breda, or think of seeking online connection with diverse communities in regular BUas education. An important topic here is the focus on well-being and feeling welcome on campus and in Breda itself through contributions from BUas clubs and ESN.

To conclude, we are proud that the World Leisure Organization, which has contributed to our magazine for many years, has taken on a full chapter this time. We have a special relationship with the WLO and it is a pleasure to be able to end the magazine with the World Leisure Centres of Expertise from various continents talking about the state of internationalisation in their respective contexts.

It is great to also already look ahead to next year when the 18th World Leisure Congress will take place in Breda. We can already give away a scoop that the next edition of Uncover will be presented to the national and international participants of this event and that it will be dedicated to the theme of ‘Leisure for a better society’

Achieving an accurate and appealing visual representation of all the perspectives, projects, networks, people and collaborations was a challenge for this Uncover. How do you actually visualise the full diversity you are covering? More than ever before, we received informal group photos as well as the somewhat more formal portrait photographs. And the photos of groups of people at conferences, in workshops, in dialogue, or out and about together were also numerous. It is precisely in this portrayal of the connectedness, commitment and togetherness of a diversity of people that you can see the importance of direct contact that is so crucial in internationalisation.

Peter and Simon

Positive experiences and learning effects from intercultural encounters are too valuable to exclude anyone.

Peter Horsten Simon de Wijs

Peter Horsten and Simon de Wijs are the final editors of Uncover.

Internationalisation is in our DNA

The power of the intercultural classroom is worth fighting for

The Uncover editors talked to Jorrit Snijder (President of the Executive Board of Breda University of Applied Sciences since 2020) about the significance and strategy of and developments in internationalisation at BUas.

What does internationalisation mean to you? Internationalisation adds so much value. The Science Guide even quotes that internationalisation leads to world peace. The world also goes beyond the Dutch borders. Borderless thinking is precisely the growth engine of our economy, our prosperity and our cultural development. At BUas too, it is really in the DNA of domains that are pre-eminently international. Through our strategy, we best prepare students to work in this international field. Our vision actually says it all: ‘Empower young professionals on their journey to shape a better world’. Become an all-round professional based on an understanding of other cultures and backgrounds. See that the world is constantly changing and not one-dimensional, but that there are multiple dimensions that

That’s why we educate alumni who dare to think without boundaries, which does not mean that everything is possible and allowed, but that taking interculturalism as the guiding principle is the best start for professionals to find their way in the domain. How wonderful it is that you learn to look at other perspectives as early as during your studies in a setting with students from, for example, Turkey, Bangladesh, Bulgaria or Mexico and are able and allowed to make mistakes in the process. There is an inherent strength in our programmes that makes you a better professional.

This significance of internationalisation and because BUas is an international university of applied sciences make me work here. Making sure we can put this into practice and passing it on to future generations is our strength. This is a great asset. This is also why we are fierce and clear in the debate around internationalisation. Of course, we are not blind to developments around us, including negative effects, such as student housing, but above all, we must not lose sight of the power of internationalisation. That is something worth fighting for.

You say that the Netherlands is borderless. Is the Netherlands different in this respect from other European countries, and does BUas occupy a specific position within the Netherlands?

gives us a lot today. Of course, you cannot be equally proud of everything, such as sea trade, which we did depend on at the time. As far as BUas is concerned, we have always been different from other universities of applied sciences. BUas has never been a regional institute, but has always seen the world as its field of activity. Incidentally, we are now focusing more on Europe in order to contribute and make an impact, especially there. That does not mean that the rest will disappear, but ‘priority first’ on Europe, which is also better from a sustainability point of view.

Internationalisation contributes to the search for excellence to make a qualitative distinction.

Empower young professionals on their journey to shape a better world.

Peter Horsten Simon de Wijs

Peter Horsten and Simon de Wijs are lecturers and researchers at Leisure & Events at BUas.

Research shows that the quality of study programmes skyrockets in an international classroom. A foreign student coming to BUas has an ambition and drive that also benefits Dutch students. Most of the study programmes are in English, the basis for understanding each other, and that attracts students with ambition. However, it is certainly not ‘just excellence in’ because it is precisely because of the international context we offer students that they rise above themselves during their studies and leave higher qualified.

National discussions are fierce and sometimes very isolated around English as a language or housing issues. Is BUas currently inhibited and, if so, how bad is it? The actual problem is not so much with the universities of applied sciences, but with research universities that have seen unbridled growth. The response of Vereniging Hogescholen (Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences) seems very much geared towards clamping down on student numbers, thus favouring a shrinkage strategy resulting in the problem then being solved for the universities. Very stringent measures in the event that numbers (possibly) rise above ten per cent are now looming over our heads. That clashes quite a bit with BUas and we fundamentally disagree with it. It goes against not only our DNA, but also our common sense. Instead, we are committed to qualitative growth, and it is worth fighting for our role as an international university of applied sciences.

Bear in mind that the percentage of international students at universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands has been between eight and ten per cent for years, and I see no reason

in quality, but that concerns a few hundred students per year. We do not want more than 7,500 to 8,000 students as BUas. We could turn the tap on in some study programmes (like Games or AI), but we deliberately do not do that. However, steady growth is necessary to have sufficient quality, to continue to develop, to play our part in society.

BUas is different from many other universities of applied sciences. We did not start it only the day before yesterday. Internationalisation has been in our genes and fields of study since BUas was founded, so it is integral to our vision. Many, students and also staff, have come to BUas for that. Of course, there are more institutes among the universities of applied sciences that naturally have that, such as Design Academy Eindhoven, art education, NHL Stenden, but certainly BUas as well.

More locally in Breda, what about politics? I am very happy with our good local contacts and collaborations. Locally, we also make an impact, with games, with tourism, with leisure, and also with Logistics Community Brabant we play a significant role in the local and regional fields. Recently there was a broadcast of the OP1 talk show in which the Municipal Executive and the municipal council of the city of Breda indicated that they are proud of Breda’s international character, in which the role of BUas was explicitly mentioned. More and more international companies are finding their place in Breda. That’s why attracting and retaining highly educated people is becoming increasingly important. For our internationalisation ambitions, the presence of international players in close proximity, some even a bike ride away, is just as crucial. It is not necessary for you per se to go to the other side of the world. CM.COM,

It is precisely because of the context we offer students that they rise above themselves.

for example, fits BUas perfectly in terms of size and vibe. They operate all over the world, do well in leisure and AI. A typically local Breda example that teaches you can also offer this international environment close by. Jeroen van Glabbeek, CEO of CM.COM, also indicates in this context that he does not understand “what people are doing around internationalisation at a national level”. To give an example, an international classroom is really a prerequisite to prepare students for the international context of the BUas industries. Industry partners are eager to attract highly-skilled staff to deal with international social challenges. Housing is also considered a bottleneck by national politicians, but we are actually anticipating that in terms of plans and cooperation with the municipality of Breda. For the next phase of the BUas campus, it is going to be crucial that we can offer a residential campus concept. That you can make an integral combination of studying and living and taking part in recreational activities here in Breda.

There are all kinds of issues that do not respect national borders, such as sustainability or AI. You cannot address or solve those challenges within national borders. Does that make it extra important for BUas to get involved in these issues? To ask the question is to answer it. AI and climate education are both going to make a huge impact and create radical changes within all of our domains. From hospitality and creative business to logistics and built environment. By the way, that involves both students, employees and industry partners we work with. It requires a broader international outlook. In fact, we are too small as Europe to take that on.

We want to give students a professional compass and make sure they have the basics on these topics when they leave us. That they have the tools to assess the now often polarised information from specific currents and act on issues thoroughly. If we want to make students future proof, we must also give them ‘skills for life’, such as an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset, with a global vision, an eye for local sensitivities and sustainable ambitions. But also the ability to find your purpose and role in the world and the self-awareness to speak out and address people. And of course we need to organise that for ourselves as well. Hence, because of sustainability, we introduced a different travel policy and offer an AI course for all employees. I do not see AI in our education as a ‘replacement,’ but as a tool you can use to make processes better. Personal contact will remain extremely important as always in our study programmes and sectors, but AI

Jorrit Snijder

will become your new colleague whether you want it or not. And how do you (critically) deal with that colleague then? In addition, AI brings its share of moral ethical issues. And AI and sustainability do not necessarily go hand in hand (yet). We can set the thermostat to 17 but if we then use ChatGPT, all the savings are immediately gone because of servers that have to run extra. That balance must be found.

Regardless of the specific issues, the fact is that there is a need for new professionals to help in the transformation to a future-proof situation and to help convey the message and change behaviour. And I think that we as BUas should be emphatically part of that change.

How does BUas play a role with regard to making students feel at home in the Netherlands? Is there also a role in increasing the likelihood of international students staying in the Netherlands upon completing their studies?

Let us be clear that towards students, the starting point lies in making sure that everyone feels welcome. The sense of belonging is crucial, both for Dutch and non-Dutch students. We pay attention to well-being and ensure that students can experience the campus as a safe haven. Basically, all communication on campus, including signage, is in English. Language is important to learn to understand each other. There is also attention to international catering and there are BUas-wide activities, which contribute to bonding and community feeling, such as Studium Generale and the Sport & Play Fest. The BUas clubs and study associations also play an essential role. Some are tied to a domain or study programme, but from our BUas+ strategy, we especially strive for crossacademy connections. The strength is that you look for a mix of international and Dutch lecturers and students, and for perspectives from different domains, all blended together. I myself am an avid fan of the Book Club, which has 54 members. And there is also a Bicycle Club. Both have a rich diversity. At the BUas clubs, you connect with each other in an easily accessible way. The most recent example is the importance of the recently opened Lighthouse, which functions as a living room and café. A landing spot for club activities, but also just for having lunch or a pint, across all domains, for students and staff.

And the stay rate is surely very important, but it is not an end in itself. BUas can try to encourage students to stay, but certainly not force them. The best way to do this is in cooperation with business partners in the professional field. Where does the professional field experience shortages of labour potential? What relationships can we offer students as early as during their studies with this professional field? BUas distinguishes itself enormously because our industry network is very ‘high end’. Students come into contact with very good companies here and abroad.

The Netherlands is not doing so badly at all in this area. Compared to England, for example, we have double the numbers. There is always room for improvement, but let us be aware that it is also very valuable to have international students here, even if they leave afterwards. Just consider the above-mentioned quality of the educational environment, but also the cultural and social enrichment for the city. Do similar points for attention in the strategy apply to colleagues as they do to students?

Yes, these two are even strongly connected. With the pursued intercultural classroom comes a diverse workforce to also serve the

international (oriented) professional field well. As for students, we want a maximum of 30% international staff. And we are very aware that with everyone, no matter where they come from, you have to pay attention to onboarding, allowing them to properly land in their new environment. In addition to previously mentioned activities that serve both students and employees, we are developing tools and educational offerings around, for example, Dutch Language and Culture to this end. International colleagues themselves also ask for such tools, so they can participate and integrate well. Here lies an important responsibility as an international institute and we can certainly take steps. We should not forget to face our own bias when welcoming others. We recently had a very good session on our Education Day where it was discussed that we as Dutch people always strongly believe ourselves to be hospitable, open and transparent, but internationals experience this openness and transparency mainly “when things are done our way”.

It is a question of how you handle tensions. Do you call something an end-of-the-year party instead of a Christmas party? What helps very much is that we do not have these discussions with a club of Dutch people and a club of internationals, but rather enter into these discussions on a permanent basis together and from that also formulate joint lessons as to what we should do. It is a two-way street where both sides have to make efforts. Take language, the basis for communication. That means that on the one hand, we must ensure that everyone’s English is up to standard. We have put a lot of effort into this in recent years. We also train

last aspect is concerned, we are aware that the requirements (from The Hague) will become stricter. It is important to be inclusive by providing space for various cultures and, more importantly, to become aware of differences or tensions between cultures in order to deal with them transparently by mutual agreement. How important are rankings for internationalisation?

Rankings are not there for the ranking itself of course, but if you ask me, they are valuable because you want to provide the best education and prepare your students optimally. Rankings then help you to be visible and to attract those students, but also staff and industry. And the

You can also offer that international environment close to home.

higher your rankings, the more attraction. Rankings also help to see in comparative perspective how you are actually doing. In that context, I am a fan of the multi-rank tool. You can turn many variables on or off: whatever you think is important for an institute to addresswhether this is sustainability, intertwining AI in your study programmes, or directing a lot of focus at well-being. You then choose the ranking based on your own preferences. Of course, rankings also help to give a boost to something. However, it is important to note that good rankings alone do not automatically improve the study programmes, of course.

BUas is strongly connected to many international partners and networks worldwide. What is the significance of taking part in these types of networks? Those connections enrich perspectives, enhance quality and increase mobility opportunities. For example, BUas is a partner of the European Universities alliance KreativeEU, in which 11 institutes across Europe cooperate. Europe is getting more and more important and we are putting more emphasis on it, in our strategy. It should go beyond me as President signing something and having a beautiful photograph. Colleagues need to engage, and, fortunately, that is certainly the case at KreativeEU. This engagement spans across academies and

KreativEU such a good fit for us is the size (comparable to BUas) and diversity of the participating institutes, the focus on creativity and culture, but certainly also decisive is the major focus on students.

The WLO, which then goes beyond Europe, is also an important partner. The annual WLO congress is even coming to Breda in 2025. How do you make sure this is going to be valuable and that the event has legacy? We also call this conference the Olympic Games of leisure and are proud that we as BUas can host such a big event. Especially when you look at the theme ‘leisure for a better society’ which perfectly fits the BUas mission. In 2025 this event will bring together many elements. You have to take advantage of the fact that you have a very rich intercultural, global network of leisure professionals ‘visiting’ you that week. A considerable number of our colleagues will be involved in giving presentations or facilitating activities. Everything we will learn there we must try to translate into educational programmes, of course. We also want to strengthen the relationship between education and research, in which a renowned conference such as WLO can be of great help. Moreover, we must ensure that our strong connection with industry is given a place there and that we use the value created for that industry.

Students and employees must experience the campus as a ‘safe haven’.

There are plans in Breda for an annual Dutch Leisure Week, similar to Dutch Design Week, as a spin-off of the WLO conference. The municipality is already actively working on it and we as BUas are having talks about our involvement in that. That would indeed be a worthy legacy - one in which we, as BUas, aspire to take a prominent role that fits what we stand for: Creating Meaningful Experiences.

You can connect with each other at the BUas clubs in an easily accessible way.

The evolution of our internationalisation strategy from a historical perspective

Internationalisation is the stable bedrock for BUas’ ambitions

BUas envisions itself as a leading international knowledge institute by 2030, distinguished by industryrelevant, high-quality, and innovative education and research. We aspire to create a smallscale, personal, sustainable, diverse, and inclusive learning environment that fosters individual innovative capacity. How has internationalisation always been the bedrock of BUas’ aspirations? In the current political landscape, how can internationalisation continue to be the driving force propelling us towards achieving our ambitious goals?

A Dutch pioneer

In 1988, long before internationalisation of higher education began to gain prominence in the Netherlands and Europe, BUas, at that time called NWIT, successfully launched the professional master’s programme in European Tourism Management, together with four other European universities (Madrid, Heilbronn, Chambéry, and Bournemouth), serving as a catalyst for many more international partnerships and networks. In 1990, the fully English-taught bachelor’s programme in International Tourism Management and Consultancy took off, with an internationally composed classroom.

In 1999, more higher education institutes in the Netherlands, supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, started to translate study programmes into English, aligning with the Bologna Process’s push for EU-wide standardisation. The shift to English as a language of instruction aimed to enhance educational quality, global competitiveness, and financial resources. Students also started to display a growing interest in seeking an international education. In that year, NHTV – as it was meanwhile renamed - already

Lucette Roovers (Director), Marlie van Dun (Senior Policy Advisor), and Giuliana Scuderi (Policy Advisor) are members of the Global Engagement Team at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

hosted 65 foreign undergraduates and approximately 45 foreign exchange students, and was already laying the groundwork for a comprehensive internationalisation strategy, which included international courses, foreign lecturers, and study abroad opportunities.

Towards a structured approach

In 2001, NHTV declared itself an international institute and launched its Strategic Centre for Internationalisation. The first foreign lecturers were hired, bringing to BUas their practical international experience and their global networks.

Around 2006, the Europeanisation of higher education gained momentum, leading to the emergence of transnational programmes and networks. NHTV evolved from ’ad hoc’ small-scale internationalisation initiatives to a structured approach that embraced institutional cooperation and global networking. Collaborative programme development and participation in networks took centre stage. As the number of international students and staff increased, NHTV encountered new challenges, such as supporting non-Europeans and non-Westerns with diverse cultural backgrounds. During this period, the often underestimated role of lecturers and educational support staff in the process of internationalisation came to the forefront. Moreover, initial steps were taken to enhance the professionalism of staff engaged in international activities.

An international institute in the first place

In 2008, the NVAO introduced internationalisation as a distinctive quality feature in higher education.

At NHTV, diversity and multiculturalism thrived, not least through the active recruitment of students and staff from diverse

backgrounds. The emphasis on internalising internationalisation fostered a cultural shift within the organisation, aiming at diminishing the boundaries between international and national students. New policies prioritised the recruitment of international staff proficient in English, set a 15% international student target, and promoted English as the primary communication language.

NHTV transformed into an international educational institute that integrated higher professional education, university education, and, for the first time, research. Intensive collaboration with global institutions to develop joint programmes became a key strategy for promoting internationalisation and academisation.

Training global entrepreneurial professionals Between 2013 and 2017, NHTV evolved into an entrepreneurial and business-focused institute. Prioritising collaboration with companies and alumni engagement, NHTV expanded its networks globally, with a keen eye on emerging markets (also referred to as hot spots). In Brazil, we established several successful partnerships,

In the heat of the political debate, BUas strongly defends its international institutional profile.

for instance with the Federal University of Pernambuco and the University of San Paulo. In China, the Academy for Built Environment & Logistics still has a successful ’train-the-trainer programme’ with the University in Anyang.

In those years NHTV facilitated work placements abroad for over 50% of students. Staff flexibility, involving temporary employment of industry professionals and visiting professors, was aimed at enhancing NHTV’s international profile and industry collaboration.

With a commitment to around 10% foreign employees and 15% international students, NHTV focused on providing expat provisions, building external networks, and collaborating with local authorities to transform Breda into a truly international student city.

From NHTV to BUas

In 2018, NHTV embraced a new identity as Breda University of Applied Sciences. The primary goal at that time was to enhance students’ global readiness and cultivate staff awareness and expertise, emphasising the importance of international experiences. As a result, initiatives between 2018 and 2021 strongly focused on incoming and outgoing mobility. This included strengthening staff exchanges, attracting global talent, promoting study abroad opportunities, and enhancing international placements.

On campus, BUas encouraged internationalisation within its community by improving student and staff English proficiency, cross-cultural training, and intercultural skills development in the international classrooms. Figures for 2023 show that today the campus hosts 26% international students and 21% international employees.

The beginning of the national political debate As the number of international students continued to grow, many Dutch educational institutes, including BUas, grappled with the challenges of providing suitable living accommodation. Research universities located in prominent cities also feared that unchecked growth in international recruitment may lead to overcrowded lecture halls, increased workloads for lecturers, and limited access to study programmes resulting in an overall decrease in the quality of education.

In the heat of the political debate, BUas strongly defends its international institutional profile, vital for its nine interconnected knowledge domains. Many of our study programmes inherently necessitate an international orientation, as professionals in fields such as leisure and events, tourism, hotel management, facility management, games, media, and the built environment rely on a solid understanding of the global context to excel. The necessity for an international profile extends to addressing needs in fields facing contraction, such as logistics, where new talents often need to be sourced from abroad, or in fields experiencing swift global advancements such as data science and artificial intelligence.

BUas+ strategy towards 2025

With the new BUas+ strategy 2022-2025, BUas plans a strategic shift towards a more robust European focus in internationalisation, in line with our sustainability goals. This shift aligns with the European Union’s call for enhanced collaboration between higher education institutes in Europe and with the aim of leveraging available European funding and opportunities. As a testament to this commitment, BUas has joined the European University Initiative, participating in the European University Alliance KreativEU. The alliance, comprising 11 European universities, aspires to establish a fully European University, emphasising the creative potential of Europe's cultural heritage in teaching, research, and knowledge transfer.

The BUas+ international strategy also focuses on nurturing students’ and staff's international and intercultural skills essential for thriving in a global career by ensuring access to meaningful experiences right on campus, with less emphasis on international physical mobility, especially outside Europe. In the next few years, the focus will be on the on-campus global activities, which reflects our dedication to sustainability, diversity, and inclusion: international guest lectures, blended intensive programmes, and virtual collaborative arrangements are some of the initiatives that our academies are developing.

By fostering an international, vibrant, and inclusive campus community, BUas empowers students and staff to excel in the global arena,

In 2001, NHTV declared itself an international institute and launched its Strategic Centre for Internationalisation.

boosting their employability, but also enhancing their overall well-being, satisfaction, integration, and sense of belonging.

We will also strengthen our commitment to supporting international students and staff, in establishing networks with peers and integrating into Dutch society. Additionally, we aim to increase their stay rate in the country by offering language and cultural training. This growing focus on the campus environment will enhance collaboration across academies, with a stronger emphasis on sharing knowledge and experiences. Led by a passionate Internationalisation at Home Team, academies are already proactively engaged in establishing international learning outcomes across their curricula, and they are experimenting with monitoring systems, such as the Global Mind Monitor. With its new international strategy, BUas reiterates its commitment to a holistic approach to internationalisation, consistently aligned with the evolving needs of its community while remaining attuned to societal demands and global developments. Internationalisation evolves hand in hand with BUas' objectives, serving as a catalyst for growth, fostering an environment conducive to skill and talent development among students and staff, and facilitating meaningful connections with key stakeholders on the global stage.

Demography is destiny Why internationalisation matters

The phrase ’Demography is Destiny’ has been attributed to the French philosopher and father of sociology, Auguste Comte who argued that the size and composition of a country’s population will determine its future. So, what is currently happening with global demography and why is that relevant to the internationalisation of education?

The Financial Times (Goldin, 2024) has pointed out that it is “surprising how quickly fertility is falling. More than half the countries in the world are now below the level of fertility required to keep the population the same from generation to generation” adding that although there are over 200+ countries and territories in the world, “over half of projected population growth in the coming 30 years will be in just eight countries,” which are all in Africa or Asia. The result will be that for most countries in the world “as a rapidly growing elderly population comes to rely on the taxes, pension contributions and services provided by fewer and fewer workers, economies will come under increasing strain.”

Permanent shortage of labour

The Chief Economist of the Nordea Group in Denmark (Pedersen, 2024) has noted that, “Demography is pulling in the direction of a more permanent shortage of labour because the baby boomers are retiring from the labour market on a massive scale and are replaced by

While this short-term demographic trend is currently supporting a number of economies with full employment, a very different reality threatens many countries as we look further to the future. Simply put, this is because the population pyramid is being inverted. After all, the reality in most countries in Europe, including the Netherlands, is that the population is only growing because we are living longer, getting older and receiving migrants. While this influx of population creates short-term pressures on housing, it is also a longer-term economic insurance policy. If you ignore your demographic trends, what is going to happen? The current situation facing Japan is salient. This is the country which now has the world’s oldest population. This demographic implosion, coupled with the fact that the country has no active immigration policy in place, means that it has been widely reported in the media (Lau and Maruyama, 2024) that there are already some nine million empty houses in Japan.

Ageing demographics

Looking to the future, the government of Japan has even had to question the long-term viability of the country, with Japan's Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida saying his country is on the brink, noting it was a case of "now or never" (Wright, 2023) and “telling lawmakers that Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society". After all, researchers have projected Japan's population to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century (Gallagher, 2020). While ageing demographics is often seen as a European problem, this situation has also changed fast in other parts of the world. To keep a population stable you need a birthrate of 2.1 children per woman. In Japan’s neighbour South Korea, the birthrate per woman fell to a record low of 0.72 in 2023, well below even the 1.26 figure Japan logged in 2022. Both

has peaked and has declined for the last two years. Also, Thailand will be caught in a vicious trap, which is ”getting old before it is getting rich” because it has a ticking demographic time bomb. Thailand will be home to more than 12 million over-60s who are set to comprise over 20% of the population by 2029, and with low incomes, limited savings and inadequate government pensions this means that many people will have to endure extreme poverty in old age (Agence France-Presse, 2024). While plenty of countries have attempted to find quick-fix solutions such as offering a ‘baby bonus’ (Australia), government-sponsored dating sites (Singapore) we have also seen more left-wing social policies (Sweden and Finland) to more right-wing pro-fertility policies (Hungary and Poland). So far, not one of them has worked in terms of getting the birthrate back above 2.1. It is likely it will require a much deeper systemic rethinking and realignment of both the cultural and economic values in society, with a significant recognition of the

Accept that the future workforce needs to be increasingly globally competitive.

Perry Hobson

Perry Hobson is the director of the Academy for Tourism. At BUas, he is responsible for representing international issues on the Executive Board.

high costs of rearing children in the developed societies we have created. Of course, bringing our population and lifestyles in line with our planetary boundaries offers us a further longerterm set of challenges.

Internationalisation of education

If the prosperity and well-being of a country’s population are to be maintained, it is probably not so surprising that issues such as immigration, education, public health, retirement age (coupled with the use of artificial intelligence) are now all high on the political agenda in most countries. While we may inherently see education as being something that should be ‘local’ or ‘national’ in terms of focus, the reality is that access to and production of knowledge is increasingly global. If the government wants the Dutch economy and its population to maintain its quality of life, then it also means we need additional talent for highly profitable companies and important wealth-generating industries. Global competitive companies, such as ASML, have a need to recruit top global talent. High-quality education underpins the skilled and high-paying jobs resulting in both the standard of living and quality of life that nations want. Consequently, attracting bright international students and encouraging them to stay will actually become increasingly critical to the economy.

The demographic data of a country is often hiding in plain sight, but instead we often choose to ignore it and the implications. The current reality is that nothing is likely to stop the population of the Netherlands living longer and statistically ageing. We already know, and can predict with a fair degree of accuracy, the current death rate and the birthrate - which means that unless something really dramatic happens, we are facing a demographic cliff. This means internationalisation of local education and having international students are critical pieces of the solutions puzzle as the country

looks to its future. Of course, ensuring a better educated local population and workforce is also an essential piece. However, the maths of demography tells us that in terms of numbers this is simply not going to be enough to support an economy that supports the quality of life we seek. Furthermore, one also has to accept that this future workforce (and the companies they work for) need to be increasingly globally competitive. That means ensuring that they are educated not to a national standard, but to an international standard that has a global mindset connected with language abilities. In turn, having international students is a critical component in that mix - and should be a key priority that informs planning and thinking beyond the inevitable electoral cycles.

Not the problem

We need to stand back and look at the big picture. Bringing more international students to the Netherlands is something that is a critical part of the solution to the underlying national problem of demographic change. In itself, it is not ‘the problem’. Of course, not having enough housing is a local and a very real problem. But pointing an accusing finger at foreigners as being ‘the problem’ is a little bit like a drowning man complaining about the waves being caused by the rescue boat. Yes, it is a significant irritant in the short term - but if the rescue boat does not come, then we know what will happen. Of course, the political reality is that in many countries it is easier to point to ‘foreigners’ (such as international students) arriving today as being a part of ‘the problem’, than to admit to past mistakes such as having had a lack of understanding of the demographic data or having the foresight to plan.

Internationalisation is one of the key pillars of BUas, underpinning our curriculum, embedded in our courses and critical to the diversity we seek on campus. Through the hiring of our staff, and the recruitment of international students, we

Not one of the policies has worked in terms of getting the birthrate back above 2.1.

have created a more globally informed learning environment. One that not only can appreciate local issues - but one that is more culturally attuned to understanding other cultures and the wider world. Turning our back on what we have created, would be the same as turning the page when presented with the demographic data. Ignore it, and a more certain destiny awaits.

Sources

• Agence France-Presse (2023).

“As Thailand gets old before it gets rich, a demographic ‘ticking time bomb’ looms”. Reprinted in the South China Morning Post, - https://www.scmp.com/news/ asia/southeast-asia/article/3238086/ thailand-gets-old-it-gets-richdemographic-ticking-time-bomb-looms.

• Blair, G. (2024). “Akiya houses: why Japan has nine million empty homes”, The Guardian (see - https://www.theguardian. com/world/2024/may/01/akyia-houseswhy-japan-has-nine-million-empty-home.

• Gallagher (2020, July 15). “Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born. BBC - https://www.bbc.com/ news/health-5340952.

Goldin, Ian (2024). “Demography is not destiny”, The Financial Timeshttps://www.ft.com/content/e04ba005a913-4362-8434-dae488220310.

• Lau, C. and Maruyama, M. (2024). “Super-aged Japan now has 9 million vacant homes. And that’s a problem”, CNN - https://edition.cnn. com/2024/05/07/asia/akiya-homesproblem-japan-intl-hnk/index.html. Pedersen, H (2024). “Demography is destiny”, Nordea, https://www.nordea. com/en/news/chief-economists-cornerdemography-is-destiny.

• Wright, G (2023). “Japan PM says country on the brink over falling birth rate”. BBC, see https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-asia-64373950.

& Nuffic grants everyone an enriching experience at international level

The art of balancing cross-border challenges

The Uncover editors talked to Lem van Eupen of Nuffic, the Dutch association for internationalisation in education. Lem is manager of the Europe pillar (Nuffic is organised in three pillars: Global, Europe, Netherlands), director of the Dutch National Agencies Erasmus+ and acting director at Nuffic.

Nuffic was founded to promote international exchange and cooperation for primary and secondary education, mbo, hbo, wo, and adult education. Today, preschool nurseries have even been added for Erasmus+. Nuffic has several forms of services and activities. It runs big subsidy programmes on behalf of the Dutch Government and the European Committee, with which they give financial support to exchanges and cooperation. Think of Erasmus+ or the Orange Knowledge Programme for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition to the financial side, Nuffic also supports networks of internationally operating schools at various levels. What’s more, research is conducted into the impact of international exchange and cooperation. Nuffic has an online dashboard where you can interactively view research data. In this way, they support both government and education with data and analyses.

always shifting, certainly now. What are the key priorities that Nuffic sets for the coming period?

We are developing the new Nuffic strategy for 2025-2030. An important key priority will be inclusive internationalisation. We believe that gaining international experience is not for the happy few, but that access to it should be as wide as possible. Especially for groups with very few opportunities, this opportunity means so much more than, say, university students who already go on holiday abroad with their parents twice a year anyway. We want to offer these valuable experiences to, for example, first-generation students and students with an immigration background who have difficulty accessing work placements - or are even discriminated against in this respect. There are wonderful inspirational stories on the Erasmus+ website (www.erasmusplus.nl/ inspiratie-resultaten) and Nuffic has a network of WilWeg ambassadors (www.nuffic.nl/ onderwerpen/wilweg). We deliberately recruit first-generation students for this as well because they have a very difficult time in a higher education institute anyway. If you are the first in your family to study in higher education, you do not know the codes, you do not have the connections. A study abroad experience is even more complicated in that case. Then the people around you often do not understand why you want it.

Another key priority is digitisation. Physical mobility always remains very valuable because you also really enter a different world and are taken out of your comfort zone for a while. But there are increasing opportunities for remote collaboration and exchange thanks to new technologies. We are looking at how digitisation can best be used to exploit opportunities. This is always done in relation to that inclusive

We think gaining international experience is not for the happy few, but for everyone.

ambition. Especially since, during the Covid pandemic, we saw that digitisation carries the risk of a new divide. Some students did fine, some even better (because they sat quietly at home instead of in a busy school environment), but a very large proportion of students (from primary school to higher education) really fell behind and also suffered a mental dent during that time of limited physical contact. The human factor should not be lost sight of. As Nuffic, we try to find that balance.

For Nuffic, how do digitisation and opportunities for hybrid education relate to issues of sustainability and travel?

Sustainability is a key focus. If you are honest, internationalisation is not necessarily about making the world greener because often physical travel is part of it, and that of course damages the climate. We do try to encourage sustainable travel. Erasmus+ launched the option of getting a top-up for ‘green travel’. From this year (2024) it has even been reversed, making sustainable travel the norm. If you do not

Peter Horsten and Simon de Wijs are lecturers and researchers at Leisure & Events at BUas.

Peter Horsten Simon de Wijs

Sustainable travels are the norm. If you do not travel green, you will get a lower allowance.

travel green, you will get a smaller allowance. We as Nuffic, however, emphasise another aspect of internationalisation in relation with sustainability. Global problems, such as climate change, cannot be solved within national borders, and can only be addressed in an international context. That means international cooperation is crucial. Fortunately, many projects are submitted to Erasmus+ at present that deal specifically with sustainability in terms of content, such as urban mobility, greening transport, or forms of energy transition. Ultimately, a balance is needed between both the negative and positive aspects.

Why is it important to gain international experience?

We live in a world where national borders exist on the one hand, but where very important developments (e.g. climate, economy, trade) do not care about these borders. Through international experiences we get to know a world that is different and that broadens our view. Realising that one’s own context is not the logical context for everyone, and that what we think is normal here is not normal for the whole world is essential for developing oneself personally and professionally. That young people return after an exchange with so much more confidence, self-reliance and an updated frame of reference allowing them to think more broadly than before is very valuable at all levels. We recently published a study in which students returning from an Erasmus+ international experience were questioned five years afterwards about whether they have any lasting impressions. Professionally, 75% of individuals still perceive a difference, and on a personal level that percentage increases to over 90%. High percentages, which are also not surprising. Anyone with experience abroad will agree that being in a different context for a long time changes you permanently.

Is this thought under pressure given politics or countries focusing more on themselves and turning inwards?

The thought is not under pressure. Among young people, the enthusiasm for travelling and looking across borders has not changed a bit. Indeed, after the Covid pandemic, we saw Erasmus+ applications soar, and we are now above pre-Covid levels. On the other hand, you do hear from international students in the Netherlands itself that they feel less welcome. Not even so much within educational institutes themselves. Of course, there are some examples of Dutch students stating that they would be happy if the international students were gone, so there would be more space in lecture halls. Surely, not feeling welcome mainly plays a part in the environment outside the education

institute. At the political level, the whole idea of international cooperation and exchange does come under considerable pressure.

Language plays a part in it. International students say, despite the fact that English is widely spoken in their studies, it is not easy for them to make contact outside their studies. What is your policy in this?

We do not have an active role in it because that is up to the institutes themselves. But it is clear that during an international experience, learning languages and being able to get by in that language enriches incoming and outbound and outgoing students. Thus, language also helps in becoming more widely involved and embedded in your Dutch environment tremendously. That applies during their studies but also for the likelihood of staying afterwards. Unfortunately, not everyone gets that chance by a long way. Look at stories of student flats, where people prefer not to opt for an international student. And Dutch lessons in a language lab will not get you there either. You need to have contacts and be able to build friendships with Dutch students. You also often see ‘international communities’ where internationals bond together rather than with locals. Many student associations do not always look at it specifically either. As an education institute you could facilitate or draw attention to this more. If you let people come

here to study, you also have a responsibility for their well-being. This holds for all students, but even more so for internationals.

Getting back to digitisation. There is also the development of translation apps and AI. I am wondering what this will mean for the importance of learning another language. When you have a mobile at hand, you can just speak your own language, which can be read directly into the other language via an app. Language barriers are getting smaller, but learning a language is also immersing yourself in another culture while learning that language, and that will fall away (for the most part). Developments in this area may be faster than we can imagine.

