SPACE project consortium meeting in Cork: Strengthening University–Community Partnerships

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.