E³UDRES² Autumn Summit 2026: Learning for Challenging Times

The goal of this Summit is to bring inspirational, creative, ground-breaking initiatives, practitioners, and data or results together on the topic of learning in cooperation with the field of work. The main question of this Summit is how we as E³UDRES² partners can work with real-world challenges from our regions, how to do this in full cooperation with external stakeholders, learners, educators and researchers, and how to do this in quite challenging times. This topic is central to the E³UDRES² consortium.

E³UDRES² is a unique consortium of universities of applied sciences with a related educational offer. The Alliance focuses on impact for their region, thereby working closely with all type of learners and their regional stakeholders. E³UDRES² translates this mission into challenge-based, international and innovative educational formats. E³UDRES² has already developed, or built upon, a number of concepts which link its stakeholders to the UAS. Those concepts are for example the Talent Funnel and the Innovation Hubs, resulting into concrete activities such as Hackathons, Living Labs, etcetera.

While experiments such as the European University Alliances, of which E³UDRES² is one example, continue to focus on cooperation, co-creation and intercultural exchange, the rapid shift in global relations over the last two years away from cooperation is a cause for concern. Then again, the awareness of the advantages of a strong European identity continues to grow as well. European integration stands thus, once more, at a cross-roads.

More so because challenging times are ahead. The nature of the globally connected economy is changing, and this will have local repercussions. There is a European shift towards more military defence, to more technological independence, to more local production chains, to a new format of the Welfare state,… All of these elements will require more co-creation at local and European level than ever before. It will require new formats of cooperation, and with new players. All of this in a changing financial framework.  

How can an Alliance, such as E³UDRES² respond to this changing situation? What does learning in challenging times mean? We are looking for evidence-based results, good practices from our partners, or new, crazy ideas.

The primary question for E³UDRES² is about the efficacy and/or sense of our learning formats. Which of those learning formats are best suited for these challenging times? Learners need to navigate an increasingly complex job market and growing insecurity in society. Do our formats prepare them? Do these formats increase their resilience? On what is this belief based? Can we prop this up with sufficient research or results? Do those formats really support challenge-based learning? What does that actually mean? Can we support this with sufficient research or results? And what has made us in E³UDRES² already proud? What are good practices from our partner institutions?

The second question is about the future. What are the next innovative learning formats which combine higher education and the field of work? As E³UDRES² we believe that this future remains inherently collaborative. There is no doubt that collaboration is needed in these challenging times. If we wish to prepare our learners, or retrain our learners, then what do our regional stakeholders expect, and how can we intensely cooperate? What are they expecting from us? How can we truly become partners in the learning process of our learners?

The symbiosis lies in the fact that the regional stakeholders take up more responsibility for the development of talents, while higher education takes up more responsibility for the development of the region. This position makes both stakeholders and Higher Education true connectors. What are the next innovative learning formats as an answer to that symbiosis?

There is room here for experimentation, for wild ideas,… as long as we increase the co-creation of those new learning spaces.

Calls for participation