Is increasing the likelihood of staying after their studies a role for education institutes and is it a one-size-fits-all approach? There are a number of shortage sectors with a lack of sufficient skilled workers where efforts are not only focused on bringing students here but also retaining them for the Dutch labour market. For example, ASML works closely together with Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where they get a significant share of their new employees. Government, education (much broader than TU/e, starting as early as in primary and secondary education) and businesses arrive at joint actions to look

at what educational needs there are in the region and what this means for those entering the labour market. These regional approaches are very important to focus on increasing the likelihood of staying and contributing to the economy, innovation, and society.

By the way, there is absolutely no one-size-fitsall approach. Every higher education institute is autonomous and is allowed to make its own choices and there are many differences between regions and between disciplines. That sometimes means that every institute tries to maximise student numbers for themselves, which causes certain regions to get into trouble, and so you have to deal with it as a government. Limburg and Gelderland have a different approach to this than the provinces of Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland. Partnerships between education, government and business are necessary to establish effective policies.

The Eindhoven example is often referred to, but what about healthcare education and the (future) dire shortage of hands on the bedside, for example?

I think there is still limited focused thinking about this kind of thing. Sometimes there is an initiative to bring a group of Indonesian or Filipino nurses to the Netherlands, train them using a pressure cooker formula, and then deploy them in healthcare. Too often these are ad hoc initiatives in which the entire ecosystem and preconditions are insufficiently mapped out. For instance, if you are dealing with people who need care, then language is a very important element. And that’s where things go wrong in the above example. Beyond the figures, one must consider all those things in establishing the extent to which it is feasible to address existing labour needs using an international workforce.

Do you see any factors that education institutes can use to make choices regarding their internationalisation strategy and approach?

Nuffic is by no means saying that “as many students as possible should come to the Netherlands”. While an institute can try to recruit individuals at a fair abroad, the question is whether that is wise and whether the numbers can be handled. At its core, it is always about what added value there is. An international approach is very logical for some institutes and study programmes, e.g. for the arts. Even

for agribusiness or leisure & hospitality, for example, it is super logical to have international components in the programmes. By the way, that’s not just about international students going back and forth. There are so many more forms to insert international components into study programmes.

Individually and collectively, educational institutes should think more about what and how many students we actually want to attract here. Including the questions of who can stay and who should certainly not be involved. Just studying here on a temporary basis is not the point then. It is also about the step afterwards. In that battle, by the way, you should not want to empty the ponds in other countries (brain drain). Here, too, it is always a matter of finding the right balance. Not everyone has to stay here to contribute to innovation and the economy. Some can also return to their own country and use the knowledge and experience gained to make a (significant) contribution there.

In the context of balance, explicitly promoting outgoing mobility is also very important since it is considerably lower than incoming mobility. In Erasmus+ it is almost balanced, but if you look at diploma mobility there is a lot to be gained there. Our high quality of education (the main pull factor for the Netherlands) does not help here. Students wonder why they should study elsewhere if it is ‘fantastic’ here. A possible solution is to combine study programmes, where students study partly in the Netherlands and partly abroad.

Institutes should also look at their facilities. Can they accommodate the students, for example? Housing issues, unfortunately, are often one-sidedly and negatively linked to international students, while these are issues that apply to the whole of the Netherlands due to shifts in family size, migration, housing construction in relation to CO2, and demographics. What also comes into play, for example, is what the catchment area is that the higher education institute focuses on. If every institute focuses on their own region, even then there are quite a few institutes in the Netherlands, especially in the south and east, that have a region going beyond the national borders. And then, as in Maastricht, for example, you certainly do not focus specifically on Dutch students. In addition, institutes can vary significantly in their approach to choices regarding their students’ career prospects. You can aim for a career perspective that is more aligned with the Dutch labour market, but also one that is more internationally oriented. And there are other factors to consider as well.

Are there any blind spots in internationalisation at higher professional education institutes?

There are major differences between universities of applied sciences. Some are deliberately engaged in internationalisation and have an internationalisation strategy embedded in the broader institutional strategy. There are also institutes where internationalisation is something separate, or just the icing on the cake.

If you look at the sector in its entirety, participation in European Universities is really lagging behind. Not every university of applied sciences has to do it, but I doubt if it is always a conscious choice not to do it. European Universities collaborations are complex and intensive, and perhaps other forms of partnerships are a better fit for an institute, but I do not think there are enough real analyses being made at this point. Decisionmaking in this regard cannot be organised as a study programme or a domain, but must be

undertaken at the level of the entire institute. Moreover, it requires investments in brainpower, manpower, and finances up front.

The European Universities alliances are not just isolated initiatives, but part of an increasingly European approach to the development of education. The Education Council has issued a recommendation entitled Active in Europe (March 2023, www.onderwijsraad.nl/ publicaties/adviezen/2023/03/09/actief-ineuropa), in which it notes that the Netherlands, particularly the government, is too much on the sidelines when it comes to educational developments in Europe. Traditionally, education was something where the EU member states were in the lead and where the EU had little say. That is shifting. The European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament develop all kinds of initiatives in Europe to set out more joint policies. The council recommends drawing up a strategic agenda that provides clarity about the Netherlands’ ambitions for European education policy. Because regardless of what we want as the Netherlands, things

Nuffic by no means says that “as many students as possible should come to the Netherlands”.

Lem van Eupen

At a political level, the thought of international cooperation and exchange is under much pressure.

of what we would like to get done in the field of education in those six months? We will have to start doing that today because it will take years. We must be more active, develop and elaborate ideas, find supporters, and co-direct which way it goes. This is also what happened with Macron’s European Universities initiative.

I would like to challenge ourselves to start now with what the Netherlands would like to achieve during our next presidency.

Do you see any other important developments that institutes should respond to towards the future?

I think that we also need to start looking far more at things like microcredentials. We mostly work, especially in higher professional

See what is happening at MIT and Harvard in this area.

Another aspect is the role AI is going to play in education, both positively and negatively. I recently attended a presentation about a system that allows you to have completely individualised learning pathways. A lecturer becomes more of an online coach who, based on students’ portfolios and interests, offers individualised subject matter again. It has a high science fiction content when you first see it, but things might go much faster than we think now. All technological developments, especially AI, raise many new ethical questions. How technology can add value and where it might get in the way is an important new theme

Netherlands for an

To conclude, what would you like to bring as a focus to all the current discussions? Whether it is about issues in education, in general, or around internationalisation, let us jointly ensure that the narrative of the added value of international experiences is not overshadowed by matters such as housing problems or the English language. It should primarily be about personal and professional development, about the enormous added value in broadening your own view, and about how these things enrich the Netherlands.

education institute, but will our education look like this at all in 2030, let alone in 2040?

Internationalisation in the European arena

EAIE: A European network perspective in challenging times

Founded in 1989, the European Association for International Education (EAIE), is a non-profit, member-led association serving over 3,000 members from more than 95 countries. It is the European hub for knowledge, expertise, and networking in the internationalisation of higher education. The EAIE is supported by 38 staff members from 21 countries in its headquarters in Amsterdam. The EAIE is one community, working together to drive responsible international higher education now and in the future. The EAIE’s mission is to empower the international higher education sector, demonstrate the impact and value of internationalisation, and influence policymakers and the public. We achieve this mission through a rich mix of professional development opportunities, conferences, and knowledge sharing.

Born during the early days of the Erasmus programme, the EAIE has grown and expanded its ecosystem to address the challenges faced by professionals in the field of internationalisation. The strength of the EAIE lies in the diversity of voices in the community, which helps make the ecosystem stronger and more prepared to tackle emerging issues in the education sector and the world. Our global community has a mission to make our world a better place. Guided by a robust strategy, shared values and a focus on excellence, our ambition is to foster deeper understanding and solidarity through international education.

The EAIE provides a meeting place for people to exchange ideas, collaborate, and form professional relationships. It also facilitates knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning. The EAIE’s Academy training portfolio offers a diverse range of courses for both online participants and those attending in person in Amsterdam. The EAIE’s flagship event, the Annual Conference and Exhibition, broke records in Rotterdam in 2023 with 6,749 participants from 103 countries. Other activities the EAIE organised for the community last year include two community summits, a mentor system, partner in two EU-funded programmes, 21 podcasts, 55 blogposts, pathways to practice, three Forum magazines, other publications, a library, and a platform to connect in communities of practice. Overall, the EAIE produces approximately one piece of content for every day of the year! The organisation also conducts extensive research to map the state of internationalisation every few years in the EAIE Barometer. These surveys and the resulting data and analyses are essential for demonstrating the impact of internationalisation, and are an important tool for effecting positive change and transformation.

Strategic Agenda

In recent years, Europe and the world have faced significant changes, including the UK’s departure from the EU, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of AI, housing crises, geopolitical conflicts, political shifts, budget cuts, and the

The EAIE has been instrumental in supporting its community through these crises, providing a platform for dialogue and hope. The work of our community is about fostering human connections across cultures, generations, and disciplines, and finding allies in challenging times. Despite the hardships, it is heartening to see individuals and organisations stepping up to find solutions and support those in need. The EAIE serves as a vital hub for finding your community and enriching your professional life.

Our mission is to empower the international higher education sector, demonstrate the impact and value of internationalisation, and influence policymakers and the public.

Piet van Hove Dyane Koreman

Piet van Hove (EAIE President 2022-2024) and Dyane Koreman (EAIE Chair of the Strategy & Management Expert Community 2022-2024).

It is about fostering human connections across cultures, generations, and disciplines, and finding allies in challenging times.

As the world rapidly advances towards new technologies, we must balance online and in-person activities. Our roles are increasingly influenced by digitalisation and AI, necessitating new skills. The 2018 Barometer predicted that distance learning, online or blended international learning, and internationalisation of the home curriculum would become more central to internationalisation at higher education institutes (HEIs). This prediction has come true, with the current Barometer survey (2023) highlighting the need for strengthening international and intercultural content of the curriculum and virtual internationalisation activities. Among respondents working in student mobility, partnerships and European programmes, the topics of great interest include student and staff well-being, digitalisation of administrative tasks, and inclusion and diversity.

We are witnessing rapid changes within our institutes, necessitating creative tools to seize opportunities and address future challenges. International Offices are becoming more decentralised, yet the need for integrated services and a multidisciplinary approach is bigger than ever. Internationalisation is a complex undertaking, with limited resources and competing priorities. National level policymakers and universities are increasingly seeking proof of the impact of internationalisation, with measures ranging

from rankings and reputation to student learning outcomes and research activities.

The EAIE plays a crucial role in sharing and enhancing knowledge on these topics. Community building is a strength, with everyone able to participate, share, and seek help. The EAIE’s new structure, with nine Thematic Committees and a wide range of Communities of Practice, supported by a new online Community Platform, aligns with the community’s needs, adapting to the changing world.

In 2023, the EAIE expanded its commitment to social responsibility and sustainability, introducing the Sustainability Corner at the annual conference for partners to showcase their initiatives and expanding corporate volunteering activities.

Comparisons within Europe

The EAIE’s members and conference participants come from all over the world, including about 70% from Europe. One of the key initiatives showing the broad reach of EAIE across Europe is the Barometer study, mentioned above. With 2,817 individual responses from 46 out of 49 European Higher Education Area countries (the exceptions being the Holy See, Moldova and San Marino), the EAIE Barometer is the largest, most geographically representative study of its kind. It provides insights into the state of internationalisation in European higher education.

The Barometer study (2023) reveals regional differences. Western Europe prioritises ‘inclusion and diversity’, while Eastern Europe and Western Asia focus on ‘digitalisation of administrative tasks’ and ‘research collaborations and outputs’, respectively. Budget instability varies across regions, with Northern Europe (29%) and Eastern and Southern Europe (28%) reporting more unstable funding sources than Western Europe (23%) and Western Asia (22%). National authorities’ influence is high in countries like Czech Republic (77%), Norway (76%), Turkey (74%), Romania (69%), and the Netherlands (66%).

The emergence of the European University Alliances has significantly influenced the field in terms of strategic consortium management, legal entities, joint accreditation processes, and the introduction of a European diploma. Countries noting a positive effect of this initiative include Slovenia (80%), Romania (73%), Armenia (62%), and Serbia (60%), while Ireland has the highest percentage (6%) indicating a

The urgency to prove the impact of internationalisation efforts is increasing, with 63% of respondents considering the debate ‘urgent’ or ‘very urgent’. The Netherlands has the highest percentage of respondents reporting this issue as ‘very urgent’, followed by Portugal, Italy, and Turkey. Conversely, Sweden and Norway have the highest proportions of individuals who consider this debate not urgent.

Concerns about internationalisation delivering impact in relation to ‘climate change/ environmental sustainability’ range from 23% to 26% in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, and the Netherlands, to just 2% to 4% in Azerbaijan, Croatia, and Czech Republic.

The EAIE in connection to the world

The EAIE collaborates with global partners to advance and increase the impact of international higher education in Europe and the rest of the world. The EAIE is connected to all other continents through sister organisations, like NAFSA, APAIE, and INHEA. The EAIE is an active participant in two key global international bodies specifically; the Association for Studies in International Education (ASIE) and the Network of International Education Associations (NIEA). ASIE, which was chaired by the EAIE from 2014 to 2023, is principally focused on the publication of the Journal of Studies in International Education.

Additionally, the organisation maintains strategic partnerships with entities like Erasmus Student Network (ESN), Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), Scholars at Risk (SAR), International Association of Universities (IAU), International Management Development Association (CEEMAN), and the accreditation body for business schools EFMD Global. These partnerships ensure up-to-date, relevant content for members throughout the year. EAIE is a proud partner of Township and Trees for Life, and a signatory of the Climate Action Network for International Educators CANIE and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Accord,

While international higher education’s basic components remain the same, their importance varies across associations and conferences. The 2024 EAIE Conference and Exhibition in Toulouse is set to break records, with preparations for the 2025 edition in Gothenburg already underway, expanding engagement options throughout the year.

Western Europe prioritises ‘inclusion and diversity’, while Eastern Europe and Western Asia focus on ‘digitalisation of administrative tasks’ and ‘research collaborations and outputs’.

The transformative power of the Imagineering field trip

The field trip as an experiential learning pillar of the educational model &

Margo Rooijackers is a senior lecturer and researcher at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

Liliya Terzieva is professor of Designing Value Networks at The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

International field trips provide real-life experiences related to the integral entity of study programmes, enabling students to inquire about varied contentrelated information by observing, analysing, inquiring, and devising their own explanations for how and what they are learning. The Master in Imagineering study programme relates to the connotation of expedition learning, where both educators and learners co-create a common ground for transformation and evolution design. Therefore, the role of the field trip is referred to as a significant milestone and experiential learning pillar of the educational model.

Methodology

The methodology used in this study consisted of two types of data collection. Firstly, an open-ended and closed inquiry questionnaire was constructed around four simple questions relating to positive, negative, and other aspects of each of the Imagineering field trip categories. This survey was distributed among a group of 14 students after their field trip experience. The second phase was to engage in open-ended, face-to-face interviews, held with six students of the group. The field trip took place in spring 2022, lasted two weeks and the destination was Malta.

Results

The international field trip experience reinforced how fostering positive relationships between the university classroom and wider community empowers students with the professional and personal competencies and confidence necessary to advocate social innovation and business modelling. In Malta the active learning that had occurred in the community on a daily basis was celebrated, the pedagogy of experience that had enhanced the knowledge and understanding of issues related to

building, and respect for intercultural diversity.

Field trips as helpful educational tools in effective learning

The results show that the majority of students are of the opinion that field trips provide a practical approach to the curriculum, as well as self-experience and observation to increase knowledge. It also promotes interaction between lecturers and provides students with the opportunity to overcome difficulties, show their individuality and become aware of their professional skills.

Field trips as enhancing the development and improvement of professional and personal competencies

Regarding the development and improvement of professional and personal competencies (based on the TRIAL competencies: transparent, reflecting, inspiring, appreciating, leading) the results show that the majority of students consider field trips helpful in developing leadership qualities, promote cooperation, enhance a sense of discipline and increase confidence. Furthermore, they support social training.

Field trips as beneficial for society and individuals

The majority of the students think that field trips promote cultural and historical heritage as well as make them aware of facilities available within our society. They are also helpful in achieving better results and performance, selecting a specific field of study, and becoming one of the sources to meet the needs of higher education.

Field trips as contributing to knowledge development

The results suggest that students perceived the field trip contributed highly to their knowledge development in areas such as complexity

Imagineering field trips serve as catalysts for powerful transformative learning.

theory, imagineering methodology, design thinking and doing, and social constructionism. For instance, one student remarked: “Wow! I have never learned so much in such a short amount of time or remembered so much of it! The stuff learned is still in my head, every day, unlike other classes, we experienced what we were learning, and that made all the difference.”

Another student wrote, “The purpose of this field trip was to explore food, cuisine and the impact it can have through NFTs. My favourite part of the trip was the discussion on how humans impact food through technology. I gained a great deal from that discussion.”

And a third quote clearly illustrates the gain in conceptual knowledge: “I think anytime that you talk about the organisation and solving its issues you are going to have people who are extremely opposed to any kind of change. When it comes to organisational development and big business, the organisation often loses in favour of the chaos. It is very complex trying to let people continue to make a living in the emerging 2.0 world, while still trying to protect linear behaviour. This field trip really made me

Margo Rooijackers Liliya Terzieva

realise how such complexity could be tackled in a completely different context.”

Field trips as strengthening a positive learning attitude

Finally, a key theme that emerged from the questionnaire was a positive learning attitude. Most students stated that learning experientially in authentic contexts was a foundational model of the Imagineering field trip they took part in: “Learning experientially in authentic contexts made it unbelievable seeing whole organisations transform”.

Conclusion and reflection

Imagineering field trips are not mere outings; they serve as catalysts for powerful transformative learning. A well-designed trip can contribute significantly to the Imagineering students’ holistic development, bridging theory and practice. The international context, beyond classroom walls, ignites curiosity, deepens understanding, and fosters

connections. This fresh context allows students to explore real-world innovation and develop as transformational leaders. As such, field trips are an essential tool within the Imagineering educational programme. The challenge is to carefully design and execute these field trips to maximise the impact on the students’ experiential learning journey.

More information

For a video impression of the Imagineering fieldtrip 2022 see: https://vimeo.com/719383058

Sources

• This paper is an adapted version of: Terzieva, L., Rooijackers, M. & Kera, D, 2022, The role of the fieldtrip in the Imagineering educational practices. In: Innovative teaching and learning in higher education – conference proceedings. Graz: FH Joanneum, pp. 83-91.

This field trip really made me realise how such complexity could be tackled in a completely different context.

Short descriptions of the field trip projects

In this part we summarise three visions of Malta blockchain futures of food that students envisioned in collaboration with representatives from local culinary and food ventures, such as the Mediterranean Culinary Academy, Merill Rural Network, and Malta Rural Tours. By working together, Master Imagineering students at Breda University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands) and students from the Center for Distributed Ledger Technology of the University of Malta responded to the 2022 challenge of “NFTs, Tokens and Edible ‘Assets’: Speculative Blockchain Futures of Food and Dining in Malta”. They experienced local food, visited farms and different sites. They also documented and interviewed numerous stakeholders to prepare their design mockups, videos, and proposals.

The Rooftop project won the social impact prize for their idea of engaging homeless and stateless people in Malta in sustainable farming practices and greening of the bare rooftops with utility tokens. Based on their extensive interviews with policymakers, entrepreneurs and local NGOs, the team

identified the stakeholders that would support such greening, inclusive and social efforts. We discussed how such green rooftops would serve as community gardens or decentralised local farms with every roof specialising in different veggies, and what would be the best way to help the excluded people in Malta.

The second project ‘Collectible StoriesMapping Malta’s Treasures’ won the prize for creativity with its idea of geo-NFTs unlocking stories as part of a final recipe or challenge while engaging with local products and experiences. The prototype presented something of an NFT-based tourist guide or puzzle that people unlock by not only buying the token but also physically visiting and experiencing the ‘treasure hunt’. The project combined elements of games with NFT interaction in rural tourism services. The students created a map with different NFT quests introducing local stories and products that resulted in the final personalised recipe, like an oracle.

The third ‘GROW: the movement towards local sustainable food in Malta’ project won the prize for the most innovative and workable solution using blockchain to support local and sustainable food. The team impressed the jury with their fully functional prototype of a service that offers NFTs via a website to support community investment in sustainable irrigation systems through rainmaker technology that harvests water from air humidity. The charity NFTs also supported direct engagement with the farmers and issues of local food.

The most innovative solution used blockchain to support local and sustainable food.

The role of leisure in transitioning towards inclusive cities

The

InclusiveCity project &

Marisa de Brito conducts interventive and academic research at BUas focusing on impacting the quality of places and their communities through sustainable development. Andrew Shaw is part of the Urban Life & Placemaking specialisation at BUas and has a focus on the role of inclusive sustainable leisure in urban development.

pleasant way of living, furthering the quality of life for its inhabitants. Originally, the concept had roughly three founding principles Density, Diversity, and Data-Driven (see Figure 1).

As of January 2024, two academies of Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), namely Academy for Leisure & Events and Academy of Built Environment & Logistics, together with Placemaking Europe, Superwien, KÉK, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, amongst others, are partners of the international research project, InclusiveCity, which as the name suggests focuses on inclusive urban development. This was made possible thanks to an intergovernmental research and innovation programme, called Driving Urban Transitions (DUT), which stimulates partnerships to address key challenges of European Cities in urban transitions towards sustainability while bettering the quality of lives of their citizens.

The 15-minute city concept

InclusiveCity builds upon placemaking concepts such as the 15-minute city, a concept popularised by Carlos Moreno, where there is an adequate density of a variety of city functions, such as education, work, healthcare, and leisure, just a small walk or ride away, by public transportation or bike. The premise

However, the 15-minute city concept has been criticised for taking a one-size-fits-all approach, potentially leading to the exclusion of certain social groups, disregarding local cultural or natural heritage (Khavarian-Garmsir et al., 2023) or restricting freedom. In 2023 Oxford faced protests against the local council’s 2040 vision of the city, with people fearing surveillance and 15-minute ghettos, alluding to the less pleasant experience of the Covid19 pandemic and the then imposed mobility restrictions. The protest was more about the potential lack of civil liberty than the essence of the 15-minute concept inspired by the notion of locality, where services are produced locally and for the benefit of locals. No one opposes the benefits, however, if services are unequally distributed between different areas of the city, they may become areas of privileged and underprivileged residents, exacerbating inequality and city bubbles.

Leisure accelerates sustainable development

The integration of active leisure areas in urban environments, and its adequate design, is a great means to promote an inclusive user of space, e.g. across genders, ages, and social groups (Janpavle and Īle, 2022). Sports and other leisure activities can power inclusion by bonding people during their relaxation time. Once such social bonds are crafted, they do contribute not to individual well-being, but to the well-being of communities and safer neighbourhoods. Think, for instance, of children playing together, while adults picnic in the local park.

Leisure areas can play a paramount role in fostering inclusion in urban areas, and therefore

The 15-minute city concept has been criticised for taking a one-sizefits-all approach.

Marisa de Brito Andrew Shaw

The park and the access to the waterfront will be the main focus of the interventions and activities.

in accelerating sustainable development. This said, leisure areas can also do the opposite and lead to social exclusion. Therefore, a proper design of leisure areas is key in making the 15-minute city more inclusive. This aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular SDG #11, which focuses on sustainable cities and their communities.

InclusiveCity: Project and Objectives

The project sets out to develop a toolbox, which could be used by policy-makers to engender inclusion in area development, especially in terms of access to leisure facilities, and to actively address potential exclusion in the design or organisation of space. There is a particular focus on mobility within the context of the 15-minute city: ensuring access to waterfronts and de-commodification of public spaces.

The toolbox will be developed concurrently with an international consortium in five European cities: Budapest, Oslo, Rome, Rotterdam and Vienna. The structure will vary slightly from city to city, with pilots utilising the Urban Living Lab method, established with the involvement of local stakeholders, communities, and specific target groups. In Vienna, there will be a focus on reclaiming the Donaukanal waterfront to improve quality of life. In Budapest, the feeling of safety and healthy streets are the themes. Oslo will focus on intergenerational public space through tactical placemaking interventions and Rome will build community centres and foster social inclusion.

The testing phase of the labs will be directed by local challenges and reflect the needs of the local communities. The findings of these experiments and interventions will be shared amongst the consortium, with further developments of these methods in different cities leading to insights into how the tools and methods work (or not) in different situations.

The case of Rijnhaven, Rotterdam

The BUas team decided to focus on the site at Rijnhaven, Rotterdam, which is currently under development. This site is literally rising from the waters of the river Meuse, which transverses the city. Eventually, it will become a mixed development of housing and business premises, with a central city park being established. The park and the access to the waterfront will be the main focus of the interventions and activities. The research will explore meeting places and location types that could enable informal contacts between different people/groups in society that have the potential for enhancing social cohesion and neighbourhood attachment.

This will be facilitated through a mobile urban living lab concept, acting as a base for interventions and a temporary meeting point in itself. This mobile lab can be set up in other parts of the city too, giving more valuable insights into the issues felt surrounding inclusion in Rotterdam’s public space.

Due to BUas’ involvement in the Breda Urban Living Lab, it will also be possible to make connections with the similar site of ‘t Zoet in Breda, an area under development, within walking distance both of Breda’s train station and its city centre. So, potentially a 15-minute neighbourhood, with all kinds of services, in the making. It is hoped that the tools and methods from InclusiveCity can also be trialled and experimented in there.

International Collaborations

International and cross-disciplinary collaborations are crucial in addressing complex and shared challenges such as inclusive urban development. By taking part in this project, BUas researchers and students are able to gather important insights in real time from fellow researchers in different national, cultural and economic contexts. The consortium is made up of members from Northern and Southern Europe and the BUas team itself is quite diverse, with members from the Netherlands, UK, Portugal and Iran.

Students will play an important role in the research. The team is currently supported by graduation students from ABEL and ALE and in the future will involve students from the ALE Urban Life & Placemaking specialisation, ABEL Urban Design course and other graduation students.

Full results are expected at the end of 2026 with the wrap-up of the project. Interim results will be disseminated through local meetings and international conferences, including the upcoming Placemaking Week Europe conference in Rotterdam in September 2024, as well as the World Leisure Conference in 2025.

Sources

• DUT Partnership (2024), <The DUT Partnership - DUT Partnership, accessed May 6th.

• Khavarian-Garmsir, A.R.; A. Sharifi, A. Sadeghi (2023) The 15-minute city:

Urban planning and design efforts toward creating sustainable neighborhoods, Cities, Volume132, ISSN 0264-2751.

• InclusiveCity Project Proposal (2022), internal documentation of InclusiveCity partners.

• Janpavle, I. and U. Īle (2022), The Importance of Active Leisure Areas in the Context of Urban Planning, Architecture and Urban Planning 2022, Vol. 18, Issue 1, pp. 120–130.

• Moreno, Carlos; Allam, Zaheer; Chabaud, Didier; Gall, Catherine; Pratlong, Florent (2021). “Introducing the ‘15-Minute City’: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities”. Smart Cities. 4 (1): 93–111.

Photography

• Iris van de Broek (page 20)

STRETCH ideas, visions, exchange and international projects

A long-term international collaboration between event programmes

A few years ago, VIVES University of Applied Sciences in Kortrijk, Belgium, took the initiative to start a collaboration with different universities from all over Europe. The Events for Business specialisation from Academy for Leisure & Events teamed up with them. It all started with a conference by VIVES in which lecturers at universities of Lapland, Germany, Finland, Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands participated. This article tells the story of the start, the driving forces and the future of this wonderful experience: hiccups, success factors, but above all, becoming a team of international teachers who facilitate the exceptional intercultural learning process of students and lecturers from participating universities.

It all started with one question Bart Derolez (programme leader of Event Studies at VIVES) asked: How can we create a more structured international educational process for students of Event Management? They set an ambition to get Event Management students from different countries in contact together by offering international activities, such as student study trips abroad, which are less educational and make students become active participants. Looking for a solid fundament for a more structured way of working together with students who are driven by events, Bart started to think about a project, where relevant (event) content is added, in which students needed to be in charge and get to work themselves. Away from the trips to a foreign country in a passive way.

network of events educational programmes. But these were not easy to find. Colleague An van Ostyn from VIVES (senior lecturer of Business English) teamed up to make this project happen. Contacting like-minded event colleagues was difficult. Through websites it was easy to find international offices, but the connection towards events programmes was not easily found. Therefore they decided to send a call for an international conference for lecturers from Event Management programmes in different European countries. Preparations started in 2019. But when the conference was due to start in March 2020, the coronavirus appeared.

A week before, the 20 lecturers from Germany, Denmark, Edinburgh, Glasgow (University of West Scotland), and the Netherlands who signed up for the conference needed to be cancelled. But in 2021 the conference could take place online (due to corona issues still). During the conference, each participating lecturer presented their own programme about events education. The differences between the universities were huge. It was a big challenge to find similarities in order to see where and when universities could team up. In 2022, the first physical real-life conference meetings finally took place in Kortrijk, Bruges, and Brussels.

Connection to SDGs

An van Ostyn attended a session delivered by a UN representative on the importance of integrating the SDGs into education. In the city of Kortrijk, VIVES signalled their commitment to working on the SDGs. As a result, they connected with Durf 2030! (durf2030.eu), a collaboration of different stakeholders in Kortrijk to look for an opportunity to become European Capital of Culture in 2030. These developments put the collaboration project of event programmes on the path to articulate their mission in connection to the SDGs. During the first three-day conference in 2022 the network of event lecturers discussed future

Concertgebouw Kortrijk, and the performance Clay Dance at the Bruges Royal City Theatre by the dance group Ultima Vez choreographed by the famous Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus had its effect. At the AB concert hall in Brussels the idea for a more long-term international collaboration was explored in more detail. Rutger Boxhoorn (lecturer at InHolland) took to the task of drawing up a time schedule and everything fell into place. Afterwards, Bart and An from VIVES, Rutger from InHolland, and Ronald van Olderen and I from BUas worked out all the details.

What makes it tick?

Meeting in real life and especially humour are key success factors for becoming a team. The differences between the cultures are sometimes funny and at the same time inspirational as well. It started with that first question Bart asked about how to make the international collaboration more structured, it was very cool to see all the events prepared by more than 100

It was a big challenge to find similarities to see where and when universities could team up.

Dorothé Gerritsen

Dorothé Gerritsen is lecturer of Event Management at Academy for Leisure & Events.

students at the first edition of the SDG Action Festival, which was one of the outcomes of the long-term cooperation between universities (see text box). It was touching to see all students and lecturers from universities in Belgium, Finland or the Netherlands working together in 15 international teams again at the Finland edition in 2024. Our drive was to expand the international contacts by an international project with likewise event programmes. When you do not let limitations guide you, think in terms of opportunities, and go beyond bureaucracy, you can succeed, even when the situation is challenging (coronavirus).

The future of STRETCH and SDG action festival STRETCH became the name of the international network of lecturers and students within events programmes. Their goal is to stretch teaching methods and physically stretch border crossing. The idea is to stretch: exchange ideas, visions, and exchange of students. The SDG action festival is one of the projects. The dream of the SDG action festival is that young people see the importance of the SDGs. This could be a little step forward. But in the near future other kinds of projects and initiatives within STRETCH will also be developed. In terms of the future of STRETCH, we hope there will be lecturer exchanges as well. And it would be wonderful when, for instance, BUas presented a project and some students from VIVES could participate. An ongoing form of collaboration. The ultimate dream would be to expand this worldwide.

More information

• https://sdgactionfestival.eu

• https://www.durf2030.eu

Sources

• Interview with An Ostyn and Bart Derolez on 26 April 2024 by Dorothé Gerritsen and Ronald van Olderen.

SDG Action Festival

STRETCH organises the annual SDG Action Festival, with each partner university taking turns to host it in their own city. The first time ViVES did this in Kortrijk, Belgium in 2023. The second edition took place in Helsinki in 2024. In 2025 Breda will be the host city and BUas will be the host.

The student teams work together on their projects from February to April online. Then they meet in real life for one week and execute their concepts for their pop-up events in the host city for different NGOs within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. This intense and interesting programme resulted in the concrete project of collaboration with about 120 students from the different universities. This international project is subsidised by the European Union. The objectives are improving the students’ international competences, more specifically their commitment to global engagement, and improving students’ individual cultural, organisational, project management and communication skills.

The mission of the project is “to improve Kortrijk, Helsinki, Breda, Lapland, Tornio, Lisbon, Estoril, Rotterdam socially and make its citizens aware of potential improvement initiatives via live communication concepts.”

The host cities start to prepare the project and connect the stakeholders in their university, in the city, and companies and organisations connected to the SDGs. Students are appointed to international teams with coaches from one of the partner universities and attend five online education days, each of them hosted by one of the five partner universities. Just think of workshops on Event Design, Concepting and Production. Besides, they get information, documents and videos and meet in online break-out rooms and have the opportunity to meet the client they are working for. Clients are global non-governmental organisations, such as Amnesty International, Oxfam Novib, Unicef, but also local organisations are involved. Students connect their live event to one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. They need to develop a concept for an event for target groups in the city.

The project is funded by Blended Intensive Project (BIP) from the European Union.

Collaboration partners

• Heidi Vähänikkilä and Kaija Merilainen (Laurea University of Applied Sciences) Teresa Chen and Marika Saranne (Lapin AMK University of Applied Sciences)

• An Ostyn and Bart Derolez (VIVES University of Applied Sciences)

It

was touching to see all students and lecturers working together in 15 international teams.

• Ronald van Olderen, Dorothé Gerritsen and Rowdy van den Nieuwenhuizen (Breda University of Applied Sciences)

• Rutger Boxhoorn, Jan Timmerhuis, David Winter, Michiel Dijkstra (InHolland University of Applied Sciences)

• Susana Filipa Gonçalves (Escola Superior de Hotelaria e Turismo do Estoril)

Bart Derolez and An Ostyn

The STEPup project

New meaning to social entrepreneurship through higher educational learning

&

Dr. Liliya Terzieva is professor of Designing Value Networks at the Hague University of Applied Sciences.

Drs. Monique Schulte is lecturer of Leisure and Events at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

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).

STEPup

The STEPup project was a project that aimed to modernise existing social entrepreneurship practices and promote innovation in Thai and Burmese HEIs by integrating advanced learning tools for the creation of disruptive business ideas into existing academic structures, while strengthening university-business collaboration through participatory schemes on local and regional levels. This project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The project was created to strengthen higher educational institutes’ teaching staff capacities and student skill sets through innovative teaching and learning methodologies by offering training sessions combining theoretical and practical inputs and study visits, by creating, equipping and putting in operation Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hubs. The project was coordinated by the Institute of International Management of the FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences. Breda University of Applied Sciences participated in the project as one of the European partner universities.

STEPup outcomes

The STEPup project was conducted between 2020 to 2023 and consisted of three project implementation phases, where various activities on a national, regional, and international basis were introduced. As a first step, teaching staff capacities and student skill sets were

conducting several day-long online and on-site training sessions to deepen the knowledge of social entrepreneurship practices. In addition to the above, to provide a fruitful learning environment on campus, each participating institute (in Thailand and Myanmar) established Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hubs (SEKHs) equipped with stateof-the-art technical infrastructures available for free to students and university staff wishing to enhance their social entrepreneurship capacities and/or business ideas. In a second phase, students were encouraged, through the existing SEKHs, to put their knowledge into practice by participating in a local case challenge, which saw the pairing of one business student with one social enterprise to jointly discuss and solve a complex business problem. The goal was to foster innovative thinking in students and allow them to act in real-life contexts within a secure learning environment. The work culminated in a local case challenge pitching events during which an international jury consisting of project consortium members and regional businesspeople chose a winning student team. These winning case studies are currently still being presented in a series of academic publications, allowing students and institutes to extend their international networks and profile. The third and final phase was the development of a methodology and framework for sustaining the established infrastructure and trained human capital towards further social entrepreneurship applied and research endeavours. Some generic statistics to underscore the above-mentioned: a total of 113 people participated in the four training sessions, which included local case studies to show how to implement the concept of SE in Thailand and Myanmar; the Open Educational Resources were used (in English, Thai as well as Burmese) by more than 570 people; each HEI conducted two knowledge and practice multiplier events,

The consortium of this project was composed of ten institutes, coming from three European countries and two South-East Asian ones, namely Thailand and Myanmar.

where more than 250 additional project ambassadors were reached; more than 120 people took part in the local case challenges; more than 50 publications were produced.

