In the European PIONEER University Alliance, an open university campus refers to a campus that promotes openness in education, research and innovation, international student and staff mobility, and regional ecosystem collaboration. An open campus is a broad community of students, employees, alumni, and partners that operates physically, virtually, and in hybrid form. The goal is to enable low-threshold encounters and gatherings that require no special preparation or strict commitments. These open encounters are intended to create an approachable environment where people from different backgrounds—students and experts from academia and business, in particular —can get to know each other, be inspired together, and participate in cross-disciplinary co-creation.
Photo by Freepik
The transformation and sustainable development of European PIONEER Alliance universities are based on their future vision, which seeks to strengthen synergies between education, research, innovation and ecosystem cooperation, as well as international activities (PIONEER Mission Statement 2024). To succeed in this, the PIONEER partner institutions need to collaborate closely, learn from each other, and create shared practices.
The open campus cannot succeed without the active involvement of students, staff, and stakeholders in transformative leadership, as well as in the development of institutional culture, processes, and services. By promoting openness in all aspects of higher education, the societal impact of European higher education is enhanced, resulting in increased civic knowledge, more innovation activities in business, improved regional competitiveness, and smoother student integration into working life.
Paving the Way for an Open Campus
The PIONEER Alliance promotes inclusion, safety, resilience, and sustainability in the cities and communities of the future (UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 11). When developing the open campus, the Alliance wants to ensure that key target groups and stakeholders can truly benefit from it, namely through professional, intellectual, and knowledge development, multidisciplinary RDI collaboration, and both national and international networking. The goals set for the open campus combine strategic, professional, attitudinal, and participatory perspectives (PIONEER+ project application 2024):
- Strategic leadership and institutional learning: managing institutional transformation among European partner universities requires peer learning, mutual sharing of best practices and approaches, and the joint search for solutions for alliance-level strategic development. Knowledge-based management is at the core when the PIONEER Alliance defines its strategic direction and operational priorities.
- Broadening professional horizons: international networking and collaboration among the teaching, research, and administrative staff of European PIONEER institutions support professional competence-building, which increases the regional, national, and European impact, attractiveness, and quality of higher education. Cross-border career paths enable interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary development. Integrating RDI to teaching strengthens students’ future-proof global learning and, in turn, enhances the innovation readiness in working life.
- Opening minds and experiences: the PIONEER Alliance promotes international opportunities for students, staff, and stakeholders both at home and abroad. It strives to provide seamless international mobility (physical, virtual, hybrid) between PIONEER universities, supporting intercultural and linguistic learning while offering enriching experiences and opportunities to network globally. Those who participate in international opportunities are encouraged to understand that tensions and conflicts in intercultural interaction are often opportunities for mutual learning and personal growth. Diversity is viewed within the PIONEER Alliance as a positive resource and a source of innovation.
- Inspiring and engaging stakeholders: the PIONEER Alliance provides global markets with evidence-based knowledge and recommendations on how higher education institutions can successfully engage in ecosystem collaboration on sustainability challenges for the benefit of both cities and universities in Europe. Jointly implemented experiments and their results will benefit academic communities, society, and the labor market in responding to future challenges.
It will take time before the PIONEER Alliance can act as an open campus that is committed to continuous renewal and that values diverse learning environments, while addressing the evolving needs of European cities through innovative education offerings, interdisciplinary research, ecosystem collaboration, and international mobility. The determination and ambition to achieve this goal already exists, and the effort will be pursued by ten European higher education institutions in the years ahead.
Reflections on the Open Campus
When the PIONEER Alliance sets out to create a campus that is accessible, barrier-free, safe, inclusive, and open to all, the question remains: what does this look like in practice? So far, the partner institutions have not explored in depth what an open campus actually means for different groups, or which dimensions are typically linked to the idea of a campus. To move forward, it will be important to define the concept together, building a shared understanding of the characteristics, functions, services, and broader aspects of human life that the Alliance associates with it. Equally essential is to agree on the criteria for assessing and measuring the accomplishment of the open campus.
The word campus originates from Latin (Onkamo 2018). In the Roman Empire, a campus referred to an open and unobstructed plain or field—for example, on the Field of Mars near Rome, young men took part in military and combat training (Samuelson 2023). The tradition of the modern campus comes from medieval European universities, where students and teachers lived and worked together in monastic-like settings (Turunen 2007). Today, campus traditionally refers to the lands and buildings of a university, typically including lecture halls, libraries, student facilities (e.g., for student organizations), and, in residential universities, dormitories and cafeterias (Onkamo 2018). Until recently, the campus was viewed primarily as a physical environment functioning as an academic, social, or intellectual entity. At the latest, the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s changed this perception, showing that a campus can also be virtual or hybrid.
At its core, the open campus aims to be a welcoming and integrated part of the local operating environment and ecosystem. But is an “open campus” genuinely open to everyone in today’s world? Ideally, all interested individuals would have free access to the physical campus area and facilities without having to register at reception or show identification. In the spirit of accessibility, the campus would have no surrounding fences, no unnecessary gates or doors slowing passage, and little visible security presence except outside opening hours. However, in practice, this does not seem realistic at many higher education campuses in large European cities today.
On the other hand, can we speak of an open campus if access is granted only to staff and enrolled students? Would this not sound like a “closed” or “exclusive” campus that prioritizes security and a more controlled environment? At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the campus is the daily workplace of students and staff and should be a physically and psychologically safe environment for them—after all, no company would allow just anyone to walk into its premises uninvited or without permission.
How, then, will the PIONEER Alliance define who may access the open campus and who may not? Physical campuses are likely to be flexible in terms of who can move about freely (current students and staff) and who can enter with special permission (local residents, domestic and international visitors). Meanwhile, virtual services (such as digital learning environments and online content) may be accessible globally to all registered users, including degree students, lifelong learners, and teaching staff.
The Campus Experience
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was widely assumed that offering students an authentic, physical campus experience was essential. In the post-pandemic world, this view has certainly shifted. Digital services and applications, technological solutions, and virtual presence have fundamentally changed our behavior and attitudes toward the campus as a physical space—whether we are students, staff, or partners of the institution.
As the physical blends with the digital, it is no longer self-evident what we expect from the open campus. Will it be primarily something intangible and virtual, or still mostly a physical environment, or a balanced combination of the two? Will the campus experience be diminished if it becomes more virtual than physical? Would something essential be lost? And what new elements might emerge in its place?
In any case, one thing that will be needed in the future as well is human interaction, which, within the PIONEER Alliance, forms the basis for mutual understanding and trust, and is a prerequisite for the creation of social capital and innovation.
Author information
Dr. Mika Launikari, M.Sc. (Econ.), works as a Leading Expert at Laurea University of Applied Sciences and participates in the development work carried out within the European PIONEER University Alliance.
References
