STARS EU students propose a European campus of the future with digital tools, meeting spaces and exchange platforms

Nearly 40 STARS EU students presented five innovative proposals in Bremen a few days ago to reimagine the European campus of the future as part of the “Ou(te)r Campus – European Campus, A Living Lab” project, developed at Hochschule Bremen- City University of Applied Science (HSB), Germany.

The projects explored different aspects of European university life, ranging from digital tools to facilitate student integration and networking to hybrid exchange platforms and physical meeting spaces. All five proposals were developed as a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) organised by HSB’s School of Architecture, with the participation of students from the nine universities that make up the STARS EU Alliance.

INTEGRATE.EU

The winning project, INTEGRATE.EU, is a digital platform designed to connect students from different universities and European countries. The application combines personalised profiles, an interactive map, campus activity information and networking tools. Its aim is to facilitate community building, promote cultural exchange and strengthen students’ sense of belonging to a shared European university.

The four remaining proposals included Growing Tree, which combines a digital platform with a permanent physical space to encourage interaction among students; STARS EU Week, a travelling exhibition designed to showcase the alliance’s universities; and STARS Wallet and Campus Connect, which focus on strengthening the European university community through different approaches, including resource sharing and the creation of collaborative spaces.

According to Professor Maria Clarke, the project’s coordinator, a European campus “is not created through digital connectivity alone, but also through encounters, collaboration and the exchange of perspectives.” In this sense, Ou(te)r Campus demonstrates how international education can become a living laboratory for designing new models of European higher education.

Projects to continue their development

The five proposals will continue to be developed within STARS EU to assess their feasibility and potential implementation across the alliance’s universities. STARS EU is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme and brings together nine higher education institutions from across Europe.

Participating universities

Students from all nine universities that make up the STARS EU alliance took part in the project: Aleksandër Moisiu University of Durrës (Albania), Bragança Polytechnic University (Portugal), Hanze University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands), University of La Laguna (Spain), Université Marie et Louis Pasteur (France), Hochschule Bremen (Germany), Silesian University in Opava (Czech Republic), University West (Sweden) and Cracow University of Technology (Poland).

Academic staff and jury

The project was coordinated by Professor Maria Clarke and Janina Ebner of Hochschule Bremen, with teaching support from Aintzane del Río Pereda, Johanna Hannemann and Carolina Bergedieck.

The five student proposals were assessed by an international jury comprising Rima Dijkstra (Hanze University of Applied Sciences), Cintia Hernández Sánchez (University of La Laguna), Olta Nexhipi (Aleksandër Moisiu University of Durrës), and Thomas Rauscher and Katrin Winkler (Hochschule Bremen).

Below, the images show the students of the STARSCAPE project (left) in front of the mobile wooden box they built themselves and the RE-LAY project (right), that combines a modular swap station on campus with a digital platform, thereby promoting sustainability, community and exchange amongst students.