Social entrepreneurship as community driver and beyond

Social entrepreneurship can be viewed as the process of applying innovative business models to address social problems (for people and communities) by achieving both profit and purpose (Terzieva and Herpich, 2021). Social entrepreneurship is there to create long-term value and generate sustainable impact for society and the connected ecosystem. The difference between ‘regular/traditional business model’ and a ‘social business’ one needs to be

Liliya Terzieva Monique Schulte

emphasised. The first and foremost differentiation is the position within the continuum of ‘profit’ versus ‘purpose’. Whereas value within the traditional business model is measured mainly by means of financial metrics, the value within the social business model lies in enterprises aiming at maximising their social gain and utility, which is achieved by means of innovation while still ensuring that the organisation is financially viable (Garcia-Jurado, Perez-Barea and Nova, 2021).

Social Entrepreneurship is an economic reality in many Asian countries such as Thailand and Myanmar; however, it usually applies to small businesses struggling to make money with no prospect of growth. Social entrepreneurs either do not know that they are social entrepreneurs or have no knowledge of how to scale their businesses to make a real impact on society. Additionally, social entrepreneurship is not a desirable career path for young people, which is partly due to the scarce range of educational programmes in this field offered at higher education institutes. Innovative, disruptive business ideas need to emerge to not only tackle the societal challenges in the countries but also to give students the possibility to acquire skills needed by the labour market to allow them to play an active role in society and achieve personal fulfilment.

What has certainly become clear based on the data collected, processed and analysed was that reaching the impact goals necessitates a strategic focus on ‘community development’ within the collaborative framework of education and industry. The topic has been at the centre of the STEPup project´s learning approach by connecting students with specially trained university staff members, existing social entrepreneurs and other actors of the SE ecosystem while simultaneously providing a physical infrastructure and workplace.

Applying a three-tiered approach (see Figure 1) proved successful in creating sustainable networks among members of business and academia, elevating students' capabilities of business analysis and providing them with an

research on the project implementation shows that the established social entrepreneurship hubs have been promoted and positioned by means of events, which created visibility for the participating universities and allowed them to offer a proven concept of collaboration and learning structures to external stakeholders for monetary and social value in the long run.

Interweaving context and content – a new meaning of success

Higher education institutes (HEIs) are under increasing demands to prove they are providing high-quality outcomes for research, innovation, teaching and graduate employability. Social entrepreneurship can meet these demands. It is now important to make use of the positive climate and connect the different initiatives by offering an approach that interlinks learning environments in HEIs with students and businesspeople in the SE context. Ultimately, their success is the measure of any HEI’s success. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to define what such a success could mean, such as:

• being immediately employed after graduation.

• the extent to which the industry identifies the students as the players of value to have within their networks.

• the impact/societal relevance: having a marked positive effect or influence on the development of an industry or of society - sustainably and with a long-term orientation.

It has therefore been the mission of the STEPup project - a mission which is steadily becoming a reality - to establish the foundations for social

entrepreneurship to be organically embedded in the educational practices of the HEIs in Thailand and Myanmar and to shape the perception of students and lecturers alike, in terms of viewing social entrepreneurship as the essential path forward. With a cadre of trained individuals ready, physical infrastructures established, and educational models and pilots rigorously tested, it is accurate to say that we have transcended the initial steps and effectively integrated institutional and industry principles.

Another success factor for a similar project is that all partners involved need to draw clear benefits from the project: students, lecturers, training partners and other stakeholders - after all, the goals of the STEPup project have been achieved due to the committed involvement of everyone. In addition, it is important to ensure constant communication, which is multidirectional and taking into consideration the specific context in place. The need to create learning communities - by means of the established SEKHs - where students, industry partners, educators and researchers work together on practical challenges for industry and society has become the new norm. By extension, it logically follows that these learning environments - blending education, research, and impact - are international and intercultural.

More information

• https://stepup.fh-joanneum.at/

Sources

• García-Jurado, A., Pérez-Barea, J. J., and Nova, R. (2021). A new approach to social entrepreneurship: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sustainability, 13(5), 2754.

• Terzieva, L. and Herpich, S. (2021). The rise of social entrepreneurship through populism. New Populism and Responses of the 21st CenturyOnline proceedings, India and USA.

• Terzieva, L., Mahajan, L. & Schulte, M. (2023). Higher Education Institute (HEI) Learning Hubs: A Case Study on Social Entrepreneurship in Thailand and Myanmar. Poslovnaizvrsnost, 17(1): 83-97. Figure 2

Figure 1

A rollercoaster process of genuine mutual value creation

Mastering the development of the international IDEAS Master

&

Klaus Hoven and Wim Strijbosch are lecturers and researchers at Academy for Leisure & Events in the BUas-wide Attractions and Theme Parks Management track.

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.

IDEAS

The efforts of developing this international master's programme have resulted in the IDEAS Master: Innovative Design for themed Entertainment and Attractions for Sustainability. IDEAS aims to be a master’s programme in the fields of tourism, hospitality, entertainment, leisure, sustainability, and international business management that educates students towards senior and executive-level

entertainment and attractions industry. Characteristic of this programme is the development of profound knowledge of dealing with sustainability in attractions and theme parks, focusing on a broader perspective on sustainability than just the environmental one. In the programme, three areas of application have been identified (corporate strategy, business management and creative leadership) with sustainability principles being embedded throughout.

A bit of history

The idea for a master’s programme in attractions and theme parks management emerged at the IAAPA Europe Expo in Amsterdam, where several educators met during a round-table session (IAAPA is the International Association for Amusement Parks and Attractions). During this meeting, many bachelor’s programmes or training courses were identified across European higher education institutes. IAAPA and attending industry partners expressed their wish for a master’s programme. After this meeting, Salvador Anton Clavé from Universitat Rovira I Virgili (URV) from Spain and Klaus Hoven (BUas) developed a first draft curriculum. Seizing the potential of setting up this programme as an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master (EMJM), requiring three European universities to develop a joint master’s programme, they began searching for a third academic partner, finding Universität Duisburg-Essen (UDE) from Germany. While this collaboration led to a high-quality proposal nearing completion, UDE eventually withdrew due to universitywide strategic considerations. With great understanding and respect for this decision, it did not affect the very positive relationship between BUas, URV and UDE that had been established along the way. Yet, for the further

EMDM

Luckily, in 2021, the Erasmus Mundus action of the European Commission launched the Erasmus Mundus Design Measures (EMDM) programme, offering higher education institutes a lump sum of €55,000 to facilitate the set-up of new international partnerships with the goal to develop new, innovative and highly integrated master’s programmes. The launch of this funding programme provided an impetus to both URV and BUas to pick up where we left off, and to proceed with the development of the master’s programme by looking for another third partner. Forces from Spain and the Netherlands were joined again, leading to the development of a proposal for submission under this EMDM call. Later, Université Côte d'Azur (UCA) in France joined these efforts to deliver a high-quality proposal. As a result, the first concrete notion of the IDEAS Master programme was born. The resulting proposal was submitted in February 2023. With patience,

The proposal got a score genuinely exceeding our wildest dreams.

Klaus Hoven Wim Strijbosch

we waited for five months until in August 2023 we received highly positive news: the proposal was evaluated with 97 out of 100 points, a score genuinely exceeding our wildest dreams.

Towards a European accreditation

Being awarded with the EMDM funding provided us with the means to finally meet in person. Notably, the entire EMDM proposal was prepared through online meetings alone. At the end of November 2023, the first kickoff meeting was held at the Faculty of Tourism and Geography of URV in Vila-seca (Spain). These initial days were incredibly productive. To stimulate creativity in discussing the student profile, learning outcomes and curriculum, Klaus hosted a creative workshop themed after a long-standing tradition uniting Spain and the Netherlands: Sinterklaas. It must have been a strange experience for our Spanish and French colleagues to find a present in their shoes they took off earlier at Klaus’ request. This ice-breaking activity led to several valuable ideas that have remained in the programme ever since.

Various meetings followed in both Breda and Nice. We were also hosted by IAAPA Europe in Brussels for an industry meeting with several attraction and theme park industry representatives, further highlighting the industry’s strong support for the development of the master’s programme. This meeting brought together industry experts from across Europe, demonstrating the international integration

of the master’s programme developments throughout the continent.

Eventually, these efforts resulted in a selfevaluation report and draft consortium agreement that were ready to be accredited by the appropriate institutions. The accreditation procedure followed the European approach: a first for Catalan accreditation agency AQU. Involving the Dutch and French accreditation agencies of NVAO and HCERES as well, we collaborated on setting up this approach in a way that honoured the accreditation standards of all three institutes (AQU, NVAO and HCERES). While giving several points of improvement, the panel commended the high quality and profoundness of both the programme and of the documents. The programme was therefore officially accredited and was ready to be transformed into a fully accredited proposal to be submitted for an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s call.

BIP

Despite the success of these efforts, strategic, university-wide considerations prompted UCA to not continue with the further development of the master’s programme, and consequently withdraw from the project. At the time of writing this article, we (URV and BUas) are therefore exploring collaborations with other universities to replace UCA as a third partner in rounding off the development of the master’s programme. Luckily, the decision to withdraw from the development of the master’s programme did not affect the positive relationship between the three universities. In fact, BUas even followed up with both URV and UCA by setting up a European Commissionfunded Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), which took place in late April 2024.

During this BIP, 33 students from URV, UCA and BUas were hosted at URV. After several online preparation sessions, within five intensive days, students set up and conducted a GPS study in PortAventura World, a major European theme park destination neighbouring URV’s Faculty of Tourism and Geography. The study was set up, executed and reported on to PortAventura World’s higher management within this very short timeframe. In just these few days, students demonstrated remarkable collaboration and dedication, showcasing their ability to excel in real-world settings, leaving promising expectations for what they will be able to do in the context of an international

The efforts have resulted in the IDEAS Master: Innovative Design for themed Entertainment and Attractions for Sustainability.

Conclusion

The journey to establishing the IDEAS master’s stands as a testament to the potency of international collaboration and resilience. From inception to successful accreditation and proposal evaluations, every step has been marked by dedication, innovation and shared commitment. This process has generated significant value, yielding a robust network of both academic and professional expertise and elevating educational standards in attractions and theme parks, benefiting the mutual development of knowledge, skills and expertise to together lift the state-ofthe-art to a higher level.

Through this journey, we have learned valuable lessons about the importance of flexibility, open communication and mutual trust and support. These lessons, alongside the established collaborative framework, will guide future endeavours in both the IDEAS Master process and spin-off projects like the BIP. With unwavering enthusiasm, we eagerly anticipate the continued development of an IDEAS master’s proposal for upcoming EMJM calls, contributing to a lasting impact on the global field of attractions and theme parks. None of this would have been possible without the invaluable support of our partners, who by now have become true friends as well.

Every step has been marked by dedication, innovation, and a shared commitment

The European classroom of Urban Life and Placemaking

Live like a local, act like a professional

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).

Living in the City

LITC is one of the USPs of the ULP track. For the LITC programme students move to a European city for twenty weeks to live, study and work. They will apply their BUas insights and knowledge in their new hometowns. The list developed for the specialisation does not contain the typical capital or tourist cities like Barcelona, London or Rome, but cities with a smaller scale and different profile. In the last two years students lived in small groups in Bilbao, Leipzig, Porto, Sevilla and Turin. Other options on the list for students to choose are, for example, Cork, Varna, Thessaloniki, Krakow, Malmo and Toulouse.

studying, and working. Although abroad, students still take their courses at BUas. The connection between the cities and with the BUas experts takes place via online Teams meetings (proven to be practical and successful during Covid times). This way, a European classroom is created with weekly classes to connect all the students (and cities) together. Besides the courses, there are specific city meetings and individual coach meetings and also a number of ‘coffee hours’ with a more informal ‘show, share and connect’ character. Near the end of the semester the lecturers will visit the students for a couple of days, and students organise their final activities of several courses during these days.

What’s innovative in LITC is that students do not purely complete an international placement, neither are they fully on an exchange to another university. In that regard LITC does not yet fit into the existing boxes. Students in a way do their placements ‘in the city’. During their stay in the cities, students are, on the one hand, challenged to become locals, and live in as well as connect to the city and local culture. On the other hand, they develop themselves as professionals by building a network, and by working on projects and/or a placement assignment.

The LITC courses in a nutshell International Urban Scope

While actively working in the city, the students also explore their surroundings with a more academic lens. They take the themes they learned in the previous year, such as gentrification, inclusion, playfulness, mobility, and temporariness, and apply these to their new home city. They produce a poster exhibition, aimed at locals, where they show the visitors

In the preparation phase, there are big hurdles to overcome, such as finding affordable housing and creating a professional network.

about their city through the lens of these urban scope themes. Being event design students, we challenge the students to organise the expos from A to Z (including production, arranging the space, marketing, budget, stakeholders).

In Turin, the old advertising boards of the Precollinaer park tram route were repurposed for the exhibition. In Leipzig, a play on the practice of posting concert posters on building site hoardings led visitors on a tour around the city to experience the themes and locations. A more traditional exhibition took place in Bilbao, where students presented to Bilbao Metropoli 30 and other local civic stakeholders.

Social Intervention Project

For this guided intensive project, students start by highlighting a local societal issue. The project involves mapping this issue and connecting with

Andrew Shaw Simon de Wijs

Andrew Shaw and Simon de Wijs are involved in the design and teaching of the Urban Life and Placemaking programme at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

stakeholders to build their own capacity. Students work towards actually providing an intervention in the city that addresses the societal issue. This is based on the idea that to see change in a city, you need to make that change yourself. There have been a number of outcomes, from confronting activities relating to women’s feelings of safety in Turin, to starting the first tentative steps of community building in a physically and socially divided neighbourhood of Porto. Some interventions almost went un-noticed, yet had a measurable impact. In Leipzig, one group installed outdoor pantries for locals to safely display their unwanted goods that were too good to throw away. This modest action noticeably but quietly cleared up the streets of old vacuum cleaners, toys and clothes.

The research part of this course culminates in a hybrid international conference to share and compare the insights into and analyses of the global and local societal issue. What is the background to the issue? Which local stakeholders are involved? How does this affect the local residents? What is already

Breda. Alongside the students’ presentations, national and international experts in different fields (municipality of Breda, placemaking companies such as Aqui Barcelona and Stipo) also bring in workshops for the combined live and online audiences.

Professional Trail

In Professional Trail, students are challenged to find a placement company or to work as freelancers and do their own projects or voluntary work. Some placement companies where students worked in recent years are Happy Erasmus in Bilbao, co-working space Porto i/o, and placemaking organisation Stratosferica in Turin. The freelancers choose a range of ‘challenges’ from a list, with the aim of pushing themselves to try new and potentially uncomfortable things. Some of the challenges include: cooking dinner with neighbours,

gardening, visiting a rival city, and conducting a mystery visit to a cultural performance. These challenges will help them to ‘become locals’ but also to ‘become urban professionals’. Just think of organising a small pop-up event in a public space, developing a creative tourism concept, or visiting a rival city and comparing both cities in a vlog.

Experiences up to now

For students, LITC is a life-changing experience, both personally and professionally. The students gain important cultural insights into their cities, acting as locals rather than visitors, and focusing on living, not just working in the new cities. Importantly, they see different forms of life. Often these students come from small villages and towns and find themselves in much larger, but still ‘second-tier’ European cities. They are sometimes exposed to societal issues that are much more prominent than back home, and they come to understand what it is to be an outsider in a culture, giving them an important insight into the experience of newcomers to their own countries.

In the preparation phase, there are big hurdles to overcome each time, such as finding affordable housing and also finding and contacting professionals for placements and projects. As LITC has been running for several years, the collective experience and our European network are growing with each group and each project, and these challenges become easier to tackle.

Our third edition of LITC will take place together with students from other BUas programmes (Built Environment and Social Innovation). We hope to expand this methodology, as we feel it is applicable to a number of interdisciplinary studies and collaborate with local partners across Europe to give the students a softer landing and dive into the local societal issues from the moment they arrive.

Our main takeaway from this LITC programme has been that challenging students to tackle difficult yet rewarding tasks, and trusting them to shape their own educational journey leads to deeper learning. When students go out and try ideas in real life, especially in another culture, they understand just how difficult it is to achieve their goals, which gives them a renewed respect for all of the amazing work that local stakeholders are doing and are successful in.

Teacher in town was amazing! It was nice to guide our teacher in the city and show what we worked on.

European Universities shaping Higher Education

The KreativEU Alliance

Giuliana Scuderi is a policy advisor and member of the Global Engagement Team at Breda University of Applied Sciences. She has supported BUas in joining KreativEU. Marisa de Brito is a senior researcher at Academy for Leisure & Events operating within the Places and Flows research theme. Within KreativEU she is responsible for research strategic alignment with(in) BUas and stakeholder engagement with its partners.

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.

Decision to join such an international alliance

The prospect of BUas joining an EUA has long been under consideration. In recent years, many of our partners have embraced these alliances, and we have repeatedly been presented with the opportunity to join. Yet, it was not until June 2023 that the Global Engagement Team initiated an in-depth evaluation of the pros and cons of participating in the EUI.

This evaluation highlighted that joining an EUA is not merely a short-term project but a strategic, long-term commitment to collaborate within a specific network of partners in education, research, and development. This commitment is made regardless of European funding outcomes and BUas must be ready to invest substantial resources to be part of this initiative, starting with strong support from the board and the president.

Since EUA-engaged universities are still the minority, numerous European funding opportunities remain open to all institutes. However, with several Dutch research universities and universities of applied sciences already in alliances, and governmental financial support for EUA members, those in the national arena are favourable to this initiative.

Considering the broader European context, our key partners are increasingly committed to their alliances, which may limit future collaboration opportunities outside these networks. Finally, the unique level of cooperation and innovation within EUAs could propel BUas into a leading position among educational innovators, offering a significant learning curve.

For the above reasons, the assessment by the Global Engagement Team culminated in a ringing endorsement for BUas to actively seek membership, despite imminent challenges such as the fast-approaching February 2024 proposal deadline. In the hectic months following June 2023, potential pathways to EUA membership were diligently explored with a focus on a pragmatic approach that would enhance opportunities for joining while aligning with our strategic goals and core values. The decision to pursue engagement with unfunded but already existing alliances emerged as the most feasible strategy, capitalising on the robust foundations and clear visions of these groups. With this direction set, the quest to join an EUA commenced.

The consortium In October 2023, a five-member delegation from BUas set out for Tomar, Portugal, to engage with the KreativEU Alliance (Knowledge & Creativity European University) for the first time. The KreativEU Alliance, at that juncture, was a consortium of seven institutes, including the Instituto Politecnico de Tomar (Portugal), Valahia University of Târgovişte (Romania), University of South Bohemia (Czech Republic), University of Trnava (Slovakia), Adana Science and Technology University (Turkey), D.A. Tsenov Academy of Economics (Bulgaria), and the University of Camerino (Italy).

United by the shared objective of creating a transnational European University, the KreativEU partners are dedicated to placing the creative potential derived from Europe’s cultural heritage at the heart of teaching, research, and knowledge transfer activities. By transforming the study of culture, identity, memory, and heritage, the alliance wants to cultivate a more creative, united, and robust Europe for

Giuliana

the benefit of society and environment alike, and provide the EU with innovative concepts, methods, and solutions to address both current and future challenges.

Previously, the Alliance sought funding and, despite earning the European Commission’s seal of excellence, was not successful due to a geographical imbalance in its partnerships. To address this, in 2023, the consortium extended invitations to four new partners, including BUas, Opole University (Poland), University of Greifswald (Germany), and Sodertorn University (Sweden), all of whom convened in Portugal that October.

The Alliance emerged as a synergistic fit for BUas, aligning with our strategic direction, vision, objectives, academic compatibility, focus, and cultural and social fit. All partner institutes (see Figure 1) are situated in historically significant cities and there is complementary expertise. Together, all the aforementioned universities have cultivated their collaborative institutional, structural, and strategic endeavours to the extent that they anticipate the establishment of a fully functional KreativEU European University by the year 2034.

Focus and Work Packages

The Alliance’s focus on Creative Heritage, in its broad sense, resonates with several of BUas’ research topics, such as Places and Flows, Experience Design, Digital Realities, and in particular Creative Placemaking and Cultural (Urban) Tourism. Adding to the appeal is the Alliance’s focus on areas that connect with BUas’ strategic themes Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability, further solidifying the connection between KreativEU’s goals and BUas’ strategic direction.

To realise the ambitious goal of establishing a dynamic, globally competitive European education and research framework rooted in the exchange of knowledge encompassing both tangible and intangible cultural heritage, fostering the advancement of both the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Education Area (EEA), the KreativEU Alliance is committed to executing eight strategic Work Packages (WPs), see Figure 2.

These packages are meticulously crafted to ensure an effective and equitable distribution of responsibilities among consortium members. Each partner will jointly oversee a minimum of one work package, with the lead partner, the

BUas’ active participation in the EUI signifies a deepened focus on Europe, marking a significant shift from our global focus.

Institute Polytechnic of Tomar (Portugal), taking charge of coordinating two work packages, namely WP1 and WP8.

The strategic implications for BUas within the European landscape Internationalisation is essential for the future of education and research in Europe, and EUAs plays a crucial role in this regard. EUAs contribute to creating a more interconnected and engaged higher education sector, promoting cross-cultural understanding, fostering entrepreneurship, and promoting the exchange of ideas, so that member universities can contribute to advancing knowledge and addressing societal challenges more effectively.

Therefore, KreativEU represents a decisive commitment for BUas, poised to shape our global engagement strategy for the coming decade. BUas’ active participation in the EUI signifies a deepened focus on Europe, aligning with our sustainability goals and marking a significant shift from our global focus. This strategic shift towards a European-centric approach is synergistic with tapping into funding available through programmes like Erasmus+ and beyond, serving as a driving force for rapid change and pioneering cross-disciplinary innovation. The Alliance’s influence will extend across education, research, and community engagement, necessitating its integration into the fabric of BUas and the collective embrace of our entire community.

Sources

• KreativEU (2024), Knowledge & Creativity European University, Publisher: IPT –Polytechnic University of Tomar.

EUAs improve the quality and international competitiveness of the European higher education sector.

The sports venue of the future

Students from Built Environment, Imagineering, and Leisure & Events are designing together

Bart Stadhouders is a lecturer of Leisure & Events within the Sports & Esports Management specialisation.

Arun Swami Persaud works for Orange Sports Forum and is project leader of the Erasmus+ project NextGenerationSportsFacilities.

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.

“Our current initiative presents a significant opportunity to transform the concept and purpose of sports venues across Europe. By focusing on creating spaces that not only encourage physical activity but also enhance the well-being and happiness of our communities, we are shaping a vision for cities that are not only more beautiful and healthier, but also promote the values of true sportsmanship.” (Arun Swami Persaud)

SportsFacilities project include the NOC*NSF (Netherlands Olympic Committee), Breda University of Applied Sciences, and Orange Sports Forum. Portuguese partners encompass the Instituto Politécnico de Beja and QXote LDA, while Turkey is represented by Istanbul Teknik Universitesi. In every country, there are different case studies and there are differences in how sport is organised in Turkey, Portugal or the Netherlands. In Turkey, for instance, the case study is about sports in an urban context as the sport complex is in the middle of Istanbul. In Portugal, the case study is more about sports in a rural context while in the Netherlands, sports are still very traditionally organised with a sport club for each type of sport, a fenced field, a dressing room and a canteen. The project aims to think outside of these existing boundaries and design a venue for the future.

Diverse student team

A diverse project team in the Netherlands was created consisting of students from various domains within BUas: the Master Imagineering and Built Environment, including the involvement of Sports and Esports as well as Urban Life and Placemaking. The students use design thinking and prototyping to present mock-ups of their sports venue of the future. In this process, multiple stakeholders are involved, varying from residents to experts on sports infrastructure and innovations. The sports venue of the future should serve as a best practice example to change the sports infrastructure in the Netherlands, hence the involvement of NOC*NSF in the project.

Wicked problems

The first step in the project was to identify so-called ‘wicked problems’. These wicked

We also promote the values of true sportsmanship.

problems are issues (or opportunities) which were identified after a site analysis. For the Netherlands, we identified wicked problems such as the health of the population, water management, heating of the area, engagement in sports, fair play, and inclusion. We zoomed in on the city of Cuijk where we use the existing sport complex as our case to redesign the area into the sports venue of the future. As the location is close to the river Meuse, potential flooding of the river could be a scenario to take into account. Another problem we encountered is the lack of trees and foliage on the complex which could lead to heat stress in the summer. In Portugal and in Turkey they analysed different wicked problems such as the infrastructure of the complex and limited accessibility, but also maintenance issues and sustainability issues such as a lack of renewable energy, water, and waste management.

With these wicked problems in mind, students organised multiple stakeholder sessions to gather information for their designs or mockups. Students in the three countries exchanged

Bart Stadhouders Arun Swami Persaud

The project aims to think outside of the existing boundaries.

their design ideas with each other and three students of Built Environment facilitated a three-day design challenge in Portugal for the students of IP Beja. These final designs are to be judged per country by an international jury.

“As we endeavour to rethink sports venues, it is crucial to underscore the importance of sustainability in our designs. Prioritising the development of parks and green spaces that are environmentally conscious will enable us to address the challenges posed by a changing climate while nurturing more resilient and inclusive urban environments.” (Arun Swami Persaud)

Impact

When looking at the current amateur sports infrastructure and the way it is organised, you will find many complexes with, for instance, a football club, hockey club or tennis courts all with their own facilities (dressing rooms, clubhouse, etc.) and with a fence around the property. The challenge in this project is to break through these barriers and create a more

welcoming, open environment which invites people to become more active in sports and to also try different sports. Therefore, students will integrate aspects such as hospitality, multifunctionality, biodiversity, and the latest innovations in sports into their final designs. Design will be used to foster interactions and multi-use opportunities. You can, for instance, look at sport complexes as a future buffer between nature and the city or you can make a sport complex part of the city’s energy production and facilities. This means using the energy created on the sport complex to heat nearby houses (expert session of the NGSF project, 2024). By doing this, you also create more commitment among residents. You can then evolve towards a Community Centre where sports (and e-sports) play an important role but that also serves as a place to meet and interact with other locals.

Design will be used to foster interactions and multi-use opportunities.

The project will contribute to the priorities in the field of sport via encouraging participation in sport and physical activity (Holland Sports Industry, 2023). Through designing more accessible sport facilities, more people from all demographics will be able to participate in physical activity. This project aims to take away barriers often imposed by the sport infrastructure. When you take the fences away and make the target group part of maintaining and taking care of the facilities, you can create a more welcoming environment that is used more often and for multiple purposes.

Also, the project will contribute to promoting integrity and values in sport. Multifunctional and multi-purpose sport facilities encourage the coming together of different target groups with different demographic and socio-cultural backgrounds. This strengthens social inclusion and sportsmanship (Holland Sports Industry, 2023). There are examples to be found of sport complexes where they do gardening in a community garden and use all the vegetables and fruits in their own canteen to organise cooking workshops. Also, when the Olympic Games in Paris are looked at, many sport activities will be organised in the outskirts of Paris. Neighbourhoods with a bad reputation where sport is used to bring people together and provide opportunities for youngsters to participate and revitalise these areas.

Process

In September 2024, a second prototyping round will be started to build upon the first designs of the students followed by a dissemination phase to share important findings of the project through conferences and publications.

Sources Erasmus+: NextGenSportsFacilitiesHollandsportsindustry.com.

The InnovaT project

Higher education now & beyond

&

Liliya Terzieva is professor of Designing Value Networks at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Margo Rooijackers is a senior lecturer and researcher at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

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.

The project acknowledged the impact of technological advances on the conventional concept of teaching and learning, and the transformation of the roles of lecturers, students, and universities worldwide. Therefore, it emphasised the need for dynamic teaching methods and learning experiences that continuously incorporate innovative approaches and integrate new technologies. The InnovaT project was created to provide lecturers and students with the relevant skills necessary to incorporate new approaches and technologies, complying with the quality demanded. The consortium of this project was composed of nine institutes with recognised experience in the educational field and innovation of processes. These include three European and six Latin American HEIs. The project was coordinated by the Institute of International Management of the FH Joanneum

of Applied Sciences participated in the project as one of the European partner universities.

InnovaT output

The InnovaT project ran from 2019 to 2022 and consisted of eight work packages (WPs) varying from an in-depth needs assessment and knowledge transfer outset, capacity building of teaching staff, the development of a MOOC, the establishment of InnovaT offices in the six Latin-American HEIs, Pilot Innovative classes, to a package aimed at dissemination and sustainability. In addition to these activities, there were special WPs dedicated to quality assurance and monitoring and overall project management. To give an impression of some project impact indicators, the (online) training course was attended by 250 lecturers mainly from Chile and Peru; the specially developed MOOC attracted 2,355 participants worldwide; and the final conference in Piura was frequented by 173 international visitors. In addition to these statistics, less tangible but just as valuable key insights for the future of higher education were gained. See below for a summary of these as published in the InnovaT book titled Innovative Teaching in Higher Education, chapter VI “University Education and Training of Professionals for the Company of the 21st Century” (pp. 108-142).

Technology

It is more than clear, especially after being within the hurricane of a pandemic, that major steps have already been taken and still need to be addressed in terms of IT, blended, hybrid, and e-learning facilities. It is no longer just optional or an issue to be addressed in a strategy for the future but each and every higher educational institute has the objective and the responsibility to provide information to students by means of a personal portal, as digital access to information about education and the educational process

Without a doubt the core can be continuously traced within the ambition to have impact.

Liliya Terzieva Margo Rooijackers

- whether this is a specific Learning Management System and/or registration and administration software tools and applications for study results and examinations - becomes the ‘default’ expectation of all learners. Things are no longer communicated, promoted, visualised, and interacted with via only traditional channels; on the contrary, they have moved towards the learners’ ‘screens’ and ‘smart gadgets’ as well as towards social media applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Yammer, LinkedIn and many more.

Students require 24/7 access to a personal online portal (also accessible via an app) where all the diverse systems can be accessed (Single Sign On - SSO). Facilities are being created for lecturers at various workstations such as live streaming, collaborative software such as Teams, Mural, Miro, Zoom, etc. for maintaining national and international contacts and study coaching as well as COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) environments and webinar/self-recording booths.

Transversal competencies

Higher and professional education are not there just to shape professionals into experts with specific expertise, it is obvious now that the transversal competencies like problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, teamwork, communication, data savviness, entrepreneurship, and leadership gain more relevance, which will serve these professionals for life. These skills - together with an attitude of openness, curiosity, civic duty, optimism, initiative, an inquisitive mindset, and driveare already recognised by alumni and industry partners.

Internationalisation

In addition, the diversity and international environment, together with a transdisciplinary approach and connection with academic research, professorships and many industries are there to enable the students to understand, analyse, and intervene in the complexities of organisations. In that sense, educational institutes have already achieved first steps or have strengthened their role in managing to grow and enlarge their international networks,

stakeholders, and counterparties. Each university would need an internationalisation plan referring to the opportunity that students benefit from the international experience in their daily study environment. This can be gained through mobility and work experiences lecturers already have, international colleagues, and the international experiences that students have been gaining (either through mobility or international students living, studying and working within a new context).

Link to industry

The universities and professional training institutes also need to be the providers of education that has real and direct impact on the industries and wider society they serve. Its focus is neither ‘just’ on developing knowledge (through academic research) nor ‘just’ on applying knowledge (as traditional applied sciences) but primarily on its use in real life to solve real problems and shape the industries in which they occur. Practical use is the difference between innovation and invention. This education must be guided by societal challenges and aligned with national and international research agendas. Thus, a specific difference can be made where it matters and that means constantly evaluating and adopting the research and development activities through external, outside-in reviews. Designing the educational programmes needs to be seen as a learning expedition, where highly motivated and study-driven students collaborate and interact with professional and experienced lecturers and industry practitioners. Only in this way do the educational institutions become capable to continuously empower the development of the students’ multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral skills and competencies.

Lecturer’s role

Being in this dynamically evolving 21st century context, the lecturer has moved away from the one who has ‘all the knowledge’, who ‘knows the answers to all questions’, who is hierarchically ‘untouchable’, who is ‘there to provide knowledge in one direction’. Nowadays, lecturers operate beyond these

descriptions, with an added ‘twist’, covering roles like facilitator, mentor, collaborator, designer, empowerer, trainer, coach, supervisor, and many more.

It will not be too much to say that the continuously changing roles and the ones continuously added to the profile of a lecturer, transform the university as well as the professional training institute into a HUB – a blended (both physical and online) space of interaction among students, lecturers, industry partners and public authorities – where knowledge is sustained, practices are tested, and experiments are embraced.

Collaboration

Educational programmes in the 21st century call for a new structure – one that educates professional who can deal with the fastchanging society. People will be trained to become capable of translating those changes into new forms of organisation, in devising innovative approaches to problems and opportunities, and in carrying out plans in dynamic ways. To encompass this, the curricula need to look into ‘learning community’ and/ or ‘community of practice’ methodologies. Methodologies which refer to learning environments where students engage in a common task and each individual depends on and is accountable to each other by sharing their experiences. This collaborative approach aims to create a learning community that invites the students to get involved with the topic in different ways and to assume different roles throughout their learning together with lecturers, industry representatives, alumni, and researchers.

The community methodology described above is seen to be adapted and adopted more and more in the context of university and professional teaching and learning. It allows involvement and engagement of diverse stakeholders and the formation of a collaborative networking ecosystem, which we have also emphasised above.

Personalisation and flexibilisation of education

Personalisation and flexibilisation are not just about making courses accessible to students across an educational institute compatible in size and planning, so they can be combined. They are at the heart of everything an educational institute needs to create, namely a knowledge-rich, active, and sharing community that supports students throughout their learning journey. Students need to be provided ways to both actively learn from and contribute to the cross-disciplinary learning communities, courses, projects, and minors they participate in – enriching the learning experience for all: students from different study programmes, lecturers, researchers, alumni, and industry professionals.

Higher education now and beyond

The purpose of any higher educational and/or professional training institute has always been, but now even more than before, to educate students and prepare them for their role in society and their chosen professions and for engaging in research and development in their professional domains. Ultimately, their success is the measure of institutional success. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the educational world to define what students’ success means. The ease with which they find employment is certainly one indicator. So is the degree to which they are sought after by the industries the educational institutes serve (and want to serve). Another

indicator is impact: having a marked positive effect or influence on the development of an industry or society. However, what is more?

Without any doubt, the core can be continuously traced within the ambition to have impact – to shape a better, more meaningful, sustainable, open, connected, and appreciative world. This is representative of the generation coming to these institutes for a study programme today and tomorrow. It reflects a sense of civic duty, responsibility, optimism, initiative, and the desire to do more than just a job.

