On 26 May 2026, Vrije Universiteit Brussel welcomed more than 200 academics, educational support staff, and university leaders to its annual Education Conference. For the Erasmus+ SPACE project, the event served as a significant local multiplier event — an opportunity to share curriculum redesign experiences with a large institutional audience and to stimulate broader dialogue about the future of community-engaged higher education. 

Community engagement in higher education is gaining growing recognition at both policy and institutional levels. A major milestone came with UNESCO’s 2026 roadmap Transforming Higher Education, which explicitly places community engagement alongside teaching and research as a way for higher education institutions to respond to major societal challenges. 

Community-engaged teaching, learning and research are taking place in universities across Europe. Academics and students are working with external partners through service-learning, challenge-based learning, collaborative research, citizen science, patient and public involvement, and many other forms of engagement. 

A new European resource kit, Partnerships that Work, has been launched to help universities and communities build stronger, more equitable and sustainable partnerships. Developed through the Erasmus+ project SPACE – Supporting Professionals and Academics for Community Engagement in Higher Education, the kit provides four practical tools to help universities and community organisations plan, assess and improve their collaboration. These tools guide users through partnership planning, joint reflection and dialogue, and can be adapted for use at the individual, partnership or institutional level.

Partners of the SPACE project gathered in Girona, Spain, on 5-7 November 2025 for a consortium meeting that marked an important milestone in the project’s implementation. Hosted by the University of Girona and the Girona Region of Knowledge Foundation, the meeting brought together a combination of onsite and online representatives from Croatia, Belgium and Ireland to review progress, exchange insights, and plan the next phase of work.
Over two days of in-depth discussions, partners reflected on the project’s growing impact across institutions and beyond. The consortium confirmed that community-engaged learning has become a shared point of reference within participating universities, influencing both teaching practice and institutional culture.