Events for Business students participate in international European Stretch project

VIVES Kortrijk started already in September 2022 with their students to explore and dive into all kinds of topics related to Kortrijk 2030. The city has the ambition to become European Capital of Culture in 2023 and wishes to involve inhabitants and other stakeholders. They recorded videos about Kortrijk, all kinds of event venue locations and citymarketing of Kortrijk. The other universities from the different countries stepped in in January/February 2023.

So, our students from the specialisation Events for Business as well as the students from universities of Finland, Lapland and Inholland just started. They are appointed to international teams (via Microsoft Teams) and follow 5 online lesson days each one hosted by one of the five partner universities, from February – April 2023. This way, student teams get lessons from other universities and collaborate step by step to set up an event. Lessons about Stakeholder management, Event Design, Concepting, Production, etc. Besides these online lectures, they get information, documents and videos, they meet in online break-out rooms. All 14 international student teams have a coach of one of the five partner universities and meet them during these 5 online lessons as well. Lastly, they have the opportunity to meet the client they are working for: to update them, ask questions, and align about the event and target group(s).

Students work for NGO’s like Amnesty International, Oxfam, Natuurpunt, etc. and connect their live event to one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. They will develop a concept for an event for 1 of more target groups in the city centre of Kortrijk. During the real-life event in Kortrijk from 24-26th of April 2023 students from all participating universities will come to Kortrijk where they can meet and finalize and prepare their event. They have a budget and all events take place at the same day on Monday 24th of April. The other days students will get the opportunity to get to know each other in real life, the city of Kortrijk, will work at VIVES to prepare the practical things for their event and there will be an award show.

Start of a long term collaboration
After this first edition, the host city next year will be Helsinki. Each year and each university will be the host once. So, for instance, more or less the same project will take place during the academic year 2023 -2024 in Finland, the year after in Lapland, then it might take place in Breda, and so on. The five partner universities are looking for an extra partner in the southern part of Europe to participate.

The start of the project
Right before COVID pandemic specialisation Events for Business started to contribute to an initiative of VIVES (university of applied sciences in Kortrijk) to set up an international project. Two years ago, it started with multiple online meetings with lecturers of universities of Lapland, Germany, Finland, Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands. This resulted in a teachers conference in 2022 in Bruges, Kortrijk and Brussels. This intense and interesting program resulted in the concrete project of collaboration like described above. It is really nice and motivating to see and experience all investment in these relationship with our colleagues from the other universities of the different countries, pay off. We as lecturers, learn a lot from each other, as well as the students. And this was only the start with online lessons. We are very much looking forward to the real-life events in April and meet all 120 students and lecturers!

Ronald van Olderen
Dorothe Gerritsen
Academy for Leisure and Events
Specialisation Events for Business