The world in 2045 will be a different place. Although we cannot predict the future, we can shape it. Futures studies have developed methodologies to create futures images and scenarios. The potential for creativity and imagination at art schools, together with the urge for innovation in society at large brought together key players from Higher Arts Education and business in a Knowledge Alliance FAST 45 – Futures Art School Trends 2045. They are geared up to imagine a desirable future in which the participation, education and research in the arts play an integral part in a world that will have been radically reshaped by the 4th Industrial Revolution, globalisation and climate change. FAST45 collects knowledge, creates and tests methods and broadly implements them in Art School Futures Labs in which educators, researchers and employers will co-create futures scenarios and operationalise them in policy papers, long term collaborations and tools that will empower institutions and enterprises to not only better anticipate an unknown future, but actively shape it.By working across sectoral boundaries and by envisioning futures scenarios for 2045, FAST45 will (a) explore and inventory already existing research that substantiate ideas of possible, probable, or preferable futures for higher art education and the employment of artists, (b) organise Art School Futures Labs that enhance futures thinking and imagining alternative futures inside (students, lecturers, administrative staff and heads of departments) and outside (external public and private partners) institutes, (c) deliver four futures scenarios that highlight the discontinuities from the present and reveal the potential choices and their potential consequences that IHAE need to prepare for their longer-term future planning and decision-making, and (d) organise a general discussion / debate on possible policy and decision actions that informs and facilitates transformative leadership for strategic steps forward.

The main objective of the RETEX MSCA SE project is to form a world class international and inter-sectoral network of organizations, working on a joint research programme in the field of novel Sustainable Electronic Textile Materials, by replacing conventional textile materials with sustainable, environmentally friendly, and advanced materials such as; regenerated fibres from cotton fabrics. This can only be achieved by bringing together world-class experts in materials, polmers, environmentalists, chemists, software engineers, and designers with state-of-the-art innovations and processes in their respective fields of expertise. The participants will exchange skills and knowledge to create sustainable textile materials, strengthening collaborative research between different countries and sectors. RETEX will also refine and produce potential commercial market opportunities for non-academic participants in the project .Our goal is to train next generation of researchers and innovators in sustainable textiles through cross-sectoral and training modules. The staff members will develop new skills, be exposed tonew research and innovation environments, international networks, new industrial processes and techniques whilst widening and enriching career development through cross-sectoral knowledge transfer and international mobility.

Over the past half century, urbanism has become the cornerstone of global environmental action. Yet the term “environment” is ambiguous, multi-layered and contested. This is especially so when it is linked with the urban question, expressing a sense of collective urgency, but also demands for urban environmental justice that are irreducible to the greening of cities. This research project explores the urbanism-environment nexus historically and today. Building on a premise that “environment” is at once an ecological condition, a technological interface and a political metaphor, I examine how professional urbanists understood, designed and governed the environment. This transdisciplinary project focuses on three areas of urbanism—policy, design and research—and examines the genealogy of three interconnected fields, in which the environmental problematic has been central: urban regeneration, landscape urbanism, and urban science. This research spans the period between the 1960s and today, and analyzes the circulation of ideas, policies and practices among institutions, projects and individuals situated in the US, Europe and the former Eastern Bloc. What could environmental urbanism mean in the future? My research is underpinned by a sense of contemporary socio-environmental challenges, and aims to build bridges between historical, critical and strategic approaches in urban studies. By developing and departing from Michel Foucault’s concept of “environmentality,” this research draws attention to affinities and tensions in the urban arena between solution-focused ecological urbanism, demands for environmental equity and forms of environmental governmentality. While the concept throws into relief power relations associated with environmental action, it needs to be updated with respect to concrete ecological, technological and political dilemmas that the field of urbanism faced in the past and faces today. Could “environment” transform the urban question in ways that exceed technological solution, and become a signpost for more democratic urbanism?

One of the key factors in cultural heritage protection is education that would show importance of using various tools for the promotion of shared values. As it was written in the DECISION (EU) 2017/864 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 17 May 2017 on a European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018), ¨ One way to achieve such understanding would be through educational and greater public-awareness programmes¨. Cultural heritage and issues of preservation of it for future are an important issue in our shared European community. But we also need to consider positive effect that work in the field of cultural heritage has on other aspects of society (labour market, shared values, interculturalism, entrepreneurship possibilities, tourism etc.) and that can be promoted through education. The project will address the implementation of digitalisation using 3D technology in the field of cultural heritage preservation (on the case of outdoor wood structures) education.Cultural heritage and issues of preservation of it for future is an important issue in our shared European community. We need to consider positive effect that work in the field of cultural heritage has on other aspects of society (labour market, shared values, interculturalism, etc.). The project will try to cross the bridge between employers and HEI with the issues of cultural heritage protection and restoration. In the partnership the need for a more structured guidelines regarding preservation and restoration emerged in both sectors. Re/Forma Viva will incorporate innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to these issues with implementation of intellectual outputs (guidelines for students, 3D model web platform, framework for collaboration of HEI and employers) gives potential to wider application of issues addressed by the project. Project will use Forma Viva Outdoor Sculpture Park in Kostanjevica na Krki as case study in addressing this issues. The sculptures were created on sculptural symposiums Forma Viva with worldwide participation of artists from 1961. Sculptures moulding by artists are made from oak wood, typical for this part of Slovenia.During the project implementation several activities will take place:Intellectual Outputs: Guidelines on preservation of cultural heritage in wood for students (O1), Web platform for cultural heritage of 3D models (O2), Database of documentation approach to preservation of cultural heritage (D3), Strategy for collaboration in the field of cultural heritage (O4)Learning/Teaching/Training Activities: Joint staff training (C1), Seminar course for students on preservation techniques for cultural heritage in wood (C2), Summer School on preservation techniques for cultural heritage in wood (C3). As well as six Multiplier events aimed at different target groups with presentations at Universities and Round Tables where relevant stakeholders will be invited.

Transform4Europe (T4E) is a new university alliance of 7 diverse HEIs from across all 4 regions of Europe: Saarland University (DE), University of Alicante (ES), Estonian Academy of Arts (EE), University of Silesia in Katowice (PL), Sofia University (BG), University of Trieste (IT) and Vytautas Magnus University (LT). Strongly embedded in their regions, the T4E partners have come together with a common vision for the future of the EHEA. They are joining forces in a sustainable alliance to educate a new generation of highly skilled European knowledge-entrepreneurs: agents of change with the entrepreneurial, digital and intercultural competencies needed to actively contribute to and shape upcoming transformation processes. To achieve this, T4E will embed this strong transnational network of universities in a network of the surrounding regions, creating an interregional knowledge and innovation ecosystem of which the T4E alliance is the nucleus. Within this interregional innovation hub, students, researchers and regional stakeholders from across Europe will collaborate to generate new practice-oriented knowledge concerning digital transformation and smart regions, environmental transformation and sustainability, and societal transformation and inclusion, jointly driving the development of Europe and the EEA through the regions. Through an ambitious work programme, the alliance strives to create one single European University with joint governance and service structures characterised by a strategic network of the universities and key stakeholders from their surrounding regions, joint challenge-driven academic programmes with embedded entrepreneurial competencies and language-learning, innovative teaching methods and learning environments that reach into the local communities, innovative knowledge-creating formats between students, staff, entrepreneurs and practitioners, seamless and inclusive mobility and a lively European campus spirit.