All the above can happen when the mission of educational institutes will become more and more oriented towards a model of combining multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary learning and research; where in learning and communities of practice students, industry partners and stakeholders, educators and researchers go hand in hand and work on practical challenges for industry and society – thus blending education, academic and applied research, and generating continuous impact.

The professionals that would need to be delivered to the different industries will have to be capable of operating in a world that is fast and constantly changing. As our global population is growing, living longer, becoming more prosperous and increasingly urbanised, we must find new ways to remain

healthy, consume less energy and fewer resources, protect the environment, and deal with the threat of pandemics and increasing geopolitical instability. Technology promises solutions to many challenges and it poses new practical, ethical, and legal challenges of its own. Robotisation, digitalisation and artificial intelligence will transform entire industries, the nature of work itself and the individual’s relation to society.

Unsurprisingly, both industries and society in general expect higher education and professional training institutes to deliver professionals who can help and lead them through these transitions.

More information

Video impression of the InnovaT conference: https://vimeo.com/ 728076977/75dff76466

About InnovaT: www.fh-joanneum.at/en/ projekt/innovat

Sources

• Terzieva, L., Rooijackers, M., Gutierrez, O. & Dam, van A., (2022). University education and training of professionals for the company of the 21st century.

In Becerra, J.P. & Quiroz, J.S. (Eds.), Innovative Teaching in Higher Education (pp. 108-142). ISBN: 978-956-410-997-8. Santiago.

The focus is primarily on its use in real life to solve real problems and shape the industries in which they occur.

Internationalising Tourism and Leisure Education

A historical perspective and the role of ATLAS

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.

The start of Erasmus

This is a far cry from the situation when the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education and Research (ATLAS) was founded in 1991. ATLAS links together universities, research organisations and students, helping to promote international education and research. The creation of ATLAS was essentially a product of the expansion of international education in Europe during the 1980s. The Erasmus programme started in 1987, and was an immediate success, creating student and staff exchange links across the continent. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Erasmus also expanded rapidly into Central and Eastern Europe, offering the perspective of an open education market and free mobility for students and staff. With a rapid expansion in international students and staff mobility, the EU wanted to establish structures to guide the development of this new, open field. The Erasmus programme began to fund activities to promote educational exchange, including the establishment of Thematic Networks.

education and exchanges also coincided with the emergence of tourism and leisure education. In UK universities, tourism courses appeared in the late 1980s. In the Netherlands, the Dutch Scientific Institute for Tourism (NWIT) was launched at what is now BUas in 1966. Tilburg University also began offering leisure courses in the mid-1980s, and Wageningen University began to offer courses in recreation and tourism. Tilburg and Wageningen were early partners in the Winter University programme, offering an intensive course in leisure studies for students in the Erasmus programme. In Breda a Master in European Tourism Management was launched in 1990, and leisure studies was added in 1994.

The emergence of ATLAS Universities running Erasmus exchanges and the Winter University programme, including partners from the UK, Poland, Belgium and Spain, met regularly to discuss collaboration. Out of these discussions ATLAS emerged as an educational platform, although it took off in 1991 with a European Union project on cultural tourism (Richards, 1996). ATLAS rapidly expanded during the 1990s, particularly through international research collaboration. The first ATLAS annual conference on ‘European Tourism and Leisure Education: Trends and Prospects’ was held in Tilburg, the Netherlands in December 1994 (Richards, 1995). This was essentially the launch conference for ATLAS, and attracted around 100 delegates from many different European countries.

Conferences

Since then, ATLAS has staged 31 annual conferences (the 31st at BUas in Breda in June 2024). The Annual Conference has always been held in Europe, where the majority of members are based. But the success of the network also created a demand for more international events. The first ATLAS Asia conference was

A growing number of ATLAS members have become involved in Erasmus projects analysing different aspects of international education.

held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1999 on the theme ‘Entrepreneurship and Education in Tourism’. This was followed by the first ATLAS Africa in Mombasa, Kenya in 2000, the first ATLAS Latin Americas Conference in Brazil in 2017 and the first ATLAS Middle East conference in Dubai in 2018. These ‘regional conferences’ allow members in different parts of the world to engage with the wider ATLAS network and to discuss subjects of particular regional relevance. Sessions are also often held in local languages, helping to support linguistic diversity.

Special Interest Groups

Specific areas of education and research have also been highlighted through the work of the ATLAS Special Interest Groups (SIGs). The first ATLAS SIG was the Cultural Tourism Research Project, founded in 1991 (and still running!), followed by the Gastronomy and Tourism SIG in 2002 and the Business Tourism SIG in 2003. SIG

Greg Richards

Greg Richards is professor of Placemaking and Events at Breda University of Applied Sciences and co-founder and former board member of ATLAS.

meetings are usually smaller scale and provide a forum for in- depth discussions around a single subject. As interest in new areas of education or research is growing, new SIGs are created, only to disappear again when interest wanes. Among the SIGs that have disappeared are Backpacking, Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, and Spa and Wellness. The SIGs have been extremely active, organising 76 meetings up to February 2022.

Webinars

The first ATLAS Webinar on ‘Tourism in the Shadow of Neoliberalism’ was held in October 2017, well before the pandemic made webinars a mainstream option. There were 17 online events during the pandemic, and hybrid elements have continued to be added to physical events, as at the conference in Austria (2023). During the pandemic many events also went online, which suddenly allowed people not usually able to participate in ATLAS events to take part. These included many students from Europe and beyond, and students also increasingly helped to organise events, such as the webinar on mega-events in 2022. Specific provision has also been made for international postgraduate meetings at the ATLAS conference, which now traditionally include a PhD seminar on the first day.

Publications

One important area of ATLAS activities in the early years was the production of physical publications. Researchers, particularly those from outside Europe, were very keen to have accessible publication opportunities, particularly before the Internet made research more widely available. ATLAS produced books covering a wide range of tourism and leisure issues, such as cultural tourism, sustainable tourism, heritage, tourism and leisure education, entrepreneurship, gastronomy, youth travel and

tourism, destination management, and events. This reflected the broadening of the tourism and leisure curriculum from general management or sociology towards more specialised areas of knowledge.

Shift to little leisures

This shift reflected a move from what Ken Roberts (2021) labelled ‘big leisures’ towards ‘little leisures’. One ‘little leisure’ that became particularly important for ATLAS was events, as event education boomed in Europe and elsewhere. Events were increasingly used to stimulate economic and social development, image change and tourism, leading to the development of ‘eventful cities’ (Richards and Palmer, 2010). Research by the ATLAS Events Group focused on the social experience of events, with comparative research on events such as Carnival (Richards and Marques, 2024).

The emphasis of ATLAS publications moved from books towards journals, as university staff became increasingly pressured to publish peer-reviewed papers. ATLAS facilitated this shift by launching the ATLAS Review in 2016, an accessible journal outlet for ATLAS members, particularly those outside Europe. The ATLAS Review includes many papers from the ATLAS Africa conferences, as well as issues on wellbeing, destination dynamics, gastronomy, and the impact of Covid-19.

Although ATLAS has shifted towards research, educational activities have also been strengthened by the new Education Special Interest Group. Many ATLAS members have become involved in Erasmus projects analysing different aspects of international education. One example is the CULTSENSE Project, which has developed tools for studying cultural sensitivity in tourism, including cases on the use of gastronomy as local identity, relationships between locals and tourists in Amsterdam’s Red Light District and Finnish saunas (Marques and Oliveira, 2023).

ATLAS regional networks in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia are beginning to stage more events and activities, partly thanks to the possibilities offered by virtual networking.

Trends in international education

ATLAS has continued working with the World Youth Student Educational Travel Confederation (WYSE) on youth travel and international education. This has helped to support the longitudinal New Horizons research programme, which has been running since 2002. The 2023 surveys indicated a rapid post-pandemic youth travel recovery, but also highlighted the dramatic impact of Brexit on UK higher education (WYSE, 2023). UK study travel fell by 29% in 2019, just before the pandemic. This drop is linked to a post-Brexit fall in EU/ EEA students. EU and EEA students now pay overseas fees following Brexit. In the decade to 2019, UK international tourism arrivals grew by 31%, compared with a global tourism increase of 65%. Youth tourism was particularly hard hit, as both inbound and outbound youth travel fell after the Brexit vote in 2016.

Brexit has not only made exchanges more complex, but is undermining the economic basis of some universities, with Goldsmiths experiencing 17% cuts. Brexit may also affect ATLAS, which has always had a strong British presence. Many UK universities are now looking for ways to replace European contacts severed by Brexit. That is hard to do alone, but collaborative platforms such as ATLAS can make the job easier.

ATLAS has steadily become less European and more international. Regional networks in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia are staging more events and activities, also through virtual networking. Global links have also been strengthened by new international franchise operations. This is most evident in the Middle East, where many international universities have outposts. Middlesex University in Dubai and Stenden in Doha have been instrumental in growing ATLAS activity in the region. Stenden also operates in Doha (Qatar), Bangkok (Thailand), Port Alfred (South Africa) and Kuta Utara (Bali). It remains firmly rooted in the northern part of the Netherlands where we are based, while at the same time maintaining a strong international focus. Many ATLAS universities now provide a

same time building global links.

Supporting its mission of knowledge development, ATLAS has been innovative in key aspects of tourism and leisure education. These include cultural and creative tourism (supported by the ATLAS Cultural Tourism Group), youth travel and volunteering (supported by WYSE), Sustainability (which has been an area of ATLAS’ work since the 1990s), Gastronomy (led by the ATLAS Gastronomy SIG), and Events (supported by numerous SIG meetings).

Future trends

In the future we will see international education continuing to expand despite the current parochialism of some countries. A growing area of activity is international comparative data gathering, which is increasingly being carried out with the involvement of students. For example, the Stretch Blended Intensive Programme launched at VIVES University in Belgium has expanded to include universities in Finland and the Netherlands. Students have collected data for a comparative study of the European Capital of Culture, which also feeds into their education. As research time for staff becomes more pressured, such studentbased research projects are likely to expand in the future.

Universities provide a local focal point for education and research, while at the same time developing global links.

This collaboration may also extend to ‘citizen science’ programmes. The European Union Citizen Science platform (https://eu-citizen. science/) lists over 300 projects engaging people in data collection on a wide range of subjects. To date, however, these projects do not include tourism or leisure, so there is clearly a gap to be filled there. Citizen science projects could effectively be used to explore the meaning and content of leisure and tourism practices, including filling some of the gaps between rounds of leisure participation research, which are often only conducted at ten-year intervals. This is another area where comparative international research could be very revealing.

The extent to which international education will survive the current political pressures is obviously the key question for the immediate future. Many universities are resisting government pressure to reduce international student numbers, not only because this will reduce their income, but also because it will impoverish their learning environment. Supporting international students will become increasingly important in the future, and this is one of the factors behind the growth of the ATLAS Student Section. Let’s hope this continues.

Sources

• BUas (2024) Discover our History. https://www.buas.nl/en/about-us/ profile/history

• Marques, L., & Oliveira, M. (2023). Promoting Cultural Sensitivity in Higher Education: An Educational Approach to Sensitizing Young Travellers for Local Cultures. Evolving Pedagogy. URN: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:jamkissn-2489-2386-28 DOI: 10.5281/ zenodo.10051659.

• Nuffic (2023) Incoming degree mobility in Dutch higher education 2022-23. https://www.nuffic.nl/sites/default/ files/2023-06/incoming-degree-mobilityin-dutch-higher-education-2022-2023.pdf

• Richards G. (ed) (1995) European Tourism and Leisure Education: Trends and Prospects. Arnhem: ATLAS

• Richards, G. (1996) Cultural Tourism in Europe. CABI: Wallingford.

• Roberts, K. (2021). Still speaking to ourselves: Leisure studies in a wilderness of multiple modernities. World Leisure Journal, 63(2), 152-163.

• Richards, G. & Morrill, W. (2023) Youth travel and Brexit. WYSE News, April 21. https://www.wysetc.org/2023/04/ youth-travel-and-brexit-2023/

Why global and cross-sector connections are essential for the experience economy

With WXO towards the experience revolution

Fabiën Vlems did the Master of Science Leisure and Tourism Studies at BUas and now works as operations & marketing executive for the WXO. James Wallman is CEO and founder of the WXO. He studied at Oxford (MA, Classics), Cambridge (Diploma, Business), and London (MA, Journalism).

History illustrates that idea exchange is a catalyst for societal progress. The Pax Romana, Mongolica, and Americana facilitated this exchange, uniting diverse people across the Mediterranean, Eurasia, and the world. This convergence of ideas within a civilisation sparks innovation that benefits all. As people with different thought processes interact, their ideas give birth to new ones. While not all ideas succeed, a few emerge victorious from the multitude of experiments, symbolising progress and innovation. The safety of the Pax Mongolica, for instance, opened up a vast superhighway for people, ideas, and goods to flow from East to West and West to East. As caravans brought horses, porcelain, jewels, silk, paper, and gunpowder along the Silk Route, they also brought new ways of thinking and doing. From the Far East came brilliant ideas like paper-making and printing. From the Islamic world came unheard-of approaches to maths, astronomy, and science.

Thanks to today’s caravans and ships - emails, the internet, Zoom, and the planes and trains that connect us in real-life meetings and

lead to ever richer innovation. Where will this innovation lead us in the 2020s? That is the magic of innovation; you never really know where exactly it will lead. But since we know that it leads to progress that has been unprecedented and was hard to imagine in the past, it is easy to believe (if not picture!) how it will lead to improvements in the future.

Evolution of living standards

Materialism and the Consumer Revolution, which gathered pace after the Industrial Revolutions from the 1920s on, lit a fuse that led to an unprecedented increase in standards of living.

As creators of radios, cars, shoes harnessed the magic of the industrial revolutions, and turned them into meaningful products and services for humans, sharing ideas across sectors, they produced better stuff. All that stuff added up to lots of better stuff - and that is the vertiginous rise in standards of living. That is what many believe is happening in the 21st century, particularly in the realm of experiences. You can see it in the rise of experiences, and the early flowering of the Experience Economy.

Influenced by macrotrends such as social media, ‘stuffocation’, post-materialism, environmental concern, and economic progression, many posit that today’s innovators are harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s magic for human progress. To carpe this diem, we must emulate our predecessors: connect and share across sectors and geographies. This is occurring rapidly and extensively.

World Experience Organization

Many immersive and experiential events and organisations have launched in recent years. The Experience Research Society (EXPRESSO) and the UK’s Immersive Experience Network

the World Experience Organization (WXO), founded in 2020. While many of these are local - oriented around a city or a country - or focused on a vertical market, such as immersive industry events - what makes the WXO different - not necessarily better - is that it is deliberately global and cross-sector.

This brings tension. Can a customer experience expert really learn from a themed attraction operator? Is it worthwhile for a sound designer for events to connect with a brand activation expert? Would it not be better to focus on their

The experience industry is at an inflection point and how we are building towards a more sustainable and financially viable future is top of everyone’s mind.

Fabiën Vlems

James Wallman

challenges? We should all learn from people in our own sector, but you might like to think of this as fishing. If you fish in the same water as your peers, you will catch the same fish. And the fish (ideas! You get the analogy?) will soon run out. For fresh, wild, or different fish, you have to fish in different waters. Innovation works like this too: in order to design, build, stage, operate better experiences in your sector, the best idea is to look in adjacent and even opposite experience sectors (see Edward de Bono’s concept of ‘rivers of thinking’).

And that is exactly what the WXO does. Weekly, we bring experts from various sectors to share and encourage conversation and connection around those ‘tent pole’ ideas - and for the experience experts to think about how to apply this to their own world. We do this online, in Zoom calls we call ‘campfires’ - because experience design involves expectation, and sitting around the campfire is not only ancient and quintessentially human, but we have all done it, we all know how informal campfires are. They are also levelling and anti-hierarchy: we believe deeply in expertise, but we also know that hierarchy can stifle creativity.

World Experience Summit

Once a year, we bring experts together at our World Experience Summit (WXS). After successful events in 2023 and 2024 we are running WXS 2025 in London. These events enable us to showcase brilliant, strange, useful ideas. Wim Strijbosch from BUas shared insights based on his PhD research into a specific dark ride that challenged the arc of the hero’s journey. Moniek Hover and Licia Calvi from BUas shared research on how the use of singular hero and ensemble heroes impact the design of vacation design. And we have hosted creators like Christopher Morrison and Stephanie Riggs arguing against the old hero’s journey. But this is not only about creativity: we believe in better experiences, and by better experiences, we mean the ones that: 1) make people feel more alive, 2) make more money, and 3) do good for society and the planet.

We also focus on the financial side and the business model canvas of your experience. If it does not turn a profit, it will not continue and cannot have an impact. In arts, culture, or non-profit sectors, success measures may differ. But as shown at Kronborg Castle, Peter Holst

Beck’s work on Hamlet increased admission prices by 50% and tripled visitor numbers. Great experiences can support other work. The National Museum of Denmark’s Director Rane Willerslev has called this ‘the Museum’s golden egg’.

Neat ideas, do they work?

With the support of key Experience Economy pioneers, including The Experience Economy author Joe Pine, Brigham Young University’s Mat Duerden, Burning Man’s Heather Gallagher, we have gone from a handful of people in 2020, via opening our doors to members in 2021, to around 750 members in June 2024 in 39 countries. Our members come from large and small brands, including Walt Disney Imagineering, Meow Wolf, Industrial Light & Magic, Deloitte, Excel, and Phantom Peak. Some reflections indicating the magic of when the network comes together:

“Such an amazing, talented, and fun crowd! We had genuine discussions on experience design from various angles - investment,

academia. Bring the right people together, let them co-create, and the result is mesmerizing.” (Jasmin Jodry)

“Experience design is a home for ‘misfit toys’. I always considered myself one of those - and I have recently been singing from the top of my lungs that the more varied perspectives and backgrounds we bring into the industry, the better. The WXS just reiterated to me that our different perspectives can come together to make beautiful experiences, and further...” (Mallory Schlossberg)

“The experience industry is at an inflection point and how we are building towards a more sustainable and financially viable future is top of everyone’s mind. There are some really interesting ideas buzzing around but we need to create systems and frameworks that allow us to create not just amazing experiences but successful business models as well.” (Nasya Kamrat)

Do your part

Be innovative by exploring unfamiliar territory. As an experience innovator, seek ideas from your sector, adjacent fields, and opposite experiences. Engage, connect, and share insights. Then enhance experiences that invigorate people, are financially viable, sustainable, and benefit both humanity and the planet. Let’s collaborate and contribute to the 21st-century experience revolution!

Bring the right people together, let them co-create, and the result is mesmerising.

Industry associations provide rich context for student development

The strategic relationship between ATPM and IAAPA &

(data reports, presentations, webinars) and the industry’s marketplace. They can join industry webinars for free and gain certification credits by attending events and webinars.

In 2024 we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Attractions & Theme Parks Management (ATPM) track. Since its start we have been members of the global industry association IAAPA. Over the years the membership has turned into a valued industry partnership for both students and faculty to get familiar with the industry, building professional networks and creating lasting friendships. In this article we showcase some best practices of this partnership and the opportunities given to ATPM students.

In line with ALE’s internationalisation strategy, the ATPM track has and has always had a strong focus to truly integrate an international, intercultural, and global dimension into the programme. Creating and offering intercultural classrooms goes beyond just welcoming international students. From the start this track has been English-taught and offered projectbased learning activities with real-world clients. Students work on assignments for a wide range of international clients, ranging from theme park or zoo operators, manufacturers and suppliers.

Industry events

At the start of their studies, ATPM students are stimulated to enter the business of serious fun by becoming an IAAPA student member. Students enjoy multiple benefits as they receive the monthly magazine FunWorld, have access

Every year, IAAPA hosts multiple IAAPA Expos, the largest trade shows for the attractions industry - perhaps even for the broader leisure industry as well. Every year, its European counterpart is hosted in another European city, highlighting the international character of the attraction and theme park industry. ATPM students are encouraged to visit this industry event for networking, attending education sessions, the young professional forum and student events. For students this is always an overwhelming introduction, while at the same time it is a pleasant way for networking with next gens, finding work placements and graduation assignments.

At IAAPA Expos, students can volunteer as student ambassadors, who receive a (hospitality) training course given by IAAPA, in which they gain insight into global industry trends. More importantly, they are recognisable as student ambassadors for the entire IAAPA organisation and committee members. It is always nice to learn later which CEOs and park directors they had a conversation with, as a result of which they could be given placement or graduation opportunities.

Education with industry partners

The collaboration with industry partners is integrated into the project-based curriculum in multiple ways, ranging from providing guest lectures or workshops to acting as a project client offering students a challenging assignment, sharing business insights and providing feedback on their final recommendations, solutions or designed experiences.

classes. For example, we often discuss pricing strategies of theme parks. Industry partner Convious.com inspires students with their vision of and strategies for dynamic pricing. More recently, sharing insights into data research and use of algorithms has become important too. During each project we also welcome our alumni back to class to share their career developments and bring in their expertise directly related to the project students are working on.

Being an active member of IAAPA has opened doors. IAAPA understands how important it is to connect with and to train future professionals. Connecting with other industry partners (ranging from (water) parks, zoos to manufacturers, suppliers, and consultants) has resulted in many guest lectures, both from the Netherlands and beyond - be it in person or virtual. Students love to hear first-hand experiences, lessons learned and tips for their future careers.

Projects

ATPM students learn within the context of real-life assignments from industry clients. This has often resulted in feasible advice; concept designs and other professional products later being used by these clients. From the start, we have had a strong relationship with Europa-Park (Germany.) In the very first project we engaged students in the upcoming social media and how to deal with fan communities. Over the years, we have supported Europa-Park Benelux in gaining insights into its brand awareness, researching

Klaus Hoven Wim Strijbosch

Klaus Hoven and Wim Strijbosch are lecturers and researchers of Attractions & Theme Parks Management at Academy for Leisure & Events.

At IAAPA Expos, students can volunteer as student ambassadors.

consumer willingness and preferences to visit the park and creating marketing strategies for positioning Europa-Park as a multi-day theme park resort destination. In the fourth year, minor students receive more complex assignments and have executed projects on topics like accessibility, inclusion or developing experience concepts for entrances, themed areas or F&B locations. The opening of the ‘poffertjes’ outlet Molencafé in the Dutch area (2016) was an absolute highlight in this process.

Many other challenges followed for clients like Puy du Fou (France) and Vekoma (Netherlands). The students’ work is valued by clients, who share these experiences with their network partners during IAAPA webinars or expo sessions.

As a result, the ATPM track has established strategic partnerships with multiple leading European theme parks and suppliers. This allows students and alumni to find their way in the industry throughout Europe. Over the years, our students have been valued for not only their understanding of the attractions industry, but also their international outlook.

Designing Sustainable Strategies for Themed Entertainment

In addition to the ATPM track (years 2 and

the attractions industry. Sustainability, future foresights, and business innovation are key topics which are tested in a three-day hackathon, supported by IAAPA. The hackathon starts with a trend session in which the latest industry insights are shared. Students design a sustainable experience for the future and are coached by professionals. The final showcase event always shows the creative and business power of our future talents, leaving a lasting impression on industry experts attending the event.

Establishing meaningful relationships requires long-term investments from all parties involved, especially in an international context. Therefore, it is so valuable to us to see how such partnerships can start from (small) educational projects and in some cases lead to research collaborations or involvement of other BUas experts at IAAPA events. A recent example is the session on ‘AI: Discovering Opportunities through Interactive Exploration’ hosted by BUas colleague Thomas Buitenweg at IAAPA’s Spring Summit 2024 (Antalya, Turkey). We received great feedback on this session, which resulted in an IAAPA Edutour to our BUas campus. A showcase event on AI and game technology will be hosted in collaboration with industry partners in the domains of Games and Data Science & AI. This shows how working with a valued partner like IAAPA could lead to potentially new cross-academy research collaborations and spin-offs for our aeducational programme.

Industry recognition

By now, the ATPM track at BUas is recognised as the leading educational programme in Europe because of its strong focus on and partnerships with the attractions industry. The IAAPA Foundation’s mission is to inspire and support life-changing careers by offering scholarships to talented students. IAAPA Foundation scholarships are given to BUas students, covering their tuition fee for one year. These scholarships are given out to support international students to study this special track at BUas, but also to encourage them to connect and network with IAAPA members. In 2024, IAAPA Foundation launched a new donation programme and held different fundraisers to raise more funding. We are very grateful that the IAAPA Foundation has decided to offer four

IAAPA understands how important it is to connect with and train future professionals.

Inspire higher education institutes worldwide

The partnership with IAAPA and the IAAPA Foundation offers great opportunities for both students and BUas faculty members. Our ATPM track is a recognised bachelor’s programme that also inspires other European higher education institutes to connect with theme parks in their own region. IAAPA supports annually held educator round-table talks to enhance and foster international relations between higher education institutes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The latest editions were chaired by Klaus Hoven and have resulted in a new initiative to design a joint master’s programme IDEAS with three universities from across Europe, under the Erasmus Mundus framework (see Uncover p.26).

Internationalising higher education requires an ongoing commitment between higher education institutes and industry associations and partners to foster a globally aware and inclusive learning environment. The collaboration between IAAPA and BUas proves that through networking and educational collaborations such meaningful learning environments could be created: for students to find a place where they can pursue their passion, and then turn from fans to dedicated professionals.

ESNS as a booster for the European music industry

Far more than a festival and network drinks party &

Joep Coolen (Live Music and Dance Events) and Simon de Wijs (Urban Life & Placemaking) work at Academy for Leisure & Events (BUas).

Every year around mid-January thousands of professionals from the music industry pay a visit to the Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS) in Groningen. ESNS is the only event and music platform exclusively focusing on upcoming acts in European and Dutch pop music. To make this pop music visible and audible for audiences, the media and professionals, ESNS organises a four-day festival and conference programme. By means of showcases, presentations, meetups, dialogue and discussion, the organisers give (young) artists a career perspective. ESNS thus contributes to a flying start to the careers of artists such as Shame, Stromae, Agnes Obel, George Ezra, and Dua Lipa. Yet, ESNS is also jokingly summed up in a few words as an industry New Year’s reception that has grown out of control. But ESNS is much more than that.

ESNS as a band contest

In 1986, the first Noorderslag edition took place in the form of a band contest as part of the Holland-Belgium festival. Where the first editions, in remote Groningen, attracted around 1,500 visitors, this has gradually grown into an annual festival attracting tens of thousands of visitors. In 1999, Eurosonic (Noorderslag does not sound so good in English) was added to give international musicians a place in the spotlights alongside Dutch ones. The broad focus on all European countries creates an attraction for international acts and therefore professionals

and fans and makes it hard to imagine the annual calendar of European music professionals without ESNS.

ESNS as an alumni meetup

For music professionals a visit to ESNS is useful for several reasons, but most of all – as reported by the three BUas alumni we are talking to – the network element is highlighted.

Joost van Abeelen works as a marketeer at Mojo Concerts and he “surely considers ESNS the most important gathering of the music industry, the place where everyone shares their plans for the coming year and where plans are made.” Joost also appreciates the diversity of connections: “You speak to people from all corners of the music industry, from labels to venues and booking offices. For professionals, ESNS is the place to build your career.”

Max de Beijer works at pop venue Hall of Fame and visits ESNS for several reasons: “The reason why I am going to ESNS is my position as programme coordinator at the Hall of Fame. ESNS is the event to see all the faces again that I send emails to all year. Of course, also getting to know new people to produce great shows with. Success stories are born at ESNS and that ranges from budding artists to collaborations for which seeds are planted during ESNS.”

Rowan Wapperom, marketeer for Greenhouse Talent, says: “The entire music industry is then just in one place. That makes it super easy to chat with each other, and link a face to the email. Especially that face-to-face networking with national and international partners is of immense value. By the way, that’s why we as Greenhouse Talent always organise a drinks party for our business contacts.”

ESNS is developing as the place for many networks to meet. There are, just to give a few examples, a BUas alumni drinks party, the VNPF

members’ meeting, a meetup of crowd safety professionals and a policymakers’ day. The attraction of ESNS is huge, which also leads, with a growing diversity of stakeholders and visitors, to a growing diversity of activities including fringe programmes.

ESNS as a springboard for talent

Because of its context, ESNS acts like a place where you need to be and want to break through as a budding musician. One of the ways to write more success stories is the European talent exchange programme (ETEP). ETEP is a ‘flagship project’ for the European Commission and an essential link in the ESNS talent development track, as it ensures circulation of European artists. It works as follows: some 130 European and international festivals are members of ETEP (among other things, Roskilde, Glastonbury, Sziget, Lowlands, Coachella, Lollapalooza and Rock in Rio). Their programmers (who book the artists for the festivals) come to ESNS; from the programme, they select artists to perform at their festival. Working with music export

It is hard to imagine the annual agenda of European music professionals without ESNS.

Joep Coolen Simon de Wijs

offices, European radio stations and other partners, ESNS supports international festival performances with media coverage, in the form of airplay and (online) publications. The festivals thus buy success in advance, the bands are assured of an audience that knows their repertoire and the media parties get a leadership position with listeners.

ESNS as a spotlight ESNS generates attention for Dutch and European pop music and enhances the international careers of Dutch and European artists all over the globe. For European and Dutch artists, ESNS is the most important export platform within and outside Europe. And that happens across the breadth of all genres, just look at the diversity of Popprijs winners (annual award for a Dutch act that has made a major contribution to Dutch pop music) with

van Tegenwoordig, Direct and Joost Klein. You want to be in the ESNS spotlight, both as a Dutch and European musician. Especially now that the European music sector has matured, it is time to take European music to an intercontinental level. ESNS is shifting focus in its strategy. ‘From Europe for Europe’ becomes ‘from Europe to the world’. At the same time, ESNS wants to put Dutch artists centre stage and become even more of an embassy for Dutch pop music in the coming years. Through stronger cooperation with Dutch Music Export, ESNS aims to raise its profile as a stamp of quality, by promoting Dutch acts at various events in and outside Europe. Looking at the festival’s music programme, ESNS is the trendsetter for line-ups in the next festival summer. With a shift towards more emphasis on hip-hop and female artists in recent years.

ESNS as a compass for the future For professionals, the ESNS conference is also

ESNS is the event to see all the faces again that I have been sending emails all year.

the meeting place for music professionals, but also for insight into how the ins and outs of the market are evolving. Today, the conference programme, which takes place during the day on festival days, includes more than 200 panel discussions, interviews, and keynote speeches. The programme addresses leading topics and innovations and aims to put the music industry on the road to a sustainable future. In its strategy, ESNS calls it: Music forever & for everyone. ESNS aims to take a position on social issues and propagate that as a source of inspiration, acting as a compass in terms of sustainability, innovation, technology, business models and inclusion. For example, to further increase sustainability around ESNS itself, the organisation is introducing innovative actions based on six themes: Energy, Food, Transport, Waste, Water, and Fair Trade. During ESNS, the organisers continuously pay attention to sustainable innovations in the fields of technology, production, and climate, among other things, to be a source of inspiration for visitors. Where ten years ago, for example, little attention was paid to sustainability or inclusion, a large part of the programme is now about these topics. In this way, ESNS provides space for and gives direction to the social debate and development of the sector.

ESNS as an urban transformer

A lot of fringe programming has organically developed around both the conference and festival programme, most of which is free to attend, even for non-professional visitors. So, there are all kinds of serious fringe programmes (full-fledged festivals of their own) like Platosonic (ESNS artists with a small set in the record shop), Grunnsonic (for local artists), Pleuropsonic (kicking ass at ESNS) or Altersonic (for bands too small for the ESNS stage). There is also Eurosonic Open Air at Grote Markt (Main Market Square) with bigger (mostly) Dutch artists. On the days of ESNS, there is virtually no room to be booked in the city (prices are also skyrocketing). Cafés and restaurants are full and the cultural infrastructure, such as Forum and Gronings Museum, but also cinemas, are crowded. Many entrepreneurs reap the benefits and profit from the liveliness during ESNS days. You can even state that ESNS can be seen as part of Groningen’s cultural heritage.

It is hard to imagine the annual calendar of the European music industry without ESNS. To many perhaps, above all, the perfect annual network event at the interface between business and pleasure, but for this very reason the situation is emerging where ESNS can create value at multiple levels.

Photography

• Ben Houdijk (page 45 top)

• Ronnie Zeemering (page 45 bottom)

• Siese Veenstra (page 44)

CELTH emphasises the importance of looking across borders and cultures

The inescapable international dimension of leisure

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.

In the Conscious Destinations Agenda, goals and challenges have been formulated based on research and policy documents focusing on regional broad prosperity, tourism development and - inescapably - sustainable development. All these documents emphasise that making conscious choices cannot be done in isolation, it requires multi-stakeholder approaches to develop future-proof solutions. From its start CELTH has always emphasised the importance of collaboration between businesses, residents, governments, and academia based on the vision that leisure is too complex to study from a lab

challenges we face need to be found in and with the real world. For the very same reason it is imperative that we do not limit ourselves to the Netherlands in looking for solutions. The problems we are facing are not unique to our country and do not disappear at the border.

Leisure activities influence social structures and community dynamics everywhere because they lead to all kinds of interactions as they use shared resources and are built on shared rituals. Leisure activities promote cultural exchange, enhance local identity, and pride, and contribute to social cohesion. Therefore, participation in cultural exchanges such as festivals and visiting cultural heritage in places like Kiev, Crete and Cádiz is seen as pivotal to safeguarding and sharing our cultural values and identity but at the expense of ever-growing CO2 emissions. Anybody going to Mad Cool Festival in Madrid or European Cultural Capital Tortu this summer?

All these examples show that leisure has an inescapable international and intercultural dimension that cannot and should not be ignored. Studying leisure from an international perspective is crucial due to the multifaceted global impacts illustrated above. This broader view allows for the identification of common challenges and the sharing of best practices across different regions, ultimately contributing to more sustainable and inclusive leisure practices. The Conscious Destinations Agenda tries to bring (some of) these challenges together in five different core themes.

Theme 1. Living Environment Hospitality is all about determining the rules and norms under which the host community is willing to receive (some) guests. These rules and

It requires multi-stakeholder approaches to develop future-proof solutions.

norms include those that aim to foster cultural and economic resilience and safeguard local biodiversity and ecosystems. Balancing these core elements of the living environment is pivotal to improving quality of life for residents. Many rural communities are eager to receive more guests. Rural depopulation is leading to a lower quality of life due to local schools, sports clubs and bars closing, leading to even more people leaving. A development that can be seen in many places throughout Europe. Some regions try to break this vicious cycle by implementing concepts such as Cittaslow and Albergo Diffuso to have local communities harvest the benefits of receiving guests. Similarly, the consequences of overtourism in places like Giethoorn and Amsterdam are not that different from those in Paris and Lourdes. The cost of living is increasing while sense of belonging and resident-oriented services and retail are disappearing. Internationally, Amsterdam is famous and infamous (depending on your stakeholder view) for the way it is

Bert Smit is Theme Manager of Organisational Capacity at Centre of Expertise in Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality (CELTH) and principal lecturer and researcher in Sustainable Experience Design.

changing local rules to degrow (party) tourism in favour of resident needs.

Theme 2. Organisational Capacity

The Amsterdam example highlights that improving the liveability of communities sometimes requires new and different ways of looking for solutions. Whereas the living environment theme takes the perspective of residents and local communities, the organisational capacity theme puts a lens on how stakeholder collaboration needs to be organised across different levels of government with residents, entrepreneurs, and NGOs. Collaboratively developing solutions requires both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, all the way from the New European Bauhaus down to volunteer cooperatives maintaining local cultural heritage. Studying and experimenting with new forms of collaboration, co-creation and capacity building should lead to new ways of conscious decision-making and different solutions.

