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.

More than 60 students from the nine universities of the STARS EU Alliance will present their proposals for imagining and designing the European campus of the future on Tuesday, 7 July, at 10:15 a.m. (CEST), as part of the project Ou(te)r Campus – European Campus, A Living Lab. The presentation, which will take place at Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences (HSB), Germany, will also be streamed online via Zoom.

The students, organised into international and interdisciplinary teams, have spent the past few months developing ideas on how European higher education institutions can become spaces for exchange, collaboration, mobility and connections between physical and digital environments.

A multidimensional European campus

The project, developed over the course of a year as a living lab at HSB’s School of Architecture, explores how a European campus can be conceived, designed and tested from a perspective that is not only digital, but also physical, social and spatial.

Participants will present five projects focusing on topics such as European research and exchange structures, shared resources, new exhibition and outreach formats, spaces for social interaction, and digital applications aimed at promoting physical activity, interaction and networking on campus.

The European campus as a living lab

As part of the initiative, HSB is also hosting an exhibition dedicated to the work developed by the students. The exhibition, inaugurated on 30 June, can be visited free of charge until 8 July, Monday to Friday, from 12 noon to 5:00 p.m.

Ou(te)r Campus – European Campus, A Living Lab has been developed as a Master’s module at HSB’s School of Architecture and is based on the Interspace teaching and research format, which was adapted this year within the framework of STARS EU to explore the concept of the European campus as a living lab.

From a pilot experience to a Living Lab

One of the central elements of the project was the Ou[te]r Campus Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), organised by STARS EU and involving students from all nine partner universities. During the first days of May and throughout the semester, participants worked hand in hand in international and interdisciplinary teams with the support of academic staff from all alliance member institutions.

What began as a pilot experience in 2025 has evolved into a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) and subsequently into a European Living Lab, demonstrating STARS EU’s ability to foster innovative models of cooperation in higher education. Experimental initiatives have become consolidated spaces for learning, research and international collaboration aimed at shaping the European campus of the future.

Practical information

Final presentation

Ou(te)r Campus – European Campus, A Living Lab
Tuesday, 7 July 2026, 10:15 a.m.
Room S12, Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences (HSB), Bremen
Zoom link: Join the experience
Meeting ID: 690 1661 0071
Passcode: 430061

Exhibition

1–8 July 2026 (opening: 30 June, 5:00 p.m.), from 12 noon to 5:00 p.m.
AB Galerie – Transferlabor, Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences, Bremen.

Around 60 students, doctoral candidates and lecturers from nine European universities recently took part in the Ou[te]r Campus BIP project, the STARS EU initiative aimed at developing a collaborative, interdisciplinary and transnational European campus model. During the event, hosted by the Bremen University of Applied Sciences, six concepts were developed focusing on new forms of interaction between physical spaces and the digital opportunities offered by STARS EU.

The aim of this workshop, which became a blended intensive programme, was to build on the momentum generated by the collaborative “Interspace” project — also held at HSB in 2025 — in order to further develop these ideas and translate them into long-term structures with a “solid institutional foundation”. This represents a clear step towards a “co-creation campus that transcends disciplinary and geographical boundaries”, according to Janina Ebner, member of the Co-creation Campus at STARS EU.

Alongside her, Professor Maria Clarke, also involved in the initiative, highlighted that the workshop helped strengthen the project for the future. “Bringing together more than 60 interdisciplinary participants — students, doctoral candidates and members of academic staff — from the nine partner institutions was no easy task.” “During the workshop, there was a clear willingness to collaborate, build networks and work together to address the complex question ‘What is a European campus?’ and to find answers to it.”

The focus has been placed on strengthening STARS EU, and therefore the groups created continue to work on the six concepts developed, which explore proposals for physical spaces and digital possibilities. The outcomes of the Ou[te]r Campus teaching and knowledge-transfer project will be exhibited from 1 to 9 July 2026 in an exhibition at the Transferlabor (formerly AB Galerie) at Hochschule Bremen.

Interspace 2025

Ou[te]r Campus BIP stems from the collaborative project carried out in 2025 under the name “Interspace”, which explored ways of creating shared and connected campus spaces within STARS EU. The initiative brought together an international group of students from the HSB School of Architecture and the Integrated Design programme at the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK), who developed the first ideas. Among them was the STARS EU intercultural pavilion, conceived as a meeting place, which is currently on display at the Higher School of Engineering of the University of La Laguna.

The universities participating in this second phase are: Aleksander Moisiu University (Albania); Krakow University of Technology (Poland); Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Groningen, the Netherlands); Hochschule Bremen (Germany); Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal); Silesian University in Opava (Czech Republic); University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain); Université Marie et Louis Pasteur (France); and University West (Trollhättan, Sweden).

*The Ou[te]r Campus BIP programme is funded by STARS EU and Erasmus+ grants.