Theme 3. Smartness

As illustrated above, developing a conscious destination requires smart collaborative decision- making. However, that raises the question of what kind of data or information is needed to make these decisions. Are we (still) using the right indicators? As illustrated in the introduction of this article, measuring ‘success’ requires redefining what success means. In some cases, it may very well mean more jobs and more overnight stays, but for some destinations ‘success’ could also mean increased biodiversity or increased resident participation in activities. The smartness theme focuses on developing data solutions and innovative technologies to support decision-making and optimise impacts. Experimenting with how indicators and dashboards lead to decisionmaking is important, because businesses and governments increasingly take decisions based on (aggregated) data. But if only data on jobs, inhabitants and average income are used as indicators of success, and data on volunteering, happiness, biodiversity and mental health is

not used, it is unlikely that any decision will be made that leads to increasing broad prosperity. Conscious decision-making therefore requires conscious data collection and presentation. CELTH recently developed an Impact label for holiday homes with Natuurhuisje.nl (Nature. House) to encourage holiday homeowners to invest in biodiversity.

Theme 4. Human Capital

The hospitality industry in the widest sense of the word offers many different jobs in many different businesses and organisations. According to Eurostat almost 12.5 million people have a job in tourism in the 27 EU countries. This data category includes the accommodation sector. Unfortunately, the EU does not have a separate leisure jobs indicator, although culture (7.7 million) and sports (1.5 million) are recognised as separate industries next to tourism. The human capital theme aims to get a better and more qualitative understanding of what current and future jobs ask of potential employees. Digitalisation and AI require new job skills, our ageing population requires businesses to invest in sustainable employability of their staff while at the same time they struggle to keep young talent in the industry because of the expected hours and average salaries. For the Netherlands this means that an increasing number of jobs is fulfilled by expats from the EU and beyond.

Theme 5. Leisure Offer

Leisure activities contribute to physical and mental well-being. Different cultures have unique approaches to leisure that can offer new methods for stress relief, physical fitness, and mental health. Understanding these can lead to the adoption of beneficial practices across borders (e.g. the revival of yoga and meditation in western society). At the same time, globalisation is leading to people from many different cultures and ethnicities living together in the same place. Facilitating the leisure needs of a more diverse population requires new ways of using public places and

buildings, for instance for events celebrating different cultures and outdoor activities (e.g. Tai-Chi). Understanding how communities and subcommunities make use of these spaces and facilities is essential to make sure they are fit for use.

The problems we are facing are not unique to our country and do not disappear at the border.

As can be inferred from the above, leisure happens in the real world and it is for and with this real world that CELTH aims to develop knowledge, tools and ideas. We need to look across borders and across cultures to learn and share what we know (for instance, in our education) if we are to make any progress towards a more interconnected and empathetic global community. The ‘Envisioning an Equitable Tourism Model’ project is a key example of this approach.

The power of Placemaking Week Europe

Celebrating community, creativity, and connection

Rosaria Battista has an MSc in Urban Management and Development, and she is working on better cities and sustainable growth at Stipo and Placemaking Europe.

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 find 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.

Cohesive network and foundation

Placemaking Europe originated from a need for a cohesive network among those passionate about transforming public space, starting during the International Placemaking Week in Amsterdam in 2017. Initially a network, it provided a platform for knowledge exchange among practitioners, policymakers, and community leaders. As discussions progressed, it became apparent that a more structured approach was necessary, leading to its evolution into a foundation. Now, Placemaking Europe serves as both a foundation and a network, fostering collaboration, developing tools, and advocating policies that prioritise the human

cherished, flourishing places where everyone thrives, uniting around shared values and taking action in our public spaces to create a vibrant, fair, and sustainable world.

Placemaking Week Europe

Our annual celebration, Placemaking Week Europe (PWE), is Europe’s largest placemaking festival, held every September in partnership with a different European city. Drawing over 400 participants worldwide and growing every year, the festival is a global hub for networking, learning, and knowledge exchange. Each year, new themes are tackled relevant to the host city and contemporary ideas in placemaking, featuring workshops, speakers, and real-time projects aimed at improving the way people experience the space around them. Examples of key themes from our last editions include Placeled Development and Placemaking for Equity.

Three factors guide our selection of host cities: Firstly, they must be front runners in placemaking, actively incorporating it into their urban development strategies. Secondly, they must have interesting stories, projects, policies, and even hesitance in their history to share with the global community. Lastly, we look for cities with an eagerness to learn, open to constructive criticism and willing to share their experiences to help others learn.

Collaborating closely with the city’s municipality, Placemaking Europe launches innovative placemaking initiatives, aiming to create a lasting impact and foster a vibrant, inclusive community consisting of forwardthinking people. The goal is to share the magic of placemaking, curating an insightful and memorable experience alongside a community of passionate and diverse individuals; we want the work we do together to resonate with

The festival is a global hub for networking, drawing over 400 participants worldwide and growing every year.

and inspire them to continue creating positive change in their own communities.

Strasbourg 2023

The 2023 edition of PWE took place in Strasbourg, France, marking a year of bold experimentation and creativity for the festival. The event showcased high-profile speakers spanning various disciplines in the field, including Charles Landry, the visionary behind the Creative City concept, and Ethan Kent, Executive Director of PlacemakingX, among others. Representatives from over 50 countries, spanning industry sectors such as real estate, architecture, and services, as well as non-profits and academic and governmental institutions, converged to participate in this dynamic exchange.

Rosaria Battista

Lecturer Andrew Shaw from BUas shares his first-hand experience: “I have visited PWE for a couple of years. What strikes me is the curiosity of the attendees. While there are many people joining who are an established part of the community, many are new and generally ask ‘What exactly is placemaking?’

The beauty of PWE is that there are also artists, students, community managers, developers in attendance, meaning that everyone’s views and definitions merge and change over the week. The vibe allows for professional conversations to become personal connections easily. Friendships are formed, which lead to further collaborations. The festival setting makes you feel relaxed and at home in what could be a very serious or stuffy subject and for me the impact has been huge. In 2023, we took our Urban Life and Placemaking students along to be part of all of this. They not only mingled in the workshops and networking, but also conducted some action research. A truly unique experience and learning environment for them.”

Next destination: Rotterdam

Now in its seventh year, the 2024 edition of the festival arrives at Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Rotterdam’s history is appropriately aligned with the principles of PWE. It holds a storied tradition of converting space into place, showcasing remarkable cases of placemaking throughout the city. The festival’s themes for 2024 explore a variety of hidden forces in placemaking that are particularly embedded in Rotterdam’s urban fabric, though applicable to many other cities.

The first theme ‘Creating Place and Making it Last’ underscores the importance of establishing enduring, inclusive, and dynamic spaces. Here you will explore sustainable space and dynamic resilience, incorporating diverse perspectives. Key explorations include implementing systemic placemaking practices and fostering a culture of learning and reflection for lasting urban transformation.

The second theme ‘Climate Adaptation: Together Towards Change’ addresses the urgent issue of climate change, promoting ongoing collective action for community and city resilience. You will explore effective collaborative strategies, nature-based solutions, and climate inclusivity for greener, healthier, and more resilient cities.

The third theme ‘Living with Water: The Flow of the City’ delves into the evolving relationship between cities and water, challenging old notions about waterfronts. Here the synergy of urban life and water is celebrated, exploring rejuvenation strategies that spark water awareness among city dwellers.

Lastly, ‘Local Power and the Battle for Space’ honours the local champions and creative spaces that shape thriving cities and their identities, often without formal recognition or support. Gaining insights into how to nurture transformative power in community spaces, preserving thriving districts during transformation, and fostering collaboration for more vibrant, inclusive cities.

This edition promises exciting insights into the hidden dynamics of placemaking, with the Keilepand taking centre stage as the main venue. Once a historic warehouse, it is now a revitalised home to the KeileCollectief, a vibrant space spanning 15,000m² where a mix of architecture and planning studios come together. Here, passionate entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds join forces to pursue their creative dreams. Today, it stands as a vibrant cornerstone of the Makers District, exemplifying sustainability and community-driven innovation.

The Legacy of PWE PWE leaves a lasting legacy of positive changes in public spaces and communities. The city’s eagerness to learn is pivotal as they do not see themselves as a selling point, but rather a canvas in progress, exhibiting works open to constructive criticism and new developments from other participants. Rotterdam is “The

By collaborating with our local heroes, we create a sense of wonder and connection.

differences and question where improvements can be made,” highlights Sarah van Schaik, project leader of 2024 Placemaking Week Europe at the municipality of Rotterdam. The collaborative and celebratory atmosphere, with Rotterdam as our shared stage, nurtures a community of forward-thinkers who actively shape positive change. “By collaborating with our local heroes, our placemaking gems of the city, and Placemaking Europe, we ensure an authentic and vibrant event, creating a sense of wonder and connection,” states Sarah.

Co-director Ramon Marrades of Placemaking Europe highlights the ‘triple impact’ PWE brings to its host city. “Participants in PWE naturally become ambassadors for the host city” as they feel they have made a tangible impact and left a part of themselves behind. This impact is threefold: firstly, it attracts a surge of visitors (leading to direct economic impact) who, inspired by the conference agenda, are encouraged to consume and ‘spend sustainably’; secondly, they develop a deep ‘affection’ for the city, feeling empowered to contribute to its development and take ownership of the

Erasmus Student Network Breda

Your new best friend

Iarina Dragomirescu is a student of Creative Business at Breda University of Applied Sciences. She has experience as the editor of HUB Magazine and works as a copywriter for ESN Breda.

ESN Breda is one of over 500 sections that are part of the Erasmus+ programme, present in more than 40 countries. As a smaller branch of ESN Netherlands, ESN Breda is working towards a more inclusive community for international students in the city of Breda. The core values of this section are unity, diversity, cooperation, and integration of international students in their new community by creating fun events for them to enjoy and meet new people. ESN Breda is partnered with BUas and Avans, having close relations with Breda Internationals as well, making it one of the most international-friendly and studentfriendly organisations in Breda.

Events & Programmes

What sets ESN Breda apart is their dedicated volunteer team, who always strive to put together the best events for every and all kinds of students. With events such as ESN Tuesdays, where you do not know what kind of fun activity you will get, they set the bar high when it comes to student fun in the city of Breda. The parties they organise take place monthly and have various themes, ranging from Halloween parties to Easter-themed ones, or even Neon parties, and they are the perfect opportunity to meet and befriend other students. If big parties are

appealing. These get-togethers are often board game nights, movie nights, and so on, offering a more intimate atmosphere than a club filled with hundreds of people. Not big on events? Then maybe you would enjoy something a bit more personalised. ESN Breda also offers a Buddy Programme for incoming students who need new friends. This programme connects future students in Breda with local buddies, students who have been studying in Breda for at least a year, and who can answer the newcomers’ questions about their university or the city and its surroundings.

ESNcard & benefits

The ESNcard is the membership card of the Erasmus Student Network. The card helps international students to make the most of their time abroad while saving money. This personalised card offers discounts on many services as well as social and cultural events. It brings tons of local deals you can enjoy together with friends you made during ESN events. For example, if you are craving Mexican food in Breda, you can enjoy a €5 discount on all main dishes at Popocatepetl restaurant, as well as a 20% discount on all beers at Café Sam Sam. But it also gives international access to discounts in other member countries. Imagine enjoying substantial savings on essentials like Grammarly, Flixbus, or Ryanair, as well as receiving assistance with finding accommodation.

Volunteer work

Volunteers are the heart of ESN (also see the stories of Aibal and Evgenia) and ESN cannot do without volunteers. There are many opportunities to contribute as a volunteer and, moreover, for your personal development through the work for ESN. For those interested in volunteer work, ESN Breda is always looking

We always strive to put together the best events for every and all kinds of students.

for enthusiastic people to join their cause. With its diverse range of events and relentless volunteer work, ESN Breda is truly an oasis for the new students of Breda, empowering them to make the most out of their experience abroad.

Whether looking for new vibrant cultures to learn more about, forging new friendships or simply getting to know your new study city, ESN Breda will always be by students’ sides to walk them through their exciting new journey. So, seize the opportunity to join this dynamic and lively community, unlock exclusive benefits with the ESNCard, and embark on an unforgettable adventure filled with laughter, learning, and lifelong memories. Welcome to your new home away from home and have fun getting to know your new best friend - ESN Breda.

More information

Do you have a question, want to become a volunteer or want to stay up to date about the upcoming events? Follow @esnbreda on Instagram.

Iarina

ESN Student Experiences

ESN has been instrumental in providing me with a sense of home and belonging in a foreign country.

I, Aibal Jain (ESN Board Member), discovered ESN through my work as a graphic designer at ESN Breda. Spending time in the office allowed me to connect with the board and to witness the impactful work they were doing in the lives of students. ESN has also been instrumental in providing me with a sense of home and belonging in a foreign country, and it allowed me to connect with a vibrant community through all the fun events we have spent together. It facilitated both my personal and professional growth through meaningful interactions and experiences, especially through the late nights spent at parties with the people who feel like home. That is why, in the end, I decided to apply for a position on the board: to contribute to this vibrant and homey community, as ESN Breda is a family of people who always make you feel like you belong.

When you go to an event and see all the people who are having fun, you cannot help but feel fulfilled that you are part of the reason they are there.

I am Evgenia Evtimova and became Assistant Manager at ESN. I already knew about ESN Breda from going to a few parties and always saw the Instagram posts about the events they were planning for students, and that is what caught my eye first. I was interested in what ESN is about but never really explored it further until a friend of mine who works for ESN dragged me into it. His selling proposition was that the community is very tight-knit and fun, moreover, the people you get to meet and get to know are amazing. I was immediately and warmly welcomed into the ESN Breda family, and it felt very nice to meet like-minded people who were ambitious, dedicated, hard-working, and inspiring. Moreover, as I am a media student, I joined the marketing department and I love the fact that everyone gets the opportunity to tailor what they do to their interests. The thing that surprised me is how rewarding the work feels in the end, because this is what we do it for. When you go to an event and you see all the people who show up and are having fun, you cannot help but feel fulfilled that you are part of the reason they are there.

That party marked the start of a beautiful journey and I hope that ESN can do this for other students as well.

My name is Diana Bălaş (Creative Business student at BUas) and ESN Breda has played a huge part in my student life here in Breda. This organisation was one of the first ones that I had contact with and their events helped me meet my first friends in the Netherlands. I feel myself part of the ESN Family. One event I will never forget is the ESN Halloween party of 2022, where my now partner and I shared some special moments together with the other partygoers. That party marked the start of a beautiful journey and I hope that this is something that ESN can do for other students as well. If there is one piece of advice I could give to new students here, it would be to join ESN events that seem fun because you can meet very cool people there who can become your best friends.

War-Life balance

Music shows as a key factor for mental survival

Hello dear reader, my name is Anastasiya, I’m a passionate producer of live music events from Kyiv, Ukraine. For 11 years I have been bringing a high-class music experience to people through artist booking, show production, project and marketing management, programme management, and team leading. I used to organise 365 shows per year, programming two iconic venues in Kyiv, Ukraine, promoting live music shows in Europe.

On 24 February, at 06.00 hrs, I got calls from my mother and a colleague, a promoter I met at ILMC, with the same message - “The war has started”... Immediately I heard a couple of explosions next to my house. My five-year-old daughter thought that the roof had fallen in. I started to collect our essentials and calmly asked her to get dressed, trying not to show my fear. She thought that we were going on vacation, but the fact was that we were going to a bomb shelter. We spent eight days on the floor in the shelters, under attacks from bombs. Even trying to escape from the shelter was not safe for my daughter. So, when people asked me how I ended up in the Netherlands I simply tell them: directly from the bomb shelter. When

Live shows in wartime

After the war had started, we reopened our two concert venues in May 2022, as we realised that people were freaking out with instability and really needed us. All of the artists and musicians were willing to perform for free. We did not have any resources at that time to pay them – all income had been donated to Ukrainian foundations. The audience got used to the missiles and drone strikes in the morning and it did not stop them from visiting the show in the evening. With the shelters and subway station located next to the venue, it was up to the visitors whether they wanted to hide during the air alarms or not. During one year of the war we produced 400 commercial and free shows for two venues, sold 40,000 tickets, and collected 100,000 euro for charity for Ukraine. If you want to help Ukraine by contributing to the purchase of ambulances, please follow Zeilen Van Vrijheid - Aid for Ukraine together with whom we arranged the shows to raise funds for Ukraine.

Starting as a lecturer

When I escaped the war, my priority was to find safety for my child. I realised that I could

I ended up in the Netherlands directly from the bomb shelter.

no longer pursue a career in the entertainment business. Instead, I wanted to make a positive impact on the mindset of future generations, and I found teaching to be the best way to do so. When I arrived in the Netherlands, I was determined to find a job that aligned with my experience in teaching. I found a teaching role at BUas through LinkedIn, and since August 2022 I have been proud to be making a positive change as a part of the BUas community. I’m honoured to lecture the gifted and curious students of the Live Music and Dance Events study track.

And guess what? I arranged a live music show in the Chapel of the institute. The President of the institute, Jorrit Snijder, kindly supported the idea to arrange the first event for all Ukrainian students in the Netherlands for the purpose of supporting their mental health. I asked a famous Ukrainian band Go_A, who are very well known in the Netherlands, to join the initiative. They played a concert at BUas which united Ukrainian students from the Netherlands and Belgium, and the BUas community. I was impressed with how the power of live music unites hearts and minds; it very much resonated with my aspiration for music events to be a catalyst for unity in the pursuit of justice, dignity, and shared values. I was happy to realise this concert together with the strong community of BUas, including colleagues like Joyce Seegers, Nina Nesterova, Charlie Hicks, Raquel Araque Bolinches and my students, and thanks to fellow Ukrainian stakeholders and JBL company who donated beautiful gifts for the students and the team.

Sometimes I ask myself why I work in the live music industry. Now I know - to be able to one day arrange a show for my daughter in Ukraine, under a peaceful sky.

Anastasiya Vaganova

Anastasiya Vaganova is a lecturer of Live Music and Dance Events (BUas).

Connection to Industry

Where do we stand now and what are the challenges?

Within my role as account manager, I am involved in developing strategic partnerships and collaborations with companies. Such collaborations include not only work placements, minors, and graduation projects, but also guest lectures, company visits, research, projects or networking initiatives. This is in line with BUas’ strategy, with the theme of ‘Connection to Industry’ to be precise. An important question here is: how can we enter into more international partnerships to develop relevant education for industry while creating business and social impact? In my daily work, I deal with internationalisation from different perspectives. Here’s a little insight into what is going on and what challenges lie ahead.

Internationalisation within the education teams

The various specialisations I am involved in take different approaches when it comes to internationalisation. At Events for Business (EFB), the focus is on a few specific issues. On the one hand, there is the focus on a specific location, namely Barcelona. This is where the annual study trip including a visit to the IBTM event takes place. This global event focuses on the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) industry. Students attend presentations, follow workshops, and make contacts with companies (e.g. for future work placements). The advantage of such a distinct focus on a location like Barcelona is that students gain in-depth insight into the local culture as well as the leisure and events sector. In addition, this destination offers numerous opportunities for practical experience and work placements, where students can directly apply their theoretical knowledge to practice. On the other hand, EFB runs a cooperation project with Vives and other European universities (see elsewhere in Uncover).

and Theme Parks Management specialisation offers an internationally unique programme and (partly because of this) has traditionally worked with top international players such as Europapark, Tripsdrill and Disney Orlando (through CMU and Yummy Jobs). In addition to placements, students work on international projects for these renowned partners. The collaborations not only contribute to the further development of our students in a real-life environment, but also strengthen BUas’ ties with the industry.

In the Live Music & Dance Events specialisation, there are some long-term international connections (e.g. Roskilde Festival in Denmark) where students volunteer or do placements. In addition, the specialisation is looking for the right destination for the study trip. Budapest and Berlin were previous destinations, partly because of the festivals and organisations present there, but the focus may be redirected towards Spain; Madrid and Valencia. This is because of connections around the ‘Mad Cool Festival’; an annual conference and showcase that provides opportunities for students and BUas experts to network, participate in sessions, and connect with leading international organisations.

Placement positions for internationals

In general, there is a growing need for international students to do their placements in the Netherlands. A good development, but also a challenge. A shift towards more openness towards non-Dutch-speaking placement students will be needed, so that the range of available placement positions in the Netherlands meets the demand of international students. To convince more Dutch companies to take on international students for placements, you will have to highlight the benefits, such as creating more diversity and innovation in the organisation. International students bring different perspectives which can lead to new

A shift towards more openness towards non-Dutch-speaking placement students will be needed.

ideas. In addition, these students are often multilingual, very interesting for companies operating internationally. To conclude, international students generally have a global network, which can provide opportunities for companies to access new markets. This is something I like to advocate.

Investing in international partnerships

In the coming years, I would like to develop myself further in the field of account management and establishing national and international partnerships with companies. BUas is a member of the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN). This international network connects professionals working in higher education and universities entering into partnerships with the professional field. Every year, UIIN organises a conference where peers meet, exchange knowledge and network. Together with several colleagues, I hope to gain experience in and inspiration about investing in international partnerships at such a conference. What are best practices? What are the do’s and don’ts?

Lars Davids

Lars Davids works in the support team of Leisure & Events (BUas) where he fulfils the role of account manager.

Exchange and the value of intercultural perspectives

Facts and figures at Academy for Leisure and Events

most credits and who have the highest average grade stand the best chance of going to the university of their choice. Students choose three universities they would like to go to and although there are usually enough places available for all students who apply, not all of them can go, mostly because some countries tend to be much more in demand than others. The popularity of Spain is very hard to beat.

In line with BUas’ programme portfolio, international cooperation has always been part of what we do. In 2023 Academy for Leisure & Events (ALE) had 18.6% incoming international students (of 547 students in total) which compares favourably to 2017 when we had 11.8% incoming international students (of 493). This is the number of students who do their entire study programme (bachelor’s or master’s) at our academy, named ’degreeseeking students’ in formal terms. We also welcome incoming exchange students, who only come to study for one semester.

Incoming exchange students come and study in the context of the Erasmus student exchange programme which was introduced in 1987. The aim is three-fold: to enable learning mobility of individuals, to stimulate cooperation among organisations and institutions, and to support policy development and cooperation. ALE has enthusiastically embraced these possibilities and where the question ‘why manage leisure?’ initially raised some eyebrows internationally, adding ‘Events’ to the title definitely helped.

Selection and matching

Together with the academic coordinators, Student Office coordinates the selection of students who apply for an exchange. The system

Numbers

To give an indication of the numbers: since 2011, around 300 ALE students have participated in exchange programmes in as many as 19 different countries; in 2024-2025 32 ALE students will go to 13 different countries. ALE now has exchange agreements with 57 partner universities, and we regularly receive requests from new international universities. The number of incoming exchange students at ALE has been stable between 10 and 20 for several years now, a number we would like to see go up. However, finding accommodation turns out to be a major challenge, for all students but for incoming exchange students especially, because they are only in Breda for one semester.

Specialisations

The introduction of specialisations at ALE has enabled incoming exchange students to choose a programme that is as much in line with their ambitions and interests as possible. All specialisations have welcomed incoming exchange students in their midst. Events for Business and Sports & Esports are currently doing a more in-depth exploration, together with partner universities, of how programmes are complementary and how new ways of cooperation can be developed, for example, with

Fortunately, the experiences of almost all students are very positive. Both incoming and outgoing exchange students value being immersed in a different culture for one semester, they learn a lot by being in a completely different educational system (“It made a nice change to attend classes in a more traditional way”) and they become more appreciative and understanding of different cultures. Although having a good time and making friends for life is not one of the main aims of the programme, it is clearly something that enhances students’ wellbeing and clearly contributes to study success.

Coming to Breda

In their evaluations, many incoming students explicitly state how much they appreciated the welcoming atmosphere, created by staff and students alike, and the different approach. Project groups, peer assessments, going through a course programme as a group - all ways of working that we are used to at ALE; this is new to most international students. Bonding with classmates through projects, sharing responsibility and feeling proud of what has been achieved are all enriching. Moreover, students experience living in a new culture. Many students who come from cultures where employees are addressed by their formal title and where they are not expected to ask questions are pleasantly surprised by the ease with which they can reach colleagues at ALE.

Exchange experiences offer students as well as colleagues who welcome them and ALE students who work with them, the value of intercultural perspectives. We look forward to offering this inspiration and being inspired ourselves for many years to come.

Annet Ghering

Annet Ghering is exchange coordinator at Academy for Leisure & Events and a lecturer at Social Innovation.

Student exchange experiences

Exchange is not a semester in a life but a life in a semester.

My name is Lynn van Venrooij and I did an exchange at Johnson and Wales University, Rhode Island, US. It was a great experience which allowed me to travel the US as well. The school semester is four months, and I travelled for an additional two-and-a-half months. I lived in a dorm on campus, which I absolutely loved.

JWU has multiple sports teams which you can go watch to support the Wildcats! There are also gyms on campus, which are completely free and a lot of fun to go to with friends. I got on very well with my roommate. Making clear rules with my roommate and being honest to each other worked well. My best friends were other exchange students and my roommate. We still keep in touch and even visit each other!

I took courses related to the entertainment industry, film and music – some theoretical, some more practical. The testing system was new to me. I found it easier to pass courses because homework assignments are graded, in addition to the midterms and finals. I preferred this way of learning, as it is less overwhelming than the Dutch education system can sometimes be.

I would recommend everyone to go on exchange; it might have been the best six months of my life. I made friends for life from all around the globe. An experience of a lifetime!

I became more curious, more open-minded, more confident and more productive.

I am Marina Khadzhi – Nazarova and in my second year I decided to apply for an exchange programme at the University of Barcelona: I immediately pictured myself eating churros at the beach for breakfast, paella for lunch, hyped up also because of the Spanish environment that would enhance my Spanish!

I remember my first day on campus, the people I made friends with, the six different subjects four days a week - a little bit like my secondary school schedule. I had expected it to be challenging but it appeared to be an incredibly valuable experience for me. My curiosity was constantly satisfied by lecturers and new local friends I made, on campus and on the many ESN trips I joined. I instantly got caught up in the swirl of discoveries, excursions, subjects, perspectives, and friends.

In September 2023, I returned to BUas for my final year and felt like nothing had changedeverything seemed so familiar. My feelings were controversial because nothing had changed but me. I had changed. I had grown. I had developed. I took many lessons from it: I became more curious, more open-minded, more confident and more productive. Barcelona offers thousands of temptations to forget about studying and go partying and sightseeing, but this only encouraged me to hone my time management skills. I managed everything: enjoyment, my social life and sightseeing. This experience will always have a special place in my heart.

The most important stranger you will meet while living abroad is yourself.

My name is Monica Schram and my studies included exchanges in years three and four. These facilitated profound personal growth, leaving an unforgettable imprint on my personality. The experiences not only transformed me as a person, but also influenced my outlook on life. Feeling more confident and independent is the obvious proof. Navigating a foreign city, managing daily responsibilities, and adjusting to another culture pushed me out of my comfort zone. I became more self-sufficient, and my self-esteem grew as a result.

These experiences empowered me to embrace change, take chances, and find my own path towards happiness. Going on exchange increased my open-mindedness and empathy. Interacting with people from all origins and learning about their stories and perspectives broadened my cultural awareness, improved my communication skills, and helped me create valuable connections. “Become friends with people who are not your age. Hang out with people whose first language is not the same as yours. Get to know someone who does not come from your social class. This is how you see the world. This is how you grow.” It is a priceless experience that will help me become a more competent and globally aware person that appreciates the beauty of cultural differences, which will ultimately help me to be a better leisure professional.

All in all, the exchange periods expanded my horizons and gave me life lessons that I will remember for a long time to come. Encountering diverse cultures and unfamiliar territories was enriching and fostered resilience. These experiences enabled me to grow, both personally and professionally. I am thankful to BUas for granting me these opportunities, and I will cherish these memories forever.

Participating in a workshop in Barbados Caribbean World

Heritage Sites in the

light of today’s global

challenges

and

at Academy for Leisure & Events, in the BSc Leisure Studies and the MSc Leisure and Tourism Studies.

I teach the courses Storytelling and Cultural Narratives, Understanding Leisure and Tourism Attractions and Events, and I supervise qualitative research projects. In 2022, I finished my PhD, and now I am defining my research direction further, which is mostly related to Placemaking, Events, and Storytelling. From 5 to 8 February 2024, I took part in a workshop in Barbados, called Caribbean World Heritage Sites in the light of today’s global challenges: the case of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison. The workshop was organised by Dr Maaike de Waal from Leiden University in collaboration with UWI (University of the West Indies). Maaike had asked me to participate and deliver a keynote presentation.

At first, I was hesitant to go. Obviously, Barbados is a place most people want to visit since it is one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean. But on the other hand, I did not want to impose an outsider perspective in a cultural context that was unfamiliar to me. But Maaike had worked at UWI and lived in Barbados and had strong connections there. When we discussed the workshop, I trusted that she could judge whether my expertise and contribution would be of added value. The fourday workshop took place at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. The participants were lecturers and some students of UWI, and other stakeholders, all involved in Bridgetown as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, such as a representative of the Ministry of Tourism, the director of the Barbados Museum, architects, and city planners. It was a very diverse and multidisciplinary group.

The workshop consisted of a mix of keynote presentations by experts in different fields, and Open Space Technology sessions, which is a participatory technique in which the participants collaboratively make the agenda, and individuals take ownership of one of the agenda items. This was also linked to an online environment, which led to immediate output and documentation of the workshop. Another advantage of the technique was that, given the great diversity in participants, not only in expertise, but also in position and power, this technique made it possible for people to join their conversations of choice, which gave everyone a chance to have their voice included. The themes that were discussed during the three days were, among other things, conservation, tourism, liveability, sustainability, and maintenance of the buildings.

At the end of the second day, I delivered my keynote presentation about storytelling and re-framing heritage. It led to a very interesting discussion on whose heritage Bridgetown is, and what stories should be told about it. Bridgetown is colonial heritage and therefore also contested. The workshop ended with a guided tour of Bridgetown by Dr Karl Watson, a renowned expert on Barbados heritage and a true storyteller. It was an absolute pleasure to listen to his stories, which ranged from historical episodes to personal anecdotes.

Follow-up and outcomes

Participating in this workshop was valuable for several reasons. Firstly, it allowed me to apply the concepts and theories I use in my courses at BUas to a different cultural context. Moreover,

storytelling, and tourism, also from a postcolonial perspective.

Back in Breda, I have been interviewing the participants about the topics of the workshop to obtain more formal data. The goal is to write an insights paper based on the workshop, and hopefully also an academic paper, in collaboration with Leiden University and a scholar from Barbados. Moreover, I intend to use Bridgetown as a case in my lectures, since it is illustrative of many of the concepts that we already discuss. After this workshop I feel quite inspired, and better equipped to further explore placemaking, heritage and storytelling in a Caribbean and post-colonial context.

Participating allowed me to apply the concepts and theories I use in my courses to a different cultural context.

Ilja Simons

Ilja Simons is a lecturer

researcher

The city belongs to everyone

Copenhagen engages communities in designing a vital, inclusive and future-proof city

Peter van der Aalst is a member of the management team at Academy for Leisure & Events and is pursuing a Professional Doctorate on utilising urban or street culture to develop future-proof cities.

A Dutch-Belgian delegation specialising in sport and vitality recently visited Copenhagen. Representing Breda University of Applied Sciences, I participated in this delegation to strengthen our international network. Moreover, the programme aligned seamlessly with my professional doctorate studies, which focus on the role urban or street culture can play in the development of future-proof cities. So how do you ensure that leisure activities contribute to a vital, inclusive and attractive city for residents and visitors?

Smart framing, attentive listening, and allowing scope

Most of Copenhagen’s population are between 20 and 40 years old, which has effects on the demand for sports facilities. Teenagers, in particular, often seek out less structured sporting activities. Thomas Bach, director of sport at Copenhagen City Council, therefore prefers to speak of ‘activities’ rather than ‘sports’, hoping to broaden the policy landscape. This resonates with part of the target group of young people, who do not immediately identify with the term ‘sport’ and who gather at venues where physical activities blend seamlessly with cultural expressions. Using a different word to create policy scope, it seems like a minor intervention, but it can have substantial consequences in the long run. As I have to make interventions within my professional doctorate to initiate innovation processes in the field, this was a valuable lesson.

The national government organisation Lokale og Anlægsfonden is a foundation that develops projects that offer new solutions for the leisure lives of Danes. These must have strong local

Local developers are supported throughout the entire process - from brainstorming to advice and final implementation. The key is to engage with the intended actual users, especially also current non-users within local communities. Municipalities and sports clubs usually initially come with a financial question for a new sports facility, the counter question is then, “Why develop it this way, and what neighbourhood problem will it address?”. Thus, when developing facilities, the creation of social areas where people can just chill out, also turns out to be crucial to ultimately attract the intended users. In essence, “If you build differently, you get different results”. That was the second eye-opener for me: it is crucial to also research why people do not use existing facilities or no longer use them, and use the findings to develop facilities that are more inclusive.

Appealing examples

In Copenhagen, Lokale og Anlægsfonden was involved in the completion of the climbing hall Blocs & Walls, the street culture-oriented StreetMekka house, the Martial Arts house and the outdoor sports facilities or ‘urban playground’ on the roof of a car park in Nordhavn. The Superkilen public park in the Nørrebro district is a kilometre-long park that was designed with input from the diverse local communities and embraces elements from all cultures involved. The aim is to bring immigrants and local population groups together, contributing to tolerance and cohesion in one of Denmark’s most diverse and socio-economically challenging neighbourhoods. Superkilen is also a major tourist attraction.

Another example of the creative use of public space is URBAN13, a social business in the Frederiksberg district of the city that aims

If you build differently, you get different results.

to provide space to bottom-up initiatives from the neighbourhood and increase neighbourhood safety. URBAN13 is situated in a former car park beneath two bridges, splitting the neighbourhood in two parts, each with completely different populations. Driven by its own initiative, the organisation has transformed this space into a multifaceted hub. It now houses a venue, shared office space, catering outlets and a range of street sports amenities – all freely accessible. In this way, a natural and easily accessible meeting point has been created, where the daily activities cater to diverse target groups. These target groups are explicitly encouraged and supported to develop their own initiatives. For me and the other participants on this trip, URBAN13 was yet another inspiring example of how to involve diverse communities in designing a vital, inclusive and future-proof city. Which happens to be the very essence of my Professional Doctorate track: how can you harness urban or street culture to develop a future-proof city, in such a way that it strengthens both the urban scenes and the city as a whole?

Peter van der Aalst

The intercultural classroom Student

experiences

With classmates we have often enjoyed drinks in the city or shared a meal together after school.

Hi I am Marei van der Kooij, and I am in my second year of the Master in Strategic Event Management. To be honest, I did not intentionally choose an international school environment at BUas. I wanted to pursue a master’s degree in event management, and this programme had a high reputation. In retrospect, I am glad that it was an international programme. Not only do you improve your English, but you also learn a lot from your international classmates.

I find it extremely valuable to work with international students. They bring different knowledge from their educational backgrounds in their home countries. Additionally, you learn a lot about interacting with people from different cultures.

Since our master’s programme is part-time, many students do not live in Breda. This makes it a bit more challenging to do fun things together. However, we have often enjoyed drinks in the city or shared a meal together after school. We even once made various snacks typical of our countries and brought them to school. This is highly recommended because I ate some delicious food that day!

Our placement programme also made me wiser about other cultures, languages and traditions.

I am Sven Otten and I study Leisure & Events Management at BUas where I attend the Urban Life & Placemaking (ULP) specialisation. Before choosing this study programme, I was not necessarily looking for an English-taught course, but in the end, I am very satisfied that I did choose it. The main reason for me was to improve my English and because I think it will also help me in the future when I start working in the leisure industry.

Being taught in English and working with fellow international students was quite new to me, but I quickly got used to it. In the ULP class, we have students from more than five different countries. I think the best part of being in a class with international students is getting familiar with other people’s cultures and learning the different perspectives on all kinds of topics.

My studies also allowed me to meet many new people and make friends. What is special in that context was our placement programme abroad for which I studied in Seville for six months and lived with an Italian, Polish and Slovak fellow student. This also made me wiser about other cultures, languages and traditions. We now see each other a lot around classes on campus and once in a while we also meet up outside school or during certain school events.

Many collaborations are being set up in the leisure sector between stakeholders from all over the world.

I am Sander Mazeland and I recently completed the Bachelor of Science Leisure Studies. Next year, I will continue at BUas on the Master of Science Leisure and Tourism Studies. The reason I chose the bachelor’s is primarily because of my huge interest in and passion for leisure and everything to do with it.

I consider the fact that I am studying in an international school environment a huge advantage. Due to developments around the world, but also specifically in the leisure industry, a global perspective is increasingly necessary. Moreover, many collaborations are being set up in the leisure industry between stakeholders from all over the world.

From working with my fellow students, I get a lot of benefit. Because of their different cultural backgrounds, they can be real ‘eye-openers’ in some situations. You learn to think more critically because others can give you a new perspective.

I also see this outside my studies. Some classmates I seek out to do things with. Since I share the passion for themed entertainment with others, this is also something we enjoy together. The discussions at these times are also educational in a fun way. At the same time, my fellow students can be a bridge to interesting international partners in this field for my own leisure network.

Most people on campus speak English, so it was very easy to adjust to student life here in Breda.

My name is Louisa Schüller, I’m a student from Germany and I also work as a wedding planner at Christel Winther Weddings. I did my bachelor’s studies in Tourism in Belgium and really wanted to learn more about events management. I’ve always loved going to the Netherlands when I was growing up, so when I found BUas, it was a perfect fit for me!

I went to the international kick-off and to the kick-off for my master’s programme in Strategic Events Management (MSEM) and both felt really welcoming and exciting. I loved how open everyone was and that most people on campus speak English, so it was very easy to adjust to student life here. I, unfortunately, decided not to move to Breda, as I live nearby in Belgium and only had classes once a week in the MSEM programme. However, I was really lucky to have a great group of classmates and we would often hang out together after class. Breda is such a beautiful city that I definitely want to explore more.

Right now I am finishing up the MSEM programme and looking for jobs in Belgium but I am also considering finding a new adventure. I have been able to learn quite a lot of Dutch, so who knows, maybe the Netherlands is going to be my new home.

When I realised that I did not need to use Google Maps anymore - that was the moment I realised that Breda had become my second home.

Hi there! I am Carmina Ţărean and I come from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I chose the Leisure and Events bachelor’s programme because of the many festivals that I volunteered at in Romania, such as Electric Castle. Moving to Breda felt like a leap into the unknown because the culture is so different from my own. For example, In Romania there is a high power distance between students and lecturers. In the Netherlands, lecturers are much easier to approach and interact with. However, I felt excited to discover a new city and a new identity.

One day while biking, I realised that I did not need to use Google Maps anymore - that was the moment I realised that Breda had become my second home. I must say, while living here, I got an answer to the following question: What is more important: the journey or the destination? Well, the truth is, ‘the company you have along the way’ is the most important. Breda feels like home because of the people I met, I connected with, and got to love wholeheartedly.

After four years of academia, I feel it is time to leave the Netherlands and start a new chapter. My dream for now is to move to Australia for a year to work and travel. Nevertheless, I would definitely consider moving back to the land of cheese and the colour orange.

After graduating I would like to stay in the Netherlands; I am especially curious about the lively city of Utrecht with its combination of historic beauty and modern living.

I am Claudia Escabias, a 20-year-old from Barcelona, Spain. I chose Breda University of Applied Sciences because of the variety of programmes they had, but I was also attracted by the high degree of interaction with professionals in the sector, which I think is a great opportunity for learning and growth.

When I made the decision to study at BUas, at the beginning I was a bit scared due to the cultural and educational change. However, I always received guidance and help from the university to adapt in the best way, especially in the introduction week, a week designed to get to know the city, different spots, and meet people from different backgrounds.

After three years of living and studying in Breda, it has become my second home. I have had the pleasure to meet people who have taught me the culture and traditions and I feel really connected to the city and its places. I like the fact that the city offers different spaces and different venues depending on your interests.

Due to my interest in cities and their urban life, I would like to discover new spaces and unique places. After graduating I would like to stay in the Netherlands; I am especially curious about the city of Utrecht because it is a lively city that combines historical beauty with modern living.

Photography

• Generated by AI

Navigating cultural crossroads

From the vibrant beaches of Rio to the tranquil canals of Breda

I am originally from Brazil, a country known for its rich culture and warm people, and my international journey began in 2013 when I moved to Ireland to study English. Living in Dublin for almost a year was my first taste of living abroad, and it sparked a desire in me to explore the world.

After returning to my home country, I worked on two mega sports events, the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil and the 2016 Summer Olympics, with people from all over the world, and soon found myself craving more international experiences. This led me to Portugal, in 2017, where I completed my master’s degree and worked in the tourism industry, staying for over four years. Between 2019 and 2022, my career working on international events gave me the opportunity to briefly live in three more incredible countries, Peru, the UAE, and Qatar, for around three months each. In each country I lived in, adapting to the local customs was an enriching experience that broadened my horizons and deepened my appreciation of the world’s diversity.

Starting my PhD at BUas

At the end of 2021, while working at the World Expo in Dubai, I received the great news that I had been selected to do my PhD at BUas. Arriving in Breda, in February 2022, marked a new chapter in my international journey.

atmosphere welcomed me with open arms, despite the chilly Dutch weather - a far cry from the sunny days of Rio! But behind the charming facade lay the fascinating challenge of adjusting to Dutch life and finding my place in this new environment.

One of the experiences that helped me most to ‘land’ in Breda was joining a Dutch band that plays Brazilian music. Being the only Brazilian in the group and seeing so many Dutch people immersed in my culture was an unexpected and unforgettable experience. It was a nice way to be introduced to some Dutch customs while staying connected to my own culture.

But the transition to Dutch life was not without its challenges. The straightforwardness and punctuality of the Dutch were some of the cultural differences that took me some time to get used to, in contrast to the very laid-back atmosphere in Brazil. Now I am quite used to the Dutch culture, and it has already led to some funny cultural shocks when I was interacting with my family and friends in Brazil, or when I go home and get frustrated at expecting things to be as organised as here. It has been quite an adjustment, to say the least!

The Dutch language

The language barrier has been one of the biggest hurdles I have faced so far. I know that English is widely spoken in the Netherlands and that it is possible to work at BUas if you only speak English. However, I have made very little progress in learning Dutch, and I feel that language is not just a means of communication, but a gateway to deeper integration within the community. Sometimes, feeling included feels like a puzzle that I am still putting together, especially when conversations within a group switch to Dutch. I hope that fluency in the language will deepen my connections and enrich my experience in Breda.

the Dutch cherish. Whether it is sharing a meal with friends or enjoying a leisurely stroll through Breda’s charming streets, discovering gezellig moments has been a delightful adventure in itself!

As I reflect on my international journey - from the vibrant beaches of Rio to the tranquil canals of Breda - I am reminded of the transformative power of cultural exchange. With each new experience and encounter, I am reinforced in my belief that diversity is our greatest strength. While international experiences come with their own set of challenges, they also open up a world of opportunities and experiences that shape us in ways we could never have imagined. My international adventures have been a journey of self-discovery, growth, and learning. And here, in Breda, I have not only found a city to work and study in, but a place that feels more like home every day.

I have not only found a city to work and study in, but a place that feels more like home every day.

Ana Carolina

Jordão

Ana Carolina Jordão is a researcher at the Academy for Leisure & Events, and she is working on her PhD on how digital (enhancement) affects visitor experiences at events.

Exchanging cultures, sharing passions, building friendships

International vibes and enrichment through connecting

In 2017 I arrived in Breda as an international student from Italy, now I have already been working as a lecturer at BUas for 18 months. When I first moved to the Netherlands, I was all set for a cutting-edge, open-minded environment. I had never been here before, and all I knew was the image of the Netherlands as a progressive and innovative country. However, what I found was a whole new level of culture shock - from different social habits and norms, while also realising that cracking into Dutch social circles was tougher than expected. This mostly had me hanging out with other international students who were also trying to find their way, creating our own little bubble of shared experiences.

“Sorry, ik ben te laat!”

Over time, living in a new culture allowed me to consider my own cultural background with fresh new eyes. Day by day, I started appreciating the Dutch directness, which was a real change from the Italian approach of dancing around topics and never really getting to the point. Also, I discovered how my laid-back view on time clashed with the Dutch punctuality, leading me to my first Dutch sentence learned “Sorry, ik ben te laat!” - which I definitely used way too much in my first year! With regards to my view on time - and also my appreciation for slow living, I found common ground with people from Saint Martin and Curaçao, who exuded a similar chill vibe and relaxed attitude, reminiscent of the environment I grew up in.

Finding my place became easier later in my study years when I dived into my Social Innovation studies. I connected with both students and lecturers, enjoying the refreshing experience of true mutual relationships based on shared interests and values. Reflecting on this compared to the Italian mentality, I see how the Netherlands is much more egalitarian - people focus on what you can do and offer opportunities to build experience, rather than boxing you in by your age or past achievements, which is deeply ingrained in the Italian mentality. This hands-on, fair-play approach opened many doors for me, eventually enabling me to become a lecturer and now call my former lecturers and coaches my colleagues.

The importance of leisure

Cooking and sharing food with others helped me connect with people and build lasting memories.

Leisure time also played a big part in making me feel at home. Cooking and sharing food with others - a big passion of mine and very Italian, indeed - helped me connect with people and build lasting memories. Whether it was making shakshuka with a Tunisian classmate, a mango salad with a friend from Curaçao, or learning how to prepare traditional Indonesian Nasi Goreng, it wasn’t just fun; it allowed us to exchange our cultures and build friendships along the way. These moments of swapping stories and spices, of sitting around the dinner table enjoying meals together, truly brought us closer.

Probably the activity through which I eventually found my deepest sense of belonging away from home was with the bouldering community. It did not take long to connect with people from all corners of the world - the Netherlands, Namibia, Slovenia, Portugal, and beyond - who all shared the same passion, love of nature, and found meaning in challenging one another through this sport. Bouldering offers a unique mix of individual effort and collective support. Despite our diverse cultural backgrounds, sharing this passion made us all feel right at home with each other, no matter where we were actually from.

Looking back, my time in the Netherlands has been a mix of challenges and sharing awesome experiences. Learning to navigate cultural differences taught me a lot about what internationalisation really means - it is not just about crossing borders, but about connecting with ourselves. Moving forward, I am excited to create spaces that celebrate cultural differences, making sure international vibes are not just about expanding our professional or educational worlds, but also about enriching how we connect with each other and live with one another, allowing our interconnections to emerge naturally.

Carlo Pareti

Carlo Pareti studied Social Innovation at BUas and is now a lecturer at Academy for Leisure & Events.

I am INTERNATIONALisation

It made me and continues making me who I am

Liliya Terzieva

embedded in the framework of the Centre of Expertise Mission Zero where transitioning to a society of a new order has embraced internationalisation as central from the very first moment (being open to people of all kinds, endeavours of all cultures and processes of any nature).

The first encounter with it was through language – the realisation you might find yourself incapable of relating due to the lack of the necessary ’words’, context, culture… and this happened as early as at the age of three (with the Russian comrades we had in kindergarten) or from what I clearly remember somewhere around the age of four or five, when the ’secret’ (due to the communist restrictions at that time) family friends from Germany (DDR) visited us when they came to enjoy the Black Sea in Bulgaria.

Yes, words, language, interaction, acknowledging and respecting the difference and existence of others, this is where internationalisation grew in me and stayed, found a place and flourishes actively today.

Professorship

of Designing Value Networks

This is particularly noticeable in my role today as a professor of Designing Value Networks at the Hague University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands, where my mission as the leader of a research group is to allow for, enable and empower value to come to the forefront. This is achieved by fostering collaborative, sometimes even contradictory, yet complementary interactions among actors both within and beyond a system. Our primary objective is twofold: first, to contribute to knowledge development; and second, to design and generate expertise in applied models. These models enable organisations and professionals to sustain impact and foster innovation in an ecosystem context.

Reframing interactions in a collaborative format has become vital for designing futures that hold value. Therefore, the need to explore the essence of value networks through mapping out

And what is certainly to be emphasised is that we are connected more than ever, not only because of digitalisation and AI but also because of the intrinsic desire to discover, to step into the unknown, to understand, to thrive and to empower.

We live together and through this togetherness new realities can emerge, new networks can be sustained, and the true significance of scaling and acceleration becomes apparent. Only when we abandon prejudice, generalisation, the weight of history, and closed doors to the future, can true progress occur. And yet, it is essential to maintain and safeguard –realistically so – the memory of our collective diversity, the richness of our experiences and the abundance of resources we each contribute. This happens when we remain open to listening, truly hearing one another, embracing our differences, and, when necessary, extending forgiveness.

Valuing my time at BUas

My individual pathway has always been nurtured by internationalisation (being born and growing up in Bulgaria, stepping out on an educational and research journey to China, diving into the pre-accession and EU funding opportunities while on a quest with the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry – which definitely required an international entrepreneurial mindset, exploring the Mediterranean melting pot of cultures in Malta, empowering tourist professionals in Vietnam, etc.). The 11 years I spent at Breda University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands, can certainly be seen as a highlight in this respect. Having had the privilege of guiding international master’s students (the MBA Master Imagineering, Master Strategic Events Management, Master Leisure and Tourism Studies) from at least

It was fulfilling, enriching, challenging and meaningful at the same time.

eight different nationalities on an annual basis; co-designing and generating knowledge, practice and expertise hand-in-hand with people from 15 different cultural contexts and doing research across continents was more than I could have ever desired or dreamed of.

Internationalisation is far from being merely fulfilling and enriching. It is a bumpy road where the scars from falling and getting up again serve as constant reminders of the challenges faced along the way. There is a ‘sweet pain’ in venturing beyond the comfort zone, yet an unwavering longing to continue the journey, seeking understanding and meaning. BUas provided me with the opportunity to develop, manage and implement, together with a team, projects with partners in Austria, Poland, Spain, Slovenia, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Chile, Peru, Thailand, Myanmar, to name a few. I have had the unique opportunity to engage in research and create publications with researchers from almost all of the aforementioned countries. Together, we have forged new pathways in education for the next generation, aimed at an inviting and open future, even if it remains unknown.

Internationalisation is that element – ’the fifth’, the UMAMI, which reframes, reshapes, reconnects, revisits and rejoices – just leave the door open for it or simply make it the ever-open window to be able to fly from.

Liliya Terzieva is professor of Designing Value Networks at the Hague University of Applied Sciences.

It’s all about the people

Education is a wonderful platform to create mutual understanding and respect

Yvonne Klerks was a lecturer and International Coordinator at Academy for Leisure & Events from 2005 to 2020 and she is now working as Education and Science Attaché for the Ministry at the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta.

I think it is fair to say that internationalisation in higher education has always been an important aspect in my work. My love for international affairs started in Switzerland, where I was on an Erasmus+ exchange at the University of Bern during my studies. All these different nationalities together, all these different perspectives, I thought were fascinating and inspiring. I still have this fascination after all these years of working in an international environment.

My time at BUas

During my time at BUas as a lecturer and international coordinator at Academy for Leisure & Events I tried to inspire our students through international experiences, both via internationalisation@home and mobility. For example, together with colleagues we arranged an assignment from an organisation abroad, run a project for about eight weeks and at the end travelled with the students to the destination to present the results to the client. Examples of clients are Tropical Islands in Berlin, the Trafford Centre in Manchester and the Manchester City Football Stadium, which are all impressive organisations that contributed greatly to the students’ international perspectives.

At BUas I also came into contact with the World Leisure Organization. I was the driving force behind the application to become a World Leisure Center of Excellence of the World Leisure Organization, providing interesting opportunities for academic staff and students to get engaged with other academics and students around the world engaged in leisure studies. Later I joined the Board of Directors of the World Leisure Organization and became Treasurer. This gave me the opportunity to organise many interesting opportunities for colleagues and students. For example, taking part in the World Leisure Congress and taking part in student projects in the US, South Africa, Hungary, Brazil and China. I am extremely proud that during my time as a board member we won the bid for the 2025 World Leisure Congress for the Netherlands and the expansion of the World Leisure Center of Excellence network. I am sure this will bring even more exciting opportunities for BUas academics and students.

Working in this international environment

me a wonderful learning opportunity on how to deal with different perspectives and make it work. It also brought me friendships for life, which I find truly amazing.

Work as a policy advisor

In 2020 I started working for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science as Senior Policy Advisor and also in this role internationalisation in higher education was an important topic in my work, this time from a macro perspective. Projects and policies I have been involved in are, for example, the impact of Brexit on academics and students from the UK, the Netherlands, and the EU. Another interesting project I have been involved in was setting up a subsidy for Virtual International Collaboration projects. The majority of Dutch students do not have the possibility to go abroad during their studies for various reasons. Through virtual projects it is possible for them to engage with students from other countries and learn about different perspectives.

Moving to Indonesia

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science started an attaché network a few years ago and I am extremely grateful to have been the first Education and Science Attaché for the Ministry at the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia since 2023. My role is to further develop the bilateral relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia in higher education and science. Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world in terms of number of residents and the country is rapidly developing.

My main lesson learned after working in internationalisation in higher education for almost 20 years is that it is all about the people. No matter how different people are, no matter how much they disagree with one another, we need to make it work together. It starts with sharing perspectives and having respect for the differences. Education is a wonderful platform to create mutual understanding and respect. In the world we live in today with so many challenges and tensions I believe internationalisation in higher education can have a positive impact.

My message is: Get yourself out there, connect, be amazed, get inspired, make the difference.

Yvonne Klerks

The future of education is Glocal

How

to transform classrooms into learning communities

Celiane Camargo-Borges works for Academy for Leisure & Events and Academy for Tourism at BUas and she is part of the Sustainability Transitions research team.

In our quest to shape education that resonates with the contemporary global world while being sensitive to local culture and context, it is fundamental to look at the integration of international and intercultural dimensions into both formal and informal curricula. Glocal education aims to prepare our students to address complex issues by understanding global ones in different ways of knowing. For that to happen you must foster collaborative and participatory work, engaging a variety of social actors. The international and intercultural approach is highlighted here as it provides contextual diversity and plural solutions for societal challenges. Within this article, I aim to delineate two concepts that have been guiding my work as a learning facilitator in the transformation of classrooms into vibrant learning communities: glocalisation and the pluriverse. These concepts diverge from dominant narratives of globalised development where the focus is on universals. Instead, they present alternative world views and practices that envision an ecologically responsible and socially just global community.

Glocalisation emerged as a response to the homogenising forces of globalisation, urging us to view our planet as interconnected yet distinct in its local contexts. This perspective invites us to address global issues such as sustainability, climate change, and economic

cultural, economic, and social circumstances.

The Pluriverse draws from indigenous relational worldviews, emphasising the interconnectedness of multiple worlds–human, natural, and spiritual–coexisting in time and space. This world view challenges the hegemony of a singular universal reality, acknowledging the diverse ways in which reality is constructed through intersubjective practices and ontologies.

By integrating these concepts, we redesign conventional classrooms and the paradigm of knowledge transfer methodologies, investing more in the creation of ‘communities of learning’. Through collaborative projects and partnerships with international partners, particularly from the Global South, I am experimenting with new educational approaches, aligning them with global realities and connecting students with all sorts of social actors to create learning opportunities. Central to the concept of a ‘learning community’ is the promotion of international collaborations, intercultural communication, and cultural sensitivity among students. This holistic approach not only cultivates cultural competence but also nurtures empathy and a deeper understanding of diverse perspectives, fostering genuine engagement with the pluriverse, inviting students to understand and celebrate diversity. Below, I share two illustrations of projects transforming Glocalisation and the Pluriverse into action.

Project 1: Ancestral World Views Strengthening Sustainability

The Bocaina Project in Brazil is an ongoing initiative and a collaboration between BUas, the Observatory of Sustainable and Healthy Territories (OTSS), and the Forum of Traditional Communities in Brazil. Together, we delve into the intricate relationship between people,

meaningful experiences to visitors and creating impact. Over the course of two years, our team has engaged closely with the traditional communities of Bocaina, professionals, teachers as well as the local students from the Brazilian Universities. Our BUas students have the opportunity of interacting and learning from local knowledge as well as the ancestral knowledge of the indigenous, quilombolas and caiçaras communities. This engagement has culminated in the production of a documentary that captures the profound insights and practices of these communities in living harmoniously with nature. The documentary serves not only as a capture of their wisdom but also as a catalyst for broader conversations on sustainability and holistic living. One of the highlights of this project is the collaborative approach taken

The virtual collaboration laid the groundwork for a deeper engagement, culminating in a transformative learning journey in Uganda.

Celiane Camargo-Borges

from diverse academic backgrounds, including Brazilian students and teachers, have been integral to the process.

This is no different for the organisation of the documentary premiere event. We are bringing together a learning community comprising students, academics, and community members designing the event. Our students, from different academies, have weekly meetings to discuss and organise the event. They are from Leisure Events (two); Creative Business (two); Performatory (two) and Tourism (one). Together they designed a platform for sharing progress, exchanging ideas, and co-designing the premiere event for the documentary. In addition

Collaborative spaces boosting confidence and learning

Radina Shikova: “Hi Celiane. I hope you are doing well. First, I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the creative session on Wednesday. I am usually not very good with groups of people I don’t know too well and it is hard for me to speak up, but the girls are so amazing and it was so easy to brainstorm with them. I was surprised myself how well we got along immediately, so I genuinely look forward to the next sessions (I rarely say this, and even more rarely actually believe it).”

Myself: “Hello. Happy to hear. As a researcher studying the design of spaces where transformative learning can happen, I would like to know a bit more about your experience

to working on their field, learning new content, they also learn how to work as a team and how to deal with complex topics as this event is not merely about showcasing the documentary; it is a celebration of cultural richness, environmental stewardship, and collaborative learning. This is a continuous flow of learning by doing, creating a project, reflecting, and envisioning new steps for the continuation of the project. Through this project, students gain not only content knowledge but also intercultural proficiency, an international mindset, and the ability to work in interdisciplinary teams, enriching their educational experience. I am

with the group: 1. Can you say more about “we got along immediately”? What were the elements that made you get along with the group? 2. What happened that created this experience? 3. Can you think of actions that contributed to that?”

Radina Shikova: “I’d love to tell you more. It makes me happy that you’re interested to know.

1. What I mean is that there was this common purpose that we all had, which sort of pushed away all other (unnecessary and distracting) topics. For me personally, especially in diverse groups including professionals or just very knowledgeable individuals - it’s a confidence issue which I believe I have nothing important to say about, or nothing to add when I know someone else in the group knows much more than myself. This was not the case on

It was not just about acquiring knowledge but also about experiencing the pluriverse first-hand.

sharing an illustration (see text box 1) here from a written exchange with a student. Radina Shikova shared with me her learning process and highlighted how these collaborative spaces served as a rich, experiential learning environment. Radina Shikova’s reflections emphasise the transformative power of these collaborative spaces, highlighting how a common purpose, respectful engagement, and an inclusive environment can inspire confidence and creativity.

Furthermore, partnering with communities deeply rooted in ancestral wisdom has also been a transformative journey for all of us. Their ethos of ‘Bem Viver’ - living well in harmony with nature - resonates deeply with our efforts towards sustainability. The insights gained from this collaboration have given learning elements to the students and also invited them to rethink lifestyles for a more sustainable planet.

In conclusion, the learning spaces created by the Bocaina Project have proven invaluable for students, offering a unique blend of international, intercultural engagement and cross-academy experiences in learning. These environments have also enabled students to interact directly with ancestral knowledge and diverse cultural practices, fostering a deeper understanding of sustainability and holistic living. Through active participation in documentary production

Wednesday. I felt confident to voice my ideas and sometimes even disagreement freely with my peers.

2. I think the reason why it worked so well is that the rest of the group probably share the exact same feeling as me. We all had this relaxed but at the same time focused attitude and realised that the desired result was possible through collaboration and exchange of various ideas. Even when we had differing opinions, we were invited to collectively compromise and reach a consensus.

3. I think it was a combination of common purpose, relaxed and respectful attitude, physical engagement as well (we had to get up and write our values on the whiteboard), no time pressure and last but not least - the space itself. I really liked the room we were in, it wasn’t a typical lecture/presentation room; it felt cozy.”

By

embracing glocalisation and the pluriverse, we foster a learning environment that transcends traditional classrooms.

and event organisation, students have gained confidence, teamwork skills, and a sense of global responsibility. The supportive and inclusive atmosphere has encouraged open dialogue, creativity, and mutual respect, making these learning experiences not only educational but also transformative in shaping students’ perspectives on sustainability and community collaboration.

Project 2: Empowering Local Solutions

In collaboration with Hope For Youth Uganda, a rural school NGO in Uganda, and the American non-profit organisation called Team Together, we embarked on a journey to collaborate with local communities in the rural school. This initiative was established with the Performatory and aimed at fostering social entrepreneurship and innovative community-driven solutions. Our partnership with the rural school in Uganda began with a virtual collaboration, where Performatory students worked closely with a collective of students from the We Matter Girls, a girls’ club to empower students and to invest in training skills. Together, they designed social entrepreneurship projects aligned with the school’s values and community needs.

This virtual collaboration laid the groundwork for a deeper engagement, culminating in a

transformative learning journey in Uganda. In August 2023, professionals from diverse backgrounds, including the two students from Performatory and international partners, immersed themselves in the Ugandan way of life. The immersive experience facilitated collective engagement, transformative growth, and the co-designing of solutions to local challenges. Central to this initiative was the concept of ‘setting the stage’ for collective action. Performatory students, together with the girls’ club, designed the ‘setting the stage’, applying their Performatory learnings into this very specific context. Through collaborative workshops, they cultivated a sense of belonging, trust, and shared purpose. The opportunity to work with the NGO for six months and then to be in Uganda contributed to the transition from learning to action, empowering students to make tangible contributions to the community. The two-week learning journey was not just about acquiring knowledge but also about experiencing the pluriverse first-hand. Diverse perspectives, cultural practices, and ways of thinking converged, creating a dynamic learning community focused on social innovation and cross-cultural understanding.

These projects exemplify the transformative potential of international collaboration, cultural sensitivity, and knowledge co-creation. By embracing glocalisation and the pluriverse, we

Student reflections on the Uganda Project

“Working on the Uganda project has been an eye-opening and transformative journey as I immersed myself in a completely new and different culture from my own. Understanding and acknowledging that our perceptions of reality are uniquely shaped by our experiences, relationships, and societal influences added the most to my development. Through this learning journey, I’ve exercised to step back, pause, ask curious questions and reframe my assumptions. The shift from a mindset of charity to one of collaboration and from

foster a learning environment that transcends traditional classrooms, empowering students to become proactive agents of change in a globally interconnected world.

Here I am also giving an illustration of a student from Performatory, Elena Băltăreţu (see text box 2), who has been involved in this project from the beginning and accompanied us on our trip to Uganda. In her testimonial, you can learn about the framework she created by systematising her learning journey. This framework not only helped her better understand the learning process but also became a valuable guideline for future projects.

Conclusion

These projects have served as a living lab for me, where, together with students and colleagues, I embrace philosophical concepts in practice. This article focuses on Glocalisation and the Pluriverse; these frameworks offer insights and practices for developing a curriculum aligned with the ethos of BUas Plus. We advocate education that goes beyond classrooms, engages students, encourages diversity of perspectives, and allows them to co-create their own learning processes in collaboration with communities and organisations. I believe these learning spaces can contribute to activating other concepts that are essential for futureproof education.

short solutions to creating lasting impact has even become a practice for me. As part of my learning I have developed a collaboration framework that could be useful to other professionals. It starts with 1. Share stories and values - understand and appreciate each other’s values; learn about each other through stories; 2. Develop commitmentsdevelop a shared ambition, create guidelines for intercultural collaboration; 3. Develop & strengthen - Move forward with the trust and empathy, aligning stakeholders, strengthening relationships; 4. Activate the ideas - explore synergies within the community, develop intercollaborative projects that support the shared ambition; 5. Shout out to the world - systematising best practices.” (Elena Băltăreţu)

Inside Breda Guardians

A haven for gamers, a home for internationals

&

Breda Guardians, founded in 2015, is an esports community with the vision of uniting gamers in and around the city of Breda. They have their own gaming and esports facility ‘The HIVE’ located in the Frontier Building of BUas, where students can relax, make friends, and play games – both casually and competitively. Aside from that, Breda Guardians also organises events for its members and students interested in gaming and esports. The community is very diverse - coming from different domains and several schools. Quite a few members of Breda Guardians and visitors of The HIVE are internationals, and it is our goal to make everyone feel welcome and at home, while providing a safe space and having fun.

students for

during the 2023-2024 spring semester. They work together to help innovate Breda Guardians and build its growing community. Liedewei Ratgers is a lecturer in Sports & Esports at Academy for Leisure & Events, and a member of the management of the Breda Guardians esports team.

A meeting place for game enthusiasts

Breda Guardians is for everyone, whether they are serious and competitive gamers, casual players, or individuals who simply want to meet new people. We view gaming as a means to bring the community together rather than solely a competitive pursuit. Some students stop by at The HIVE during their breaks to play games, while others visit more frequently for purposes such as testing new games or socialising.

Meaningful work placements

Every academic semester, Breda Guardians offers two placement positions: Event Manager and Community Manager. Throughout the placement period, the placement students work closely together to oversee the Breda Guardians community, the teams, and to organise various events for its members. As the Breda Guardians community is very diverse and interculturally oriented, the students get in touch with all kinds of cultures and backgrounds. This experience fosters not only professional development, but also personal growth as the students gain knowledge on various perspectives in the multicultural environment of Breda Guardians and esports.

Esports Teams

Breda Guardians has multiple teams who compete in various esports titles, including VALORANT, CS2, Rocket League, League of Legends, and Super Smash Bros. These competitions vary from a local to national scale - where other university teams are the opponents - and are a perfect stepping stone for competitive gamers in the Benelux countries. The members of the teams are often BUas students, from different educational programmes, but also students from Avans and even secondary school pupils are part of the teams playing for Breda Guardians. Regardless of the team’s members, communication is always in English, as this is the primary language within Breda Guardians, as well as in the esports industry.

The HIVE – home of Breda Guardians – is a place for its community to feel at home and welcome and for its members to know each other not only online, but especially from interacting in person. Joonas, a 25-year-old veteran gamer from Finland, student of BSc Leisure Studies, visits The HIVE at least twice a week. The general vibe of feeling accepted and invited into the fold of Breda Guardians and the overall welcoming atmosphere are appealing to him. As he tells us, he appreciates that he does not feel judged maliciously about liking games and being a ‘nerd’. “I saw my people and was instantly hooked”, Joonas describes aptly.

Another regular visitor of The HIVE and member of the VALORANT team of Breda Guardians is Thomas. He was born in the USA, raised in Mexico, and is studying Data Science & Artificial Intelligence. Alongside practising with his team, he visits The HIVE almost daily to say hi to his friends and sometimes plays games. “I have felt included in Breda Guardians since the day I came to this school.” Thomas enjoys being part of a competitive team with which he won a national tournament in VALORANT. Breda Guardians has been a stepping stone for him in competitive gaming.

Breda Guardians’ future

The development of Breda Guardians is still in full progress, lots of opportunities arise and new steps need to be taken to ensure further growth. One aspect that will remain important is the thriving international community to be a cornerstone of Breda Guardians’ identity.

We view gaming as a means to bring the community together rather than solely a competitive pursuit.

Daniel van Olphen Sem van der Schilt Liedewei Ratgers

Daniel van Olphen and Sem van der Schilt are placement

Breda Guardians

Inclusive education towards more sensitive leisure managers

Developing new skills through cooperation with experience experts

BUas sees working towards a more inclusive leisure sector as an important challenge, which needs to be tackled together with representatives of the sector itself. A key requirement for that to be successful is that when designing for leisure practices and facilities, students (and lecturers!) need to look beyond personal preferences (what you like is not necessarily good for everyone), beyond their own physical, sensory or intellectual abilities (what you are capable of doing - seeing - understanding might be inaccessible to others) and their financial capacity (some people might have less - or no - money to spend on leisure). Doing so means to recognise and acknowledge diverse perspectives, backgrounds, motives and possibilities.

Over the past few years, we have conducted numerous projects focused on the accessibility of leisure with students from various educational programmes of the Academy for Leisure & Events. One of the easiest approaches to these kinds of projects, especially when it involves investigating accessibility for a particular group, is simulation. That is exactly what a well-intentioned group of students did in one of their projects: they visited a theme park, taking turns sitting in a wheelchair to test the accessibility of various attractions. This was a very educational experience, which resulted in important recommendations for the park about barriers to accessibility.

Meaning well, wanting to empathise and engage in (in this case quite literal) perspective-taking are incredibly important first steps in optimising

accessibility of leisure. However, our claim is that to do this research properly, we need to go further by involving experience experts as participants: in this case, that would mean involving people who actually need wheelchairs, who live with and in them every day. There are two key reasons for this. Firstly, they can provide much more detail about what the real challenges are (as opposed to what ablebodied students in a novel situation notice at a first glance), which issues need to be prioritised and which apparent problems might be less prominent (since they can already be solved through wheelchair users’ practice-honed coping strategies and clever workarounds). Secondly, it is morally right to involve those whom it concerns in the analysis of problems and the design of solutions.

Doubts about simulations

Several studies support our claim. A literature study by Keers, Felten and Harnacke (2021) offers a broad view of effective methods in reducing prejudice against people with physical disabilities. Supporting our point are the studies they cite on the possible opposite effects of interventions in which people without disabilities simulate what it is like to have a disability. Matera et al. (2021) had 11-to-17-year-olds do an experiment in perspective-taking by moving around in a wheelchair. One group did this together with someone who is always in a wheelchair; the other group consisted only of non-disabled people. They found that amongst the members of the group with someone in a wheelchair, prejudices decreased. This was not the case with the other group. This suggests that for substantial attitudinal change, it is essential that people without disabilities should learn

experiences of people with disabilities. Nario-Redmond, Gospodinov and Cobb (2017) also describe that by temporarily mimicking a disability, what is imitated is only what it is like not to be able to do something; the brief immersion of an experiment does not automatically unlock insight into any coping strategies and workarounds that people have developed to deal with their disability. Mackenzie & Scully (2007) make an even stronger claim. They state that trying to empathise with the situation of people with physical disabilities is not real empathy. A common misconception amongst people without a physical disability is that people with a physical disability have a much lower quality of life than non-disabled people. Having functional legs to walk with, and

Merely putting yourself in the position of someone who is different might mean projecting your own feelings onto that other person.

Peter Horsten Marco van Leeuwen

Yvonne Vermetten

Peter Horsten and Marco van Leeuwen are lecturers and researchers at Academy for Leisure & Events. Yvonne Vermetten is Education and Quality Care advisor at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

imagining the problems one might encounter if that were no longer the case, can distort the understanding of what it means to be physically disabled. Putting yourself in the situation of someone with a physical disability, either through imagining or through temporary experiences like the theme park wheelchair experiment, comes with the risk of projecting your own feelings and assumptions onto the other person. It does not give you complete knowledge of what it is actually like to live with that disability.

The inability to achieve ‘true’ empathy through simulation is good since empathy should not actually be the intended end goal of educational intervention. Etymologically, empathy is related to sympathy. Sympathy is possibly the least helpful feeling to have towards people with disabilities, since it involves feeling pity for someone who is in a bad state or situation. Feeling empathy means to imagine what it must be

but difficult or perhaps even impossible to achieve, due to the principal inability to gain full knowledge of a situation you are not actually in yourself. Whether access to privileged knowledge is quite so exclusive can certainly be doubted - we certainly do not want to be such identitarian hardliners, as do Keers, Felten & Harnacke (2021). They still see it as valuable to promote empathy by encouraging people without disabilities to listen to the experiences of people with disabilities, even via simulation experiments (provided that disabled experience experts participate). However, beyond empathy lies compassion: without needing experiences or insights between non-disabled and disabled people to match exactly, we try our best to understand the other’s position, we feel along (com-passion) with their plight because we want to help solve the problem. The magic ingredient in all of this is co-creation: working together in an equal partnership of able-bodied and disabled people, to learn from each other and to find the most effective solutions.

Co-creation with experience experts

Using these insights, we aim to make the leisure sector more accessible and inclusive, and our strategy to do this in the most robust fashion is via a bottom-up approach: by educating the next generation of leisure professionals. By having students solve accessibility challenges while working together with experience experts, we teach them to incorporate basic principles of accessibility and inclusion in whatever they do throughout their professional careers in the leisure sector.

The aim is to move beyond exclusive solutions (e.g. a separate entrance to a festival terrain for people in wheelchairs), and instead incorporate fully inclusive solutions, such as design-for-all and universal design (e.g. an entrance to a festival terrain that is accessible to everyone). This transition also requires students to stop seeing people with disabilities as clients or curiosities, but rather as equal partners in fully co-creative design processes. Leisure

Lectures about accessibility and inclusion are not enough.

professionals thus transition from designing solutions for people with disabilities, towards working with them, and finding solutions (co) designed by them.

We have done this through research and design projects aimed at leisure experiences: visits to museums, theme parks, attractions and performances, together with experience experts. Using a customer journey research approach, we analyse the fits and misfits of these leisure experience touchpoints for people with disabilities. Based on this, experienced experts co-designed practical recommendations together with BUas students.

Based on our experiences, we feel confident in saying that this needs to be an integral part of BUas education. By doing inclusive joint projects, we can educate more capable, sensitive future professionals. Perhaps it should be the standard that each and every student has at least one experience, during their studies, with experience experts. This also implies that every lecturer should have had at least one experience with experience experts in order to be better prepared for inclusive education.

Each and every student needs to have at least one experience with experience experts.

This is about more than merely people with disabilities. BUas’ policies about Internationalisation@home and Education+ acknowledge that our community (including students, lecturers, support staff, and industry contacts) is very diverse: it includes people from all walks of life, from dozens of nationalities and cultural backgrounds, different preferences and personalities, different identities and interaction styles. All participants working together in projects or commissioned assignments will encounter differences. Teaching students to work together with people with disabilities is one way of honing their skills in dealing with difference and diversity in a respectful, effective and compassionate way.

Developing skills and competences

But: does this approach to education design really improve attitudes, knowledge and compassion of students about accessibility and inclusion? Does it make them more sensitive leisure professionals? What is it that students pick up on when they do not follow a preset project design, but are challenged to co-create the project (all of it: methods design, the

outcomes) together with experience experts? In most of our projects, we work with people with a mild cognitive disability, associated with the advocacy organisation LFB. BUas students were thus forced, for instance, to address issues in communication: how do you share your ideas in accessible language? How do you negotiate about needs and expectations, and how do you ensure that the project planning, organisation and execution is inclusive of and respectful to all participants?

For the first projects, we administered a survey for our students to complete prior to the collaboration with the experience experts as well as after the project. The survey involved a self-evaluation of the students’ competences on 13 learning goals. The learning goals were based partly on theory on intercultural competence and partly on prior experiences with the target group. We used Fink’s (2013) taxonomy of learning goals to make the following distinctions:

� Understanding (knowledge of and insight into the target group);

� Application and Integration (linking experiences during the project to theory);

� Human dimension (working as equals, adapting communication);

� Caring (seeing the value of working together);

� Learning how to learn (being flexible, being able to reflect and improving oneself).

In addition to the survey, we collected statements about the students’ experiences and insights.

The first outcomes tell us that personal growth was experienced especially in terms of insight into the behaviour of the target group, and in applying that knowledge to adapt to the needs of that group.

Secondly, the students already rated themselves comparatively highly on reflective ability and respectful attitude at the start of the projects, but they reported an increase in how they valued working with the target group. “I noticed that different individuals can have a completely different experience when being in the same (or comparable) situation,” one student said. “I learned to ask questions and listen to this target group. And that they actually like it when you ask them about how you can do better for them,” said another.

One of the students, interestingly, cited lower scores at the end of the project than at the beginning, for ‘working with the target group as equals’, ‘responding to problems’, and ‘adapting communication’. This can be understood as a development from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence, which is natural when normal ways of working break down, but it is still unclear what would be more effective. Figuring out how to adapt to the needs of experience experts can make a student go through such phases of (hopefully temporary) conscious incompetence, for instance when one of the students said that “(…) the project group and I quickly noticed the language barrier. We often use too difficult or English language.” Becoming aware of this challenge had value for the student in question, as evidenced by a much improved score on ‘value of the collaboration’ at the end of the project.

It is striking that, in addition to comprehensibility, everyone sees transparent communication as an important learning point. Clarifying mutual expectations and adhering to agreements turn out to be essential and go wrong remarkably quickly with students, for instance because other coursework is given priority, or simply a lack of recognised urgency (disregarding the need, by experience experts, for sufficient preparation time, and instead making arrangements or delivering materials at the last minute).

For example, at the start of the project about the Maczek Memorial (see Uncover p.72), students took sufficient time to coordinate

We can progress from sympathy to empathy to compassion.

the various responsibilities and tasks, to include everyone’s insights and to actually allow the experience experts the time to process information and deliver their work. However, towards the end of the project, while analysing the data and designing the presentation for the commissioner, the BUas students experienced time pressure, which caused them to rush their work, resulting in superficial products, and insufficient time for everyone to participate properly. This meant that LFB’s experience experts did not feel heard and were not able to make an equal contribution to the final presentation for the commissioner. “I had indicated several times that we wanted to raise our points in an interview,” said an experience expert, “I didn’t feel engaged in that part of the process.” The students were, at the time, unaware of this; they rushed to finish the presentation slides, and in an attempt to involve the experience experts, produced a few cards with notes immediately prior to the presentation, in effect asking the experience experts to improvise on the spot. In a time

an understandable, and usually effective strategy to produce something of value for the commissioner, but for the experience experts this did not work at all.

Taking it to the next level: training the lecturer

Earlier, we suggested that not just students, but lecturers too should learn about accessibility and inclusion through co-creative projects together with people with disabilities. Through exposure to situations of conflict and collaboration we learn how we can resolve differences of opinion between experience experts and students.

How can we as lecturers respect the different, sometimes incompatible wants, needs, expectations, routines and working styles between students and experience experts? How can we make sure that the collaboration that emerges does not feel like an imperfect, unsatisfactory compromise, but represents a true way of optimising things, a way of interacting that makes things better for everyone - as is the aim of universal inclusive design? And if that does not always work - which is likely - how

participant can honestly feel that something of value was co-created?

How we as lecturers assess these projects is a key factor here. If a process or product is, at face value, flawed, but the mistakes that were made trigger a valuable development process in the student after the assignment deadline, how do we balance formative and summative assessment, and the formal educational need to gauge a student’s performance against particular standards? Do we have the right toolbox for reflection - to facilitate it in students, and in ourselves as educators? Can we place more value on making mistakes? How can we deal with overestimation of one’s own abilities, prejudices and blind spots in students, and ourselves? We should all be willing, ready and able to learn from each other - students, experience experts, lecturers, and, for good measure, leisure professionals too.

There is also room to improve content, such as simulation experiments. The Into D’Mentia VR simulator, for instance, provides an experience of the perspective of someone with Alzheimer’s disease; the high level of immersion can help optimise education effects, even in the light of the limitations of empathy as noted before. And, interestingly in the light of that earlier discussion, the slogan of Into D’Mentia is ‘brings compassion to life’.

When we figure out how to do all this - a continuous process of trying, experimenting, failing at first but succeeding if we keep trying - we can progress from sympathy (feeling sorry for people who are disabled) to empathy (trying, but failing, to feel the same) to compassion (feeling along with each other, always making an effort to understand, and leveraging this willingness into the co-creation of solutions). Leisure professionals need that sensitivity, experience and insight to make leisure truly accessible and inclusive.

Sources

• Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. John Wiley & Sons.

• Literature study: Rapport validisme tegengaan.pdf (movisie.nl) Tamara Keers, Hanneke Felten and Caroline Harnacke,

How can we make leisure more accessible to people with mild intellectual disabilities?

Six intercultural, inclusive projects in the leisure industry &

Peter Horsten, Marco van Leeuwen, Bart Stadhouders are lecturers and researchers at Academy for Leisure & Events.

The 2022-2025 BUas+ Strategy states that the ‘intercultural classroom’ is BUas’ standard learning environment. In the last few years, groups of students of Academy for Leisure & Events have actively put aims from this strategy in practice already, by conducting surveys in museums, attraction parks, and among people taking city tours together with experiential experts of LFB (interest group for and by people with intellectual disabilities).

Collaborating in these projects with people with disabilities perfectly meets the strategic aims and objectives of BUas that students work on “industry-relevant, high-quality, and innovative research and design” in “small-scale, personal, sustainable, diverse, and inclusive learning environments”. Accessibility innovations in the leisure sector are desperately needed, and equivalent cooperation with people with disabilities is perceived an example of “on-campus curricular intercultural collaboration”. In this way, the BUas students develop “skills that empower them to contribute to shaping a better world”. This article addresses important concerns from six projects.

Museums

ALE students conducted inclusive studies at Het Markiezenhof (Bergen op Zoom) and the Maczek Memorial (Breda).

Experiential experts indicate they are interested in history, but demonstrate particular involvement in stories from the Second World War. Earlier periods (for example, the Middle Ages) evoke insufficient associations, mainly due to the limited focus of their history classes in secondary school, which did not go back further than World War II. Their personal interest in that war is such that they started their own research into how people with disabilities were treated at the time, which allowed the conversations with the Maczek guides to be deepened.

Interaction, but in small doses

What was apparent in the two museums was that images, sound and buttons to set things in motion were highly appreciated. Dosage, however, proved important: the interactive exhibitions in Het Markiezenhof caused overstimulation because numerous actions started to get mixed up because overenthusiastic use was made of them. We also saw some overstimulation with the large interactive map on the wall of the Maczek Memorial: being able to follow the life histories of various people through headphones was judged very positively, but having to look at the large screen for other parts of the story at the same time was perceived as confusing and ‘too much’.

Unclear museum mores

The logic behind some unwritten rules and customs in museums is not always clear. The attendants in the halls of Het Markiezenhof was felt by some to be unpleasant. Someone in the corner who keeps looking at you - what is such a person doing there? There is an opportunity here to have attendants act more like hosts or hostesses, especially if the very design of an exhibition calls for deviant behaviour - for example, if you were taught not to touch

Communicate understandably and tactfully; certainly do not talk over people's heads to address their ‘attendant’ instead.

Peter Horsten Marco van Leeuwen Bart Stadhouders

but suddenly you are allowed (or even required) to do so in order to activate interactive experiences (such as in the period rooms of Het Markiezenhof). Even if a map app is unclear, a proactive, welcoming attendant can provide clear added value for this target group.

Shocking exhibition

Experiential experts indicate in evaluations that they are often "sucked into an experience".

Mirroring their own context often means that sudden twists in stories or experiences that may not be appropriate in their own lives cause them to disengage or be overcome by emotion.

We saw this at Het Markiezenhof, where an experiential expert could not comprehend the marquise's choice to give up her child. "I’ve just become a mother myself; you don't do that. I was done with it," she said. She said she also recognised this when watching films or series, for example. This may be a point of attention for designers of exhibitions with elements intended to be confrontational. It was suggested that some advance warning or framing would be welcome.

Attraction parks

We paid a visit to Bobbejaanland and Efteling.

Unclear or incomplete information

The LFB experiential experts indicated that the information on theme park websites is not always clear or complete. Many parks have information

about accessibility, but the amount of information can be confusing there. Information about navigation in the park is also a concern: it is assumed too easily that a map is clear enough to find one's way around. We were able to observe the struggle several times; experiential experts indicate that a park map is difficult to understand, a map app (such as Efteling's) often does not have a read-aloud function, but that audio instructions with a navigation app can help well.

A new park map was created for Bobbejaanland by students for people with disabilities, with clear routes and an overview of accessible attractions and zones with hardly any stimuli.

Hospitality training

Hospitable staff can mean the difference between a great day or a big disappointmenteven if accessibility is not perfect. Unfortunately, staff at parks are not always trained properly, making people with disabilities feel unwelcome. For example, "one of us (in a wheelchair) could do the virtual tour at Droomvlucht. We called, but no one came . After several times, an angry employee turned up. And to make matters worse, the virtual experience was not working. What a huge bummer!" An experiential expert had this tip: “It’s very important that staff know how they should treat us. Our emotions can be intense. Several times I saw someone go 'over

sometimes do not work, or are not always feasible, and people with disabilities really understand that. However, communication should be understandable and tactful; you certainly should not talk over people's heads to address their ‘attendant’ instead.

City tours

We took two city tours: a bike tour along various monuments to commemorate the liberation by General Maczek’s Polish armoured division, and a walking tour of the Blind Walls Gallery.

Bike tour along Maczek monuments

Most experiential experts in the group were able (although at very different paces) to move from monument to monument by bicycle or mobility scooter. One participant, however, could only really participate with a duo bike, but renting one in Breda for a day out proved very difficult. Eventually, he was able to come along by car, but that required adjustments to the tour because numerous places did not have a parking spot within short walking distance. In this case the guide was able to connect well with the group, skillfully using appropriate language and alternating between text and visual material.

Walking tour of Blind Walls Gallery

Street art on blind walls is, in principle, a great way of making a city more attractive. However, making that art truly accessible to people with disabilities requires extra attention. Finding the murals based on the available maps proved confusing. Instructions on how to get from one location to another and synchronisation with GPS locations were unclear. And then paintings also frequently turned out to be hidden in alleys. In addition, if the view of the paintings is partially blocked by cars or street furnitureperhaps unavoidable in a busy city - it makes for a less impressive experience.

Looking ahead: working on really accessible leisure experiences

We see that the leisure sector is making efforts to become accessible to all, but also that there is still work to be done, as evidenced by the above items to be addressed. It is often about small things that do have a lot of impact. In addition, it is not only about the leisure experience itself, but also what happens before and after. Simplify the physical and emotional route to and from the location: many do not have their own transportation, have intellectual as well as physical disabilities, or have difficulty travelling by public transport owing to fear, lack of clarity, overstimulation, a limited network and financial resources. Also look critically at ‘exit options’; can people with disabilities leave quickly in case of emergencies, for example.

In Breda, we emphatically look ahead. Together with the organisations Breda Gelijk and Breda voor Iedereen, we want to work towards an inclusive city in which equality, belonging and participation are the norm. Breda has expressed the ambition to win the Europe Access City Award again in 2030. Therefore, we want to build a community together with experiential experts to work with BUas students to realise Breda’s ambition in various fields, such as public spaces, festivals, hospitality, digital platforms, and so on - in a structured and sustained manner.

Our thanks go out to

The experiential experts of the LFB Sterkplaatsen Goes, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.

The BUas students of the tracks Urban Life & Placemaking, Performatory, Attractions & Theme Parks Management, and of Bachelor Leisure Studies.

Organising intercultural encounters in the city

Learning, exploring and making theatre with residents

Ger Pepels is a lecturer and researcher at BUas and he is a driver of ULLB’s Samenwerkplaats.

Kim Zonderveld works at Stormkamer as an urban dramaturge, theatre teacher and co-director.

This Uncover provides the opportunity to explore the theme of internationalisation@ home in many directions. The theme refers to the potential for experiencing cultural diversity at university and looking for a shared basis for living together. More than on the university campus where (English) linguistic, technological, mental and physical literacies are shared, this diversity resonates throughout the city. In this article, we highlight two approaches that offer insights into the opportunities and challenges of harnessing super-diverse intercultural encounters in the city. We do this based on the learning experiences of Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas) through Samenwerkplaats (SWP) in Urban Living Lab Breda (ULLB), and also through Stormkamer, the Breda theatre company, which uses its methodology to discuss the plurality of voices and perspectives. Both work in the Hoge Vucht neighbourhood in Breda, a district of about 20,000 residents. Both BUas and Stormkamer believe that the connection to the neighbourhood should have transformative value to residents.

Experiencing the super-diverse city

What is needed to make the value of diversity in the city fruitful for all involved? Can crosscultural encounters be of such value that

they “positively transform the people directly involved, the communities they are part of, and the structures shaping their lives” (Transformative research, Othering & Belonging Institute, Berkeley, 2024)?

In the immediate living environment of residents, there are sometimes challenging issues in terms of liveability and livelihood. A report by the Breda Rekenkamer (Breda Audit Office) (2021) points to the growing gap in the development of the city's neighbourhoods. This was partly the reason for launching the ‘Improve Breda’ programme. Where organisations recognise issues, they develop policies and take action. Think of services for children, adolescents, the unemployed, people with limited financial possibilities, women with a migration background, the elderly, and so on. The services are often standardised yet individually oriented, depending on policy priorities.

The question is whether such an approach based on specific issues is sufficient. Residents often experience the situation completely differently. They certainly feel and recognise challenges. However, the approach does not take into account the plurality of the situation in which the residents find themselves. Residents often do not fail to mention that they enjoy living in the neighbourhood, value diversity as a rich resource for their lives, and want to contribute to society.

The issues vary from person to person because, after all, people's situations vary greatly. For instance, people of more than 60 nationalities live in Hoge Vucht who, moreover, differ in terms of socio-economic position, social network, level of education, gender, age, ethnicity, family composition, language skills, and living situation. In other words, the diversity is enormous, as are the chances of intercultural encounters.

Really doing things together requires a certain degree of discomfort.

Ger Pepels

Kim Zonderveld

may feel excluded (‘othered’) by this approach designed and taken by institutional players. They feel alienated within their own uniquely multifaceted environment and lifeworld. They are not among the policy's target groups. The older, original Dutch residents of the neighbourhood see many target-group-specific initiatives, while the growing loneliness within their own group receives little attention. They retreat into the private domain and avoid public spaces.

When employees of the municipality and civil society organisations get involved, they do immediately ask about the motivation for this involvement. “If we want to improve the neighbourhood, what would be the best way to do that? And who decides that?” says Aïssa, a young person from the neighbourhood. The great diversity also makes it challenging for residents to develop a unified voice. “With people who have such different backgrounds, uniting is very difficult. Actually, the neighbourhood is too diverse. And yet you have a common interest. But it is difficult to fight for it together. This is also because a lot of suffering is actually personal. It's not like that saying: a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. That's just not true,” as Kiki, an active neighbourhood resident from Hoge Vucht, points out.

For the voice of the residents themselves to be heard, it is essential to provide both time and physical meeting places (such as community centres, libraries, public areas) where meaningful involvement can take shape. Based on the ideas of Asset-Based Community Development, SWP aims to anticipate by responding to requests and questions and, above all, to the strengths of residents. It is here that through education and research, the voice and strength of that great diversity of residents can be connected to issues that affect the living environment of residents. It is in these encounters that you feel the challenge to help interconnect the diverse

cultural realities of residents. The legitimate question is to what extent SWP has succeeded in this.

Between wealth and want

The theatre company Stormkamer set to work on the themes of (in)security of existence and inequality in 2023. How do you deal with people who have more or less than you? With this question in mind, they had numerous conversations. The question does not only refer to having many or limited financial resources, but also to opportunities, trust or a network. In five neighbourhoods of different cities, Stormkamer explored, together with residents and professionals, the different visions and experiences surrounding this theme. In Breda, they delved into Hoge Vucht.

Stormkamer believes it is important that their performances are rooted in a city, and that all perspectives are part of it. While theatre is sometimes seen as something for a small group of people, Stormkamer resists that. Stormkamer, frankly, had not been in Hoge Vucht much, prior to this project. Hanna van Mourik Broekman, Stormkamer's artistic director, went out and about, strolling along streets, stepping into community centres, going to coffee hours, flat meetings, and bringing breakfasts around. Although she was often warmly welcomed, it was also with caution: “When I saw you walking through the neighbourhood, I thought, ‘There's another one of those stuck-up, high-class women with a questionnaire. Here for just a quick moment, gone even quicker’”, Raymond, a neighbourhood resident of Hoge Vucht, related.

Still, the theatre company managed to meet the neighbourhood residents. The entire Stormkamer team resided in the neighbourhood, and conversations with residents became scenes in the performance.

Both BUas and Stormkamer believe that the connection to the neighbourhood should have transformative value to residents.

Residents were invited to share their own stories. They succeeded in organising two valuable interactive evenings where various parties from the city came together - residents from Hoge Vucht, organisations, but also the municipal executive councillor and other professionals - to talk about insecurity of existence and inequality of opportunity. Two evenings where the strength of the neighbourhood was showcased, laughter was shared, but problems were not avoided either.

The continuation

Both ULLB and Stormkamer are committed to finding new ways to connect with the culturally diverse voices of residents. Also, both aim to achieve transformation, adding to strengths and addressing challenges in a way that aligns with all involved. If transformation can occur at individual, interpersonal or group, institutional or systemic levels, then to date, only a few individual or small groups of residents have been affected; at the other levels (institutional or systemic) the results have been limited. Residents appreciate the initiatives, but more is needed to achieve transformation.

Real commitment and equality are essential in this respect. Really doing things together requires a certain degree of discomfort. By genuinely looking, seeing and being there. Not just for a while. Stormkamer and ULLB have made a start, but now it is important to continue. It is about valuing each other's knowledge, skills, experience and interests. In this process, equality is crucial. It is important, including for our education, to recognise that professionals (or professionals-to-be) need the ability to ‘bridge’, to ‘come together across acknowledged lines of difference in a way that both affirms their distinct identities, and allows for a new, more expansive identity’. What’s more, you need to recognise that you don't know everything, nor do you possess the absolute truth. Instead, you have to find out collaboratively what is needed.

More information

• https://obiu.org/course/ fundamentals-of-bridging

• www.stormkamer.nl

• www.urbanlivinglabbreda.nl

Photography

• Barbara Medo

BUas stimulates a diverse community with BUas Clubs

A personal story from the manager of the clubs

At BUas, there are many ways to organise and facilitate the BUas community. Numerous activities are organised for and by the community of students and staff such as Sport and Play Fest, De-stress Fest and Cupid’s Carnival. Studium Generale activities spotlight current substantive topics such as inclusion, AI or the Ukraine war. Green Office organises events and activities with the aim of raising awareness and creating a more sustainable campus. The annual Good Mood Week with dozens of activities focuses on student wellbeing. The HUB provides entertainment in the form of (live) radio, podcasts and BLEND magazine. A very important role in community building is also reserved for the BUas Clubs, which bring students and staff together around shared interests. All to make students and staff feel welcome and at home.

As the manager of BUas Clubs, I was asked to share both my personal journey and the story of the clubs. In this article, you will read about my experiences as an international student at BUas and about the way BUas Clubs enrich the lives of participants, featuring personal stories from those who have been positively impacted by the clubs.

My journey to the BUas Community Team Many international individuals often grapple with impostor syndrome at the beginning. It stems from the notion of starting afresh, considering oneself a blank slate, and downplaying the significance of one's past. The path that led you to your current point should not be overlooked when embarking on a new chapter. Neglecting your journey and past achievements can lead to feelings of being lost, depression, and the emergence of unfamiliar challenges. As an international student, navigating these struggles simultaneously was not a luxury I could afford, but I did. I aim to share insights on how to sidestep this timeconsuming trap.

When I began my journey, I needed a side job that fit my demanding study schedule of 40 hours a week, 9 to 5. It was a daunting task, especially after two years of difficult migrant jobs. The thought of returning to those roles made the challenge even more difficult. Through diligent research, I discovered various avenues to explore. There are student-centric platforms offering 'tasks' - quick, low-effort gigs for a day or a few hours with minimal pressure. The Student Portal often features postings for jobs requiring basic skills like proficiency with Microsoft software, documentation, or email correspondence. Some opportunities demand more active involvement, such as event organising. Frequently, positions as a waiter or waitress are available.

Engaging in a bit of networking is a smart move. Seeking advice from students in their second or third year can provide valuable insights into favourable job conditions, team dynamics, and management. Mentioning a referral from such a student could even yield a bonus of 100+

Fast-forward to today, I manage the clubs for the BUas Community Team, a role I've proudly held for two years. In my first year, struggling to find a job, this position became my lifeline. Working in a small team of passionate, driven students to strengthen our diverse community does not feel like a job - it is something I would do regardless. My active participation in BUas activities was crucial in securing this role, so I highly recommend getting involved - you could be the next clubs manager!

The world of BUas Clubs

Now, let's dive into the world of clubs. The main goal is to unite the BUas community around the same interests. Clubs are student or staff initiatives to get together with like-minded people and have fun in a totally inclusive community. These are not just survival tools for international students; they serve as a

Working in a small team of passionate, driven students to strengthen our diverse community does not feel like a job.

Viktorija Doļa

Viktorija Doļa is a Game Design and Production student from Latvia. In her job for the BUas student community she is responsible for managing the clubs at BUas and she is a leader and organiser of the Narrative and Women in Games guild.

portal to socialising, learning, and achieving a comfortable lifestyle. It might sound like an idealistic notion, but clubs can genuinely pave the way for your dreams to materialise.

Consider this scenario: you once enjoyed baking at home, but now you find yourself in a student house with a shared kitchen, devoid of an oven and lacking the desire to spend more than 15 minutes there. Enter the Baking Club, fully sponsored by BUas. Here, you can explore experimental pastries you have longed to make, surrounded by like-minded individuals eager to share tips and tricks. With over 25 clubs, ranging from the Chess, DJ, Gardening, ImprovTheatre, and Japanese Language Clubs to the Airplane Modelling, Maths, Neurodiversity, Running and Volleyball Clubs, there is a diverse array of interests to explore. And if nothing resonates with you, why not create your own club, filling the void with something reminiscent of your home?

As clubs manager, my job is also to ensure that all clubs are totally inclusive. We do that by carefully reviewing all club initiatives and supporting only the ones that do not exclude anyone. This allows for a more welcoming and enriching environment for all students to participate in extracurricular activities and feel a sense of belonging within the university community, no matter if you are a student or a staff member, which helps to erase the barrier. Ultimately, our goal is to create a campus culture that celebrates and embraces diversity in all its forms.

Finally, let us delve into the first-hand narratives of students and lecturers directly impacted by clubs – the leaders and members who shape and contribute to these vibrant communities.

Peter Janssen (student)

Role Playing Game Club leader

“I joined the RPG Club in my first year at BUas and have rarely missed a meeting since. They were open to anyone to join and it was exactly the kind of outlet I wanted for my hobby. The year passed and the organisers who started it were going to leave the Netherlands for

their placements, so I took the opportunity to help organise the club myself. It has been a fantastic three years so far and I formed a lot of friendships because of it. After the current academic year is over, I will be passing the torch to someone else, though I will still be around. I am excited to see what they will do next. The club has been organising different types of Tabletop Role Playing Games; including long-term events, playtests and trying out a variety of different systems. Over the years, we have grown increasingly popular since the inception of the club. I hope that after I leave, it will remain one of the largest and most open communities of BUas.”

Quincy Kievit (student)

TEA Club member

“The TEA@Buas club has positively influenced my life, since living on your own can sometimes be lonely but this club offers activities where I can share my passion for theme parks, combined with some professional aspects. The club does not host too many events which makes it fun to join, and it does not become too much for me.”

David Wessman (lecturer)

Unplugged Games Club leader

“The Unplugged Games Club is not just a fun, social activity centred on tabletop games, it is an opportunity for Games students to analyse and discuss games and game design, and playtest their prototypes. Over the years I have made friends with other club members and am pleased to see many alumni continue to participate years after they graduated.”

Rico Visscher (student)

Multiple club member

“It makes it easier to meet new people and socialise outside school, without being in a bar every day. Having a small room with some less social people in our house can be a bit lonely, so it is nice that there are clubs I can go to every day of the week.”

Join Clubs at BUas to experience it for yourself! You never know until you try; maybe this will be a life-changing experience.

Photography

Ultimately, our goal is to create a campus culture that celebrates and embraces diversity in all its forms.

The experience of an international icon

Studying the visitors of the new Van Gogh Village Museum in Nuenen &

Juriaan van Waalwijk and Moji Shahvali are lecturers and researchers at Academy for Leisure & Events at Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. Juriaan focuses on the power of storytelling in experience design and Moji is interested in studying and designing leisure experiences for more and better social interactions.

Born in Brabant in the Netherlands and grown to be an international art icon, Vincent van Gogh is celebrated all around the world; his paintings and his life are seen as a source of inspiration for all ages. Nowhere else can you get this close to Vincent as in the small village of Nuenen where one can literally walk in his footsteps. Here, the Van Gogh Village Nuenen Foundation works hard to acknowledge and attractively display the important Nuenen period of the legend to all national and international visitors, while also contributing to the leisure economy of the region. While the indoor museum does not showcase any of Vincent’s original paintings, it beautifully portrays his life in Nuenen in terms of his interactions with his parents, his love, and the residents of the village, leading up to his first masterpiece The Potato Eaters.

The stories of the different locations

Over 90% of museum visitors generally visit both the indoor museum and the surrounding village of Nuenen with a tour guide. The tour includes over 20 locations, some of which show the exact views and scenes that Vincent carefully portrayed in his paintings, such as the actual church Vincent painted and took to his mother when she was too sick to go to church herself. Other meaningful locations to Vincent include the house where he used to live with

his parents for several years in the late 19th century, and the house of his neighbour Margot with whom he fell in love. The volunteer guides, with great passion, artfully narrate the tales of Vincent’s struggle to balance a difficult family and romantic life with his intense dedication to work, which sometimes intrigued the local community and was at other times frowned upon, because of how he looked and what he portrayed.

Our research set-up

To better understand how visitors experience the indoor museum and the guided tour of the village, we conducted research in 2019, and again in 2023 after the museum underwent a large-scale renovation. This project was supported by the Centre of Expertise in Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality with the goal of making scientific research applicable and attainable for the industry. In each round, a group of tourism and leisure students were invited to Nuenen as research participants. In the more recent round of data collection, 40 students participated, aged between 20 and 30, originally coming from the Netherlands and 16 other countries. None of them had visited the previous museum set-up in Nuenen, although two-thirds had visited at least one other Vincent-centred attraction or had looked up information on Vincent and his life before the visit. During their visit, research participants were carefully tracked with Bluetooth beacons

Before its remodelling, the museum already had 25% international visitors. This percentage increased to about 50% during the last tourism season from April through September. (Museum Director)

(indoors) and GPS tracking (outdoors), while wearing wristbands that measured their level of emotional engagement in real time. They toured the museum and village and also gave feedback on their experience using questionnaires before and after the visit. This all provided valuable information for the redesign and marketing of the museum.

Juriaan

van Waalwijk Moji Shahvali

Emotions during the visit

When visitors were asked about the details of their experience and how the visit was perceived, emotions seemed to play a big role with three-quarters of all participants being emotionally moved by the visit to some extent. When asked as to what exactly had touched them emotionally, several visitors mentioned the films played in the museum and how “[it] gave me a clear image [of] how things were in the past and I could totally imagine myself sitting there”. This phenomenon of ’imagining being at the scene’ is referred to as ’narrative transportation’ and was specifically measured in our study using six separate items. In museums, different storytelling techniques are used in films or guided tours as a way to invoke narrative transportation and emotional responses in visitors. One visitor illustrated this by noting: “The part when the guide talked about Van Gogh’s lover, how they used to take walks, and how she tried to end her life; that story was beautiful yet tragic.” In short, the data revealed that visitors experienced a spectrum of intense emotions during their visit - mostly positive but also negative ones - which are likely to leave a lasting impression and word-of-mouth.

Memorable moments

Asking about ’memories’ rather than emotions brought to light various aspects that can be creatively incorporated into the museum design. The open answers to the question: “What elements of the museum visit do you remember the most?” notably pointed to the interactive elements during the visit, especially the interactive installation called ’the light lab’ and one respondent mentioned how “the photobooth made me happy with my fellow

around a dining table and act out Vincent van Gogh’s first masterpiece.

Meaningful experiences

Narrative transportation was found to also have a significant moderate relationship with how meaningful respondents found the visit to be. Meaning generally results from stories and elements that upon reflection bring new insights to people relevant to their everyday lives. As one respondent mentioned: “The house of Margo, the story behind her and Vincent, it was all relatable. Even today, people’s love choices are influenced by public opinion”. A significantly strong positive correlation was also detected between meaningfulness and how people rated the NPS score question - an industry standard measure of how an organisation is doing - hinting at how storytelling can be used for reaching various organisational goals. Moreover, the interviews consistently highlighted a concept known as ’self-expansion’, which gauges personal growth through new, exciting, interesting, and sometimes challenging experiences. This also showed a strong correlation with how meaningful they found the visit to be.

Connecting with the host community

Up to this point we found scientific evidence that the museum is successfully providing experiences that many people would hope and expect from a museum of this calibre. However, there was another component of such leisure activities that we paid particular attention to in our research. That concerns the quality of human connections during and after the experience. Social interactions are a critical component that determines whether an experience is found to be good or not, especially for international visitors on holiday.

The many new interactive elements in the museum are not only fun and educational but might be the reason why the museum is more meaningful to visitors. (Museum Director)

Connections that a museum visit can facilitate among visitors themselves but also with the host community, in this case the residents of Nuenen, can make a trip to the Netherlands much more special. We therefore inquired, both prior to and after their visit, about the extent of their connection with the residents of Nuenen. We also measured the extent of their connection with their fellow students (also visiting the museum), using overlapping circles. The results showed that, on average, students felt only a little more connected to other students, after the visit. Interestingly though, there was a sharp increase in how much more connected they felt to the residents of Nuenen, a location they had never visited before. Even more interesting, we found a strong association between how connected respondents felt to the residents of Nuenen as a result of their visit, and their reported likeliness to revisit the museum, at least in the small sample we had.

The internationalisation perspective of the World Leisure Organization

Introducing its World Leisure Centers of Excellence Network programme

An entire chapter from the World Leisure Organization (WLO) has been contributed to this edition of Uncover. This first article introduces the World Leisure Organization including the phenomenon of World Leisure Centers of Excellence (WLCEs). This is followed by articles from WLCEs from Brazil, Canada, China and New Zealand. BUas, which is a WLCE too, finally concludes the chapter including a look into the future at the World Leisure Congress in 2025, which will take place in the Netherlands in Breda.

The WLO

Formed in 1952, the World Leisure Organization is a not-for-profit, non-governmental body that brings together individuals and organisations from throughout the world to promote leisure as integral to social, cultural, economic, and sustainable environmental development. The WLO is governed by a Board of Directors, consisting of up to 20 individuals elected by the organisation’s members, who are committed to leisure as a human right and work as an advocacy group to promote leisure as a force for community betterment. Their work aims to foster socio-cultural development, encourage sustainable economic growth, and enhance the quality of life for people worldwide.

In addition to the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee serves as the steering

officers (Chair, Vice-Chair, and Treasurer), the Chief Operating Officer, and up to five members of the Board. Members of this Committee are elected by the Board and collaborate in shaping the organisation's strategic plan. Various ad hoc committees, established annually, contribute to the development of this plan, serving as crucial task forces within the organisation. Additionally, with a keen focus on nurturing future scholars and practitioners, the WLO actively supports and promotes Youth Ambassador projects and activities through its various programmes.

The WLO achieves its mission, vision and goals through its programmes and activities that are developed according to four main strands: advocacy, research, education, and knowledge transfer.

childhood through to later years. Its membership spans across the globe and includes individuals and organisations involved in various fields including travel and tourism, parks and recreation services, the arts and culture, sport, health and fitness, theme and entertainment centres and educational institutes.

As a global advocate and knowledge-driven organisation focused on its members, the WLO is dedicated to understanding the significance of leisure in improving the well-being of individuals, communities, and nations. It actively promotes the benefits of leisure and strives to ensure that everyone has access to leisure, advocating inclusion and equal opportunities for all.

Arianne Reis

Dr. Arianne Reis is associate professor of Leisure and Recreation studies at Western Sydney University and she is the coordinator of the WLCE Network.

Strategic partnerships

The WLO actively engages in collaborations with various strategic partners, NGOs, and public and private sector organisations to advance common objectives related to leisure advocacy and social, cultural, and economic development. The World Leisure Organization’s most prized partnership is with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Being recognised as a consultative organisation by the Council allows the WLO to support the UN's work by incorporating its objectives into its own programmes and services. Through the WLO Chapters Programme, individuals at community, city, state, provincial, regional, or national levels can affiliate with the organisation, aligning their efforts with its broader vision, priorities, and themes. Similarly, the World Leisure Affiliate Programme seeks collaborative relationships with organisations worldwide, including educational institutes, governments, and non-governmental organisations seeking to associate with the WLO. Current strategic partnerships include prominent entities such as the United Nations, the World Tourism Organization, and others like the American Academy for Leisure, the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE), the Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies (ANZALS), and

the Organisation Internationale du Tourisme Social (OITS - ISTO).

Working together globally

The governance model of the World Leisure Organization is decentralised, with the scientific and technical secretariat functioning as the hub from Bilbao, Spain, and academic and professional task forces dispersed globally. Notable leadership positions include the WLO Chair in Canada, the Vice Chair in Hong Kong, and the Treasurer in China. Close international communication and collaboration with local teams facilitate the organisation of the WLO's major events such as congresses, expos, games, and festivals. For instance, representatives from the University of Otago in Dunedin (New Zealand) organised the 17th World Leisure Congress, while Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands is preparing to host the 18th World Leisure Congress. Additionally, Hangzhou's local municipality has facilitated a number of World Leisure Expos since its inception in 2006. Another significant aspect is the World Leisure Journal and its editorin-chief, headquartered in Scotland, which amplifies the voices of academics worldwide. With representation across the globe, the World Leisure Organization embodies a global, multicultural, and diverse community.

WLCE

We strongly believe that leisure can enhance the quality of life for everyone.

A key strategy for the continued internationalisation of the WLO are the World Leisure Centers of Excellence (WLCEs). The WLCEs constitute an international network of graduate and postgraduate education. It offers colleges and universities the chance to partner with the WLO to establish educational programmes and research centres focusing on various aspects of leisure, such as play, recreation, arts, culture, sports, festivals, health, fitness, travel, and tourism with a global perspective. This collaboration provides students, educators, researchers, and professionals with unique opportunities to engage in theme-focused educational activities.

The programmes within the Centers of Excellence network receive robust organisational

and promotional support from the WLO. A member of the Board coordinates the network's activities, while the WLO Secretariat offers institutional support. Through these channels, the WLO promotes leisure studies conducted by WLCE, shares WLCE publications via the WLO’s website and social media platforms, advertises upcoming WLCE events, and facilitates collaboration and exchange opportunities among staff and students across all WLCE institutes. Additionally, WLCE partners have the privilege of displaying the WLO logo on their websites and key documents, further enhancing their visibility and credibility internationally.

Currently, there are six WLCEs spread across five continents: two in North America, one in South America, one in Europe, one in China and one in Oceania. These WLCEs represent some of the best educational institutes teaching leisure studies at a postgraduate level in the world, teaching in English, Mandarin, Portuguese, French, and Dutch: Vancouver Island University, Breda University of Applied Sciences, University of Otago, Universidade de São Paulo, Zhejiang University, and Université du Québec à TroisRivières. Their teams include world-renowned researchers in the leisure field, in areas as varied as tourism, community development, sustainable leisure management, games and media, events, gastronomy, creativity and space, strategic design, sport industry and management, martial arts and traditional sports, among other things.

Among some of the activities that members of the WLCE network have engaged in are student and staff exchanges, field trips, work placements, guest lectures, visiting scholars, master classes, collaborative research projects, joint thesis supervision and international seminars. Being part of such an international network has the potential to create numerous opportunities for members, including students, to collaborate and learn from a global community with international expertise in the interdisciplinary field of leisure studies. It creates a platform for international visibility, partnerships, and cooperation in teaching and research.

Fostering education initiatives in an international environment

Dutch-Brazilian experiences

Thiago Allis is associate professor of Leisure and Tourism, at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, at the University of São Paulo (EACH-USP).

The School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, at the University of São Paulo (EACH-USP), is one of the founding hubs of the World Leisure Centers of Excellence (WLCE) network. With 4,400 students and over 250 professors, EACH-USP is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary (2005-2025), but it is part of one of the most influential universities in Latin America: USP was founded in 1934 and, today, is ranked at position 85 at QS World University Ranking. The creation of the new campus brought innovative and, in some cases, unprecedented focuses to the undergrad environment, including marketing, public policies management, textile & fashion and, of course, leisure and tourism programmes. Though tourism is a traditional academic pathway in Brazil (the first undergraduate programme opened in 1974), EACH was a pioneer in combining leisure and tourism topics into a single programme, enhancing an integrated approach to both fields.

Being one of the most renowned universities in Latin America, USP has always been highly internationalised. And this is not different at EACH: to date, almost 50 agreements are running, covering mobility (students, professors, researchers, staff), joint research schemes and organisation of academic and scientific events. These agreements seek to encourage undergraduate international mobility, despite funding limitations, language barriers, cultural differences and institutional contrasts. Besides stimulating students to go abroad, another strategy is to bring international students to Brazil, as a way to foster ‘internationalisation at home’ - and the experience to be described further on illustrates such an initiative.

challenges and inequalities

Academic internationalisation is more than mobility of students or any academic staff: it is about creating a vibrant and organic environment for cross-cultural exchange and cooperative learning between internal and external members of the academic community. When it comes to real projects, connecting diverse contexts and contrasting backgrounds is even more challenging.

EACH and BUas are institutionally connected by a mobility agreement from 2022, aiming at creating opportunities for students to circulate, meet and expand their academic and life repertoires. The relationships between both institutes dates back to 2017 though, when EACH was one of the organisers of the World Leisure Congress, held in São Paulo. Despite funding limitations and language barriers, since then, students and professors from EACH and BUas have spent short or longer stays at the partner institute. One of these situations was the recent Digital Learning Festival, held simultaneously in São Paulo and in Breda, as well as in the virtual space. This is, indeed, a milestone in a long-term cooperation process, an achievement of continuous and organic entanglements between both institutions. Let's learn a bit more about this initiative.

Digital Learning Festival Brazil-Netherlands Being part of the WLO network - in particular, as WLCE - makes things a bit more enthusiastic, either because we are pushed to deliver useful and inspiring results to the members or, on the other hand, because we assume beforehand that leisure (and tourism) are valued in multiple ways in the seine of that organisation. In this case, two WLCEs (EACH and BUas) have been, systematically, cooperating for several years; so putting a ‘Digital Learning Festival’ forward

in partnership with Celiane Camargo-Borges, based at Academy for Leisure & Events at BUas.

From 16 to 18 April 2024, dozens of students from EACH-USP and BUas attended sessions and took part in a field trip, having the opportunity to grasp how both institutes are working together and, more importantly, can do it even better. One of the most inspirational achievements was, with no room for doubt, a Design Sprint combining 20 students at both ends, debating and coming up with responses to the following question: How emerging technologies and knowledge (‘saberes’) might contribute to the design of smart(er) universities? They were accompanied by skilled mentors and, working in two groups (mixing Brazilian and international students, both online and in person), delivered creative proposals for commissioners in Breda (Innovation Square) as well as in Brazil (Habits Incubadora).

When it comes to real projects, connecting diverse contexts and contrasting backgrounds is challenging.

Thiago Allis

and should not escape from our consciousness as scholars committed to doing our best as members of an academic international network?

Mobility justice

The concept of ‘mobility justice’, coined by the sociologist Mimi Sheller, is key to discuss, promote and transform internationalisation principles, policies and practices. Based on the idea of ‘mobility turn’ that emerged in social sciences in the beginning of the 21st century, the notion of a ‘mobilities paradigm’ claims that "how, when, and where people, goods, and capital move is, in all respects, a political question" (Sheller, 2018, p. xii). If trajectories, pace and experiences can be differently performed by different individuals (say, when in academic mobility or, when, they are hindered from doing so), one has to assume that uneven mobilities are the rule - and not the exception. This and other issues were under debate during the ‘Sustainability Transitions in Education and Research’ session of the Digital Learning

Festival. With an audience comprising Brazilian and international students, professors and researchers, it becomes imperative to state that when addressing the challenges of sustainability, and similarly for academic internationalisation, the ‘departure point’ may be of greater significance than the ‘arrival point’. This implies that from a political perspective, we must understand how to learn from local issues to create a global impact. If glocalisation is a must to discuss learning communities, perhaps we should be open to take (real!) advantage of diverse points of view, assuming that different ‘departure points’ can teach us collectively based on heterogeneity.

Luckily, the interactions between students and professors at EACH and BUas, in person and online, significantly fostered network building - especially among students. If mobility is an asset unevenly distributed, the more younger professionals expand their networks, the longer their scope of (education, academic, professional, personal) possibilities in the future.

What is the future?

In his last book, John Urry, one of the gurus of mobilities studies from a humanist lens, was concerned on how to decarbonise society in a post-petroleum economy. In fact, the more the society became mobile, the more opportunities arose, though the side effects followed (social inequalities, environmental destruction, emissions and garbage skyrocketing, to name a few). This is, of course, one of the inescapable challenges of our time. In that vein, he was not only questioning environmental issues strictly from the biological lenses: more importantly, he was concerned at how to make society viable not only environmentally, but less unequally. Departing from this point and assuming that future scholars and professionals - today’s students - should be encouraged to expand their repertoire via international interactions, how to tackle (social, gender, race) inequalities and, on the same level of responsibility, embrace sustainability challenges in all dimensions?

From the perspective of USP, we are witnessing relevant changes in the ethnic, social and economic profile of students, bringing additional challenges - but also the richest opportunities - to foster new approaches to academic internationalisation. In touch with other WLCE networks - as well as numerous academic partners around the world - we truly believe that the combination of curiosity, academic capacity and a sense for a communal future will be driving forces to deliver better and sustainable solutions not only for leisure and tourism domains, but for many other sectors of life.

Sources

• Sheller, M. (2018). Mobility justice: the politics of movement in an age of extremes. Verso.

• Urry, J. (2016). What is the future. Polity.

Photography

• Cecília Bastos (page 82)

Digital Learning Festival, held simultaneously in São Paulo and in Breda, as well as in the virtual space.

Leisure as a national strategy for a better life

International cooperation and future prospects of China's leisure environment

Under the background of building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, the income level and quality of life of China's residents have significantly improved, while leisure and recreation have become an important part of the Chinese people's daily lives. For example, the survey in the Annual Report on Leisure Development in China 2023-2024 shows that 86.2 per cent of respondents consider leisure time to be very important or important to them, which is an increase of 22 percentage points from 2022 (China Tourism Academy, 2024). Therefore, to meet people's needs for a better life, leisure has become a national strategy and an important way to promote social harmony, stability and improve the quality of life. In addition, with the increasing integration and advancement of emerging technologies such as 5G, big data, cloud computing, and AI in the leisure industry, the ongoing emergence of innovative business models in the leisure sector, the continuous enhancement of policies and institutional frameworks in the leisure field, and the notable improvement in governance capabilities, a diverse pattern of high-quality development in the leisure industry has been established. This development is further supported by the cultural, tourism, sports, and health sectors. As a result, leisure activities

in China have evolved from traditional, often passive, activities to diversified, more active, technology-driven activities, and on a global scale (Lin & Dong, 2018). We would like to give a brief overview of the main issues and challenges of the current globalisation of leisure activities in China.

Key Issues and Challenges

The internationalisation of leisure activities in China has always been guided by the higher goal of opening up to the outside world. For example, by leveraging the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, China has effectively utilised its domestic sports and leisure resources and industrial advantages. It has enhanced collaboration with countries along the route and actively

has been achieved through partnerships with various international sports and leisure organisations, as well as through the introduction of international tournaments, conferences, and other initiatives (Chinese Olympic Committee, 2021). In addition, China has also hosted a number of international events, such as the Olympic Games and the Asian Games, to increase opportunities for exchanges with other countries. At the same time, it is not only necessary to ‘bring in’ but also to ‘go out’. China is also actively promoting relevant sports and leisure activities and industries worldwide. This effort is beneficial for spreading Chinese sports and leisure culture, telling a good story of Chinese sports and leisure, and boosting national cultural confidence.

Lijun Jane Zhou Yao Li &

Professor Lijun Jane Zhou is director of the World Leisure Center of Excellence-Zhejiang University, China. Ms. Yao Li is coordinator of the World Leisure Center of ExcellenceZhejiang University, China.

However, there are many challenges and obstacles to the internationalisation of leisure activities in China. Firstly, sports and leisure activities have a strong cultural identity of their own, reflecting certain cultural values as well as historical and cultural origins. Therefore, in the process of ‘going out’, many countries with different histories, cultures, values and levels of economic development will be involved, and the implementation of a new concept will inevitably be accepted or resisted by local cultures and values (Zhou & Song, 2020). Secondly, compared to other countries with mature sports and leisure industries, China has organised fewer international conferences and exchanges in the field of sports and leisure. These events have smaller scales and fewer participants, which restricts the international development of China's sports and leisure industry to some extent. Thirdly, the development of China's leisure industry is still faced with the constraints posed by the inadequacy of supporting facilities for sports and leisure as well as the shortage of relevant exceptional talents. In conclusion, sports and leisure activities in China have both opportunities and challenges in the process of internationalisation.

The Contribution of WLCE-Zhejiang University

Founded in 2018, WLCE-ZJU is the fourth WLCE member of the World Leisure Organization (WLO) globally and the first in Asia. Since its establishment, we have always been committed to actively integrating the advantageous resources of all parties, building a communication platform and contact network for the WLO, WLCE member units, ZJU teachers and students, as well as governmental departments and leisure institutions at all levels, and making significant contributions to the internationalisation of leisure activities. In terms of knowledge transfer, many leading scholars, government officials, and leading entrepreneurs were invited to our sportsthemed lectures, which have been viewed by over 1,000 attendees from home and abroad. Meanwhile, Prof. Lijun Jane Zhou, the Center director, has represented us to participate in academic exchange meetings and media interviews at home and abroad many times, such as the World Leisure Congress, the World Leisure Expo, and being a guest on the English Channel of CGTN, contributing China's wisdom on the world stage. In terms of activities related to WLO, WLCE-ZJU successfully organised the International Conference on Sports and Leisure in 2019, 2022, and 2023, providing a high-quality academic exchange and communication platform for individuals from various backgrounds in the sports and leisure field both domestically and internationally. This initiative has effectively promoted international academic exchanges and co-operation in the sports and leisure sector, contributing

to the enhancement of China's influence in international sports and leisure research. WLCEZJU has also actively participated in the World Leisure Day (WLD) activities. By 2024, with the support of WLCE-ZJU, seven activities in China have been successfully selected as WLD global events, which has significantly increased the visibility and influence of China's series of leisure activities in the global arena. In addition, the Center actively participates in international field studies and work placements organised by the WLO. This enables more Chinese students to gain an in-depth understanding of local cultures, engage in exchanges with young students from around the world, and conduct special seminars on various topics in the field of leisure. In general, WLCE-ZJU, as an important member of WLO, has made significant contributions to the internationalisation of sports and leisure activities in China.

Wishes for the future

Along the way, WLCE-ZJU has made remarkable achievements in the process of internationalisation. However, based on the current challenges encountered in the internationalisation of leisure activities in China, the Center hopes to be able to rely on the international platform provided by WLO to gain more opportunities for international exchanges and cooperation in the future. For instance, by expanding the number and frequency of international study programmes, more young individuals can access international exchange opportunities, thereby enhancing the development of exceptional sports and leisure talents. Additionally, individuals from diverse backgrounds in the sports and leisure sector, both domestically and internationally, are welcome to participate in the annual International Sports and Leisure Conference hosted by the Center. This participation aims to advance theoretical research and practical advancements in sports and leisure under the high-quality exchange of ideas, ultimately assisting the Center in establishing a renowned academic brand on a global scale.

In conclusion, the trend of globalisation poses both opportunities and challenges for the internationalisation of China's leisure activities. As an important member of the WLO, WLCE-ZJU is looking forward to further strengthening exchanges and co-operation

WLCE-ZJU has made significant contributions to the internationalisation of sports and leisure activities in China.

Leisure and recreation have become an important part of the Chinese people's daily lives.

We firmly believe that with joint efforts, China's leisure activities will continue to go global and contribute Chinese wisdom to the development of the global leisure industry.

Sources

• China Tourism Academy. (2024). China Leisure Development Annual Report 2023-2024.

• Lin, M., & Dong, E. (2018). Place construction and public space: Cantonese opera as leisure in the urban parks of Guangzhou, China. Leisure Studies, 37(2), 117–131. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/02614367.2017.1341544

• - Zhou, D., & Song, B. (2020). 依托“一带一 路”建设构建运动休闲产业新经济带研究 Journal of Guangzhou Sport University, 40(2), 32-34. 10.13830/j.cnki.cn44-1129/ g8.2020.02.008.

- “双循环”新发展格局下体育产业高质量发 展的宏观形态与方略举措. (2021, May 30). Chinese Olympic Committee. http://olympic. cn/e-marketing/2105/2021/0531/382905. html.

Hoping the WLO can help resist voices of the illiberal right

A call from Otago, New Zealand

The Department of Tourism at the University of Otago has been a World Leisure Center of Excellence since 2018. Known also by the Māori title of Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, the University is located in Dunedin, in the South Island of New Zealand. Dunedin is renowned for its diverse natural landscapes, unique wildlife species and multicultural heritage. It is possible to construct an image of this WLCE as being a long way from everywhere else, disconnected from the rest of the world and out of touch. Certainly, the recent experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which New Zealand’s borders were closed for a long period and life within them went on pretty much as before while so much of the rest of the world struggled. Yet seen from a different perspective, New Zealand is one of the first places in the world where the new day dawns. As such, it may be said to lead the world, not merely follow in everyone else’s shadow.

This is how the Department has positioned itself throughout its lifespan since it was established in the early 1990s. It has long been recognised as being home to some of the world’s leading thinkers, researchers, learners, and teachers in the fields of tourism and leisure studies. They work across a range of topics, all reflecting both the social phenomena and large and diverse industries that are tourism and leisure. Current research foci in the Department include welfare,

human), indigeneity, invasive species, mobilities, placemaking, sustainability, ethics, and identity.

An integral component of the research environment at Otago is the PhD student community that regularly sees over 30 students from around the world working on diverse topics. On completion of their PhDs, they then scatter across the planet, providing a nice representation of Otago being at the leading edge of each new day, whose wave then spreads across the globe to help push forward knowledge and understandings around tourism and leisure. Alongside the PhD programme, the Department academics often supervise interdisciplinary students from other related departments (e.g. Physical Education) and DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) students. It also operates one of the world’s leading master’s programmes and a successful undergraduate programme in the field of tourism. Like the PhD students, master’s and bachelor’s students come to Otago from all over the world and after graduating spread out, to enjoy the delights of New Zealand and the rest of the world.

The value of internationalisation

The internationalisation of higher education in New Zealand encompasses various dimensions such as student mobility, academic collaboration, research and teaching partnerships, and institutional linkages. At the University of Otago, the current internationalisation strategy

- Te Aka Whakaranea ā-Ao – sets out various goals linked to, among other aspects, increasing student recruitment, student exchanges, and international articulation agreements; improving global partnerships (e.g. World Leisure Organization, Matariki Network of Universities, Erasmus exchanges); and maintaining “an active and internationally connected research culture” (University of Otago, 2024, p. 15).

promotes intercultural understanding among students, faculty, and staff, enriching the learning environment and fostering global citizenship. Moreover, international collaborations contribute to the advancement of research and innovation.

Economically, international education generates significant revenue for the University of Otago, through tuition fees, accommodation, and ancillary services. Relatedly, and at a broader level, pre-Covid there were 34,000 international students studying in New Zealand, and a return to these numbers is expected soon. According to Universities New Zealand (2024), 92% of

The department has long been recognised as being home to some of the world’s leading thinkers, researchers, learners, and teachers in the fields of tourism and leisure studies.

Neil Carr Stuart Hayes

Professor Neil Carr and Dr. Stuart Hayes work for the Department of Tourism, University of Otago - Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, New Zealand.

international students choose to study here because of the reputation of New Zealand universities: all eight universities are ranked within the top 3% in the world and, moreover, New Zealand universities were ranked in the top 50 universities in the world in 22 different subjects, and in the top 100 in 39 (out of a possible 46) subjects. Despite the clear economic benefits associated with international student tuition fees, an over-reliance on this source of revenue can be risky, especially in times of economic uncertainty or geopolitical instability. Diversifying income streams is, therefore, arguably vital to mitigate such risks.

The Department of Tourism, University of Otago, works towards maximising the benefits of internationalisation in different ways. Beyond the continual development and promotion of our programmes to international students, staff are heavily invested in maintaining strong relationships with alumni. Particularly among PhD alumni, these relationships have blossomed into meaningful research collaborations addressing some of the important questions relevant to tourism and leisure.

Being part of the WLO network

Over the last couple of years, our partnership with the WLO has also provided an important opportunity to connect with tourism and leisure researchers and students from around the world. The recent World Leisure Congress, held in Dunedin in 2023, was a major milestone in this relationship. Moreover, the Department of Tourism sees exciting potential to further develop internationalisation initiatives with, and alongside, the WLO, not least of all in terms of developing joint degree programmes and PhD supervision with other WLCEs.

There are so many questions in the world today that benefit from being addressed by

within this setting of inclusive globalisation. To take understandings of leisure and tourism forward within this context demands multiple international cooperations across researchers, teachers, learners, and publishers. The WLO network offers one such vehicle to enable us to engage with people from diverse locations, with differing perspectives and ways of knowing.

A crucial role for the WLO to play

We have lived a wave of rising liberalism and acceptance of diversity over the last couple of decades. For anyone who believes in the rights of the individual to self-expression it has been a beautiful journey. Today, we see such acceptance under pressure in many parts of the world, threatening to roll back the acceptance of individuality. Knowing that leisure and tourism are key components of community and individual well-being, destinations are sites for expression of, and learning about, the self. The hope is that the WLO, and all those working in the field, can help to fight back against the voices of the illiberal right. Is leisure studies best situated for such an undertaking? Carr (2022) has argued that, despite the demise of so many leisure studies departments in the world’s universities, the field is actually very healthy, filled with passionate individuals researching topics central to the above concern. The challenge for WLO is to bring those voices together, to make them heard in the face of the noise from those who would see an end to diversity, with all the associated negative connotations for individual and societal wellbeing. WLO also needs to bring the international and cultural diversity of tourism academics into the fold, setting aside age-old angst about the relation between leisure and tourism to walk the talk of acceptance of diversity. They need to do this to unite the voices of leisure and tourism scholars around the welfare of the individual (in all its diversity, incorporating everyone, be

So many questions in the world today benefit from being addressed by multinational groupings in global settings.

Sources

• Carr, N. (2022). Doom-mongers beware: An analysis of the health of leisure studies. Leisure Studies. 41 (2): 151–163. New Zealand Universities. (2024). International students. Retrieved from https://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/ international-students.

• University of Otago. (2024).

Te Aka Whakaranea ā-Ao: 2021–25 Internationalisation Framework. Retrieved from https://www.otago.ac.nz/__data/ assets/pdf_file/0019/314740/ download-te-aka-whakaraneaa-ao-2021-2025-829857.pdf.

Exploring the dynamics of Canada’s World Leisure Centers of Excellence

Fostering global connections through education &

The World Leisure Organization (WLO) has two Centers of Excellence (WLCE) in Canada, each with distinct settings and dynamics: one in Nanaimo, British Columbia, on Canada’s west coast, and the other in Trois-Rivières, Québec, in Eastern Canada. A key difference between the two centers is their language. The WLCE at Vancouver Island University attracts students from English-speaking Canada and global regions, including India, Iran, China, Mexico, and Vietnam. The WLCE at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières offers the only French-speaking graduate leisure studies programs and thus attracts local and international students from Francophile regions. This linguistic distinction significantly influences their respective international partnerships.

Internationalization of Leisure in Western Canada

At the WLCE at Vancouver Island University (WLCE@VIU), we focus on attracting graduate students from diverse countries and exploring how leisure, in all its forms, can contribute to society's health and well-being. We strive to achieve internationalization and global relevance by introducing students to the unique blend of Indigenous and settler ways of knowing, leisure pursuits, and perspectives on sustainability. Master of Arts in Sustainable Leisure Management (MASLM) students are encouraged to explore the meanings of leisure within their own cultures, Canadian culture, and global society while also seeking ways of harnessing the power of leisure for positive change.

Internationalization within its programming is achieved through experiential fieldwork and

international field schools. The WLCE@ VIU has actively participated in the University of the Arctic’s Northern Tourism program, which has afforded several students the opportunity to participate in multinational polar tourism field schools in the Yukon Territory of Canada and Norway. Before 2020, the WLCE@VIU delivered an annual field school in Ghana, West Africa, and the team has actively engaged in the World Leisure Congress field schools in the USA, South Africa, Brazil, and New Zealand.

Internationalization within the British Columbian/ western Canadian post-secondary context is impacted by several issues similar to those of the WLCE at Trois-Rivières. A lack of funding and increasing education and housing costs have resulted in financial challenges to student mobility. While there may be government funding for Canadian students to travel abroad, the increased cost and the necessity for students to work during their studies has resulted in a limited pool of those willing or able to travel. There are also limited funds to attract international students to smaller universities like VIU, and those offered generally do not fully cover the cost of living and school.

There is a need to address the barriers of neo-liberal capitalistic perspectives on postsecondary funding and student mobility. The value of the WLCE@VIU is, in large part, derived from its mandate to develop and use international networks and partnerships, which focus on specific projects and funding for international research, development, and mobility. Through these opportunities, WLCE@ VIU-affiliated professors and students have formed enduring relationships and engaged in projects in Ghana, Tanzania, and Japan. Through the WLCE Network, we continue to focus on internationalization by hosting visiting scholars,

A key difference between the two centers is their language and this linguistic distinction significantly influences their respective international partnerships.

participating in World Leisure Day Activities, and engaging in global debates and panels.

Internationalization of Leisure in the Francophone World

At the World Leisure Center of Excellence in Trois-Rivières, our focus extends to fostering relationships with France, West Coast Africa, Haiti, and, to a lesser extent, the Maghreb countries, Belgium, Switzerland, and other Francophile regions. A significant portion of the students in our master's and doctoral programs hails from these countries, enriching our debates and exchanges with diverse perspectives. We also have student mobility programs, especially for undergraduate students, primarily in collaboration with European institutes.

Aggie Weighill Marc Andre Lavigne

Aggie Weighill is director of the World Leisure Center of Excellence at Vancouver Island University. Marc Andre Lavigne is co-director of the World Leisure Center of Excellence at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.

internationalization parallel those of cultivating a scientific community in leisure studies, a field surprisingly underdeveloped or unrecognized in the Francophone world. While leisure is studied, dedicated programs or institutional structures for its development are rare. Our challenge is to identify common threads and denominators while learning from one another. A broad definition of leisure, encompassing tourism, sports, culture, and outdoor activities, helps in finding shared interests essential for developing international projects.

This fosters a relationship of mutual influence between countries and researchers, involving the exchange of best practices and co-construction of knowledge that often challenges foundational concepts in our field. One concrete example is an upcoming initiative between our Center of Excellence and a partner university in Lebanon,

scheduled for fall 2024. Our Lebanese colleagues recognize that leisure can strengthen social ties and revitalize communities, yet their models and approaches differ from ours. This collaboration will allow us to test Canadiandeveloped models in a vastly different context, including communities marked by conflict, different institutional and civil configurations, and complex political dynamics.

There is also a desire to work more closely with governments of French-speaking countries to exchange policies and to share what works and what does not in their programs. Decisionmakers in our sector are curious about what is being done elsewhere to address climate change, promote active living or cultural activities, and ensure better access to leisure opportunities. Non-profit organizations in our sector also seek international partners to engage in dialogue with their peers elsewhere in the world, to be inspired and to strategically monitor new trends.

The contribution of the World Leisure Centers of Excellence network

Lebanese colleagues recognize that leisure can strengthen social ties and revitalize communities, yet their models and approaches differ from ours.

A challenge that the network encounters is the presence of tariff barriers and insufficient investment in student mobility.

The primary contribution of the network is to initiate the dynamics of knowledge sharing. Although language barriers pose a challenge for many, the network facilitates connections, supports student and faculty mobility projects, enables co-supervision of theses, and facilitates collaborative research endeavors. It is worth noting that the concept of leisure itself is ambiguous, and its interpretation can vary significantly depending on the defining institutions. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the network encourages nuanced discussions, and challenges preconceived notions.

Challenges

In this context, where facilitating exchanges

and mobility projects is crucial, one challenge that the network - and universities in general - encounters is the presence of tariff barriers and insufficient investment in student mobility. International students are often viewed as a lucrative revenue source for governments and educational institutes, leading to higher tuition fees and restrictive admission quotas. The lack of adequate resources to support student mobility, both inbound and outbound, can deter international collaborative projects, as students and researchers may face difficulties travelling to participate in joint initiatives. The World Leisure Organization is certainly limited in its actions for this global and often complex challenge. Still, it allows, among other things, through its network of Centers of Excellence, to maintain a presence in several countries and to connect potential partners.

Preparing for the World Leisure Congress in 2025

The World Leisure Center of Excellence at Breda University of Applied Sciences

Hosting the World Leisure Congress in 2025

Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas) is proud to house one of the six World Leisure Centers of Excellence. BUas has arranged its education activities in five academies. The World Leisure Center of Excellence is part of Academy for Leisure & Events (ALE).

WLCE and education

A primary focus of the WLCE at BUas is the delivery of the MSc Leisure and Tourism Studies. This MSc has a long-standing tradition, having started at the School of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Tilburg University in 1984, and being delivered by BUas’ ALE since 2014. The MSc Leisure and Tourism Studies has a strong research focus, with half of the course credits being allocated to an individual research component leading up to an MSc thesis.

WLCE and research

The WLCE at BUas is embedded in a vibrant research environment that is both academically oriented and closely connected to the leisure and tourism industry. Featuring a number of professorships (Experience & Storytelling, Placemaking & Events, Experience & WellBeing, and the newly established professorship of Leisure in a Social Context) that support individual PhD tracks as well as junior and senior researchers, our research aims to (1) contribute to industry and society by developing and disseminating both applied and scientific knowledge, insights and best practices in the field of leisure and events, (2) involve students in this process as part of their educational programmes, and (3) enrich our educational programmes with the knowledge developed

The coming year is an exciting one for the WLCE at BUas as we are hosting the 18th World Leisure Congress on our campus from 25 to 28 August 2025. With some 500 to 700 expected delegates, the biannual World Leisure Congress is the premier venue for the international community of scholars and professionals in the field of leisure. For our WLCE and our mediumsized institute, hosting the Congress on our campus is a major event, and we are all excited about it!

The overarching theme of the Congress is ‘Leisure for a Better Society’. This theme refers to the central position that leisure takes in the lives of people worldwide. In modern society, the varieties of leisure constitute prominent platforms for self-expression. In addition, leisure is an ever-stronger determinant of both individual and collective well-being. Thinking strategically about leisure as a catalyst for promoting well-being, and for inducing increased social and ecological sustainability is what binds together academia, government, and industry. In addition, how to address these issues in the context of (sustainable) leisure businesses is of crucial importance to help build a better society.

The Congress also features an Industry Day, specifically aimed at addressing issues, challenges and opportunities within the leisure industry. The Industry Day is organised by, with, and for our national and international key industry partners, and is orchestrated by the Dutch national Centre of Expertise on Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality (CELTH). It boasts both industry-oriented keynotes and parallel sessions, and Technical Tours for in-depth views from different key players in the Dutch leisure industry.

The 2025 WLCE Field School

A good tradition of the joint worldwide network of WLCEs is to organise a World Leisure International Field School in the week leading

The overarching theme of the Congress is ‘Leisure for a Better Society’.

up to the World leisure Congress. The Field School is an exciting learning opportunity for students at more advanced levels of training (MSc, PhD), in which they learn to work in a larger and highly international and culturally diverse group of ambitious students. They engage in research field work prior to the Congress, get access to the Congress, and are given the platform to present the results of their work in a plenary session at the Congress. The Field School concept was initiated at the 2014 WL Congress in Mobile, Alabama (USA). Previous Field School editions took place in Durban, South Africa (2016), Sao Paulo, Brazil (2018) and Dunedin, New Zealand (2023). The Field School that will take place in Breda in 2025 is closely connected to the Congress theme ‘Leisure for a Better Society’, and will focus mostly on issues around accessibility and inclusion of leisure.

Marcel Bastiaansen

Marcel Bastiaansen is professor of Leisure and Tourism and director of the BUas Experience Lab.

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Edition 08

September 2024

Uncover is a publication of the domain of Leisure & Events of Breda University of Applied Sciences.

Editors

Peter Horsten horsten.p@buas.nl

Simon de Wijs wijs.s@buas.nl

Uncover

Uncover stands for discovering things together. This magazine offers Breda University of Applied Sciences a platform to share research and projects with its network. Through this Uncover, we explicitly try to reach and bring together our entire network around knowledge sharing and knowledge development: entrepreneurs, government, education, research and social organisations. In addition to the publication of Uncover magazines, Uncover meetings are also organised under the heading of ‘future perspectives on Leisure & Events’.

Domain of Leisure & Events

The domain of Leisure & Events offers the HBO (professional) bachelor’s programme of Leisure & Events Management (taught in English and in Dutch), with study tracks in the fields of Leisure, Events, Social Innovation, Attractions and Theme Parks, (E)sports, and Urban Life and Placemaking. Additional course offerings include WO (academic) degree programmes - the Bachelor Leisure Studies and Master of Science Leisure and Tourism Studies - and master’s programmes in Imagineering and Strategic Event Management. Within the domain of Leisure & Events, research is carried out into ‘Imagineering and Business Innovation’, ‘Storytelling and Consumer Experiences’, and ‘Events and Placemaking’.

Address details

Breda University of Applied Sciences Domain of Leisure & Events

Mgr. Hopmansstraat 2 4817 JS Breda, the Netherlands 076-533 2203 www.buas.nl

Translation Esther Kupers, Lily Theeuwes

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