<< Objectives >>The OLA project has three main objectives:(1) Contribute to the priority “Common values, civic engagement and participation” by training multipliers in the field of democratic landscape transformation.(2) Contribute to participation, local environmental action and fight against climate change by addressing these topics and their system context in local Living Labs.(3): Promote inter-connected higher-education systems by developing OLA – The Open Landscape Academy.<< Implementation >>(1) Establishing Living Labs at the interface of the universities and their local community. Implementing learning activities in this transdisciplinary context, partly as ERASMUS blended intensive programmes.(2) Developing multilingual learning materials and facilitation guides for democratic landscape transformation and implementing training activities addressed to multipliers(5) Development of the Open Landscape Academy as an open learning platform, including two transnational pilot courses<< Results >>The OLA project will have the following concrete results:(1) An established Open Landscape Academy as a transnational platform for advancing knowledge in the field of democratic landscape transformation(2) A community of practice with advanced knowledge on method and approaches to democratic landscape transformation(3) A set of multilingual learning and training materials(4) Local Landscape Democracy Living Labs at all university locations involved.

Context Professional exchange amongst cultural educators across Europe is essential to ensure sustainable existence and competitiveness in the fast changing European cultural landscape. Mobility within the European cultural sector has increased, which has raised environmental concerns as well as questions of access to mobility. Hence, resource-efficient modes of learning that allow participation with limited time and money are needed to complement face-to-face training and exchange activities. These modes of learning require open education and innovative digital practices in order to include those with limited traveling opportunities.Target Groups and their NeedsWith cultural educators we mean both employed and self-employed professionals in the creative and cultural sector from all over Europe that regularly transmit their knowledge, knowhow and experiences to young professionals, peers or professionals. They can include arts educators as well as curators, cultural managers, etc. and be affiliated with the public sector or civil society.With the consortium of partners we identified the following core topics of relevance to the different project partners and their networks relate to a) creating and sustaining collective impact in the field of culture, b) transcultural knowledge production and transfer, c) working with new migrants and marginalized groups in our communities, d) new forms of community and international collaboration and e) integration of artistic and social work, f) digital education in the creative and culture sector. Each of the consortium partners holds expertise in at least two of the topics and has been engaged in previous projects.Objectives-To qualify at least 200 cultural educators in either of the following topics: a) creating and sustaining collective impact in the field of culture, b) transcultural knowledge production and transfer, c) working with new migrants and marginalized groups in our communities, d) new forms of community and international collaboration and e) integration of artistic and social work, f) digital education in the creative and culture sector-To strengthen the relations and cooperation mechanisms between the consortium of partners -To strategically disseminate knowledge digitally to at least 1000 further cultural educators throughout Europe-To provide an open source toolkit for digital education in the creative and cultural sectorTraining Activities3 educational events with 60 cultural educators eachC1 – Creating and sustaining collective impact in the field of cultureC4 – New forms of community and international collaborationC6 – Digital education in the creative and culture sector3 educational events with 20 cultural educators as participants eachC2 – Transcultural knowledge production and transferC 3 – Working with new migrants and marginalized groups in our communitiesC 5 – Integration of artistic and social workSeries of webinars after each educational event to disseminate the results in the forms of lectures, digital peer-to-peer exchange and panelsDigital toolkit for conceiving, preparing, implementing and documenting international online learning to be disseminated at the end of the projectTransnational necessity and necessity for long project durationThrough the set-up of the consortium of partners all European regions are covered and allow diverse perspectives to enter the project. All topics are concerns in the creative and cultural sector all over Europe. The consortium of partners estimates that the topics will remain concerns in the years to come. Hence, it is believed that cultural educators will only remain competitive and their work with societal relevance, if they continue the transnational exchange.At the same time, the consortium of partners believes that the project will benefit from the long duration of 36 months as it will allow different cultural educators and the partner organizations to bring in their on-the-ground experiences from other projects into the training activities.Impact This transnational project will thereby make a significant contribution to open education and innovative digital practices in the field of culture throughout Europe. It will thereby foster inclusion of less mobile cultural educators in transnational education activities.

The LED2LEAP project aims to bring a new way of thinking and acting into relevant university curricula in order to prepare the future generation of landscape architects, planners, architects and designers for their role as democratic leaders for sustainability. There is an urgent need for transformative competence at all levels of society since the challenges for our communities are growing across Europe. Powerful driving forces such as the globalization of work, climate change, digitalization, demographic ageing, migration, individualization, biodiversity loss and unequal resource distribution are not resolvable within the framework of election periods and sector-specific policies.The proposal aims to develop the discussion within academia and the landscape and planning professions around the need for landscape democracy-building policies and processes related to landscape change. Linking expert and local knowledge is not only helpful to inform better decisions but also ensure policies which are both grounded in state of the art knowledge and communities’ perceptions. The partnership between academia and civil society is also embedded in the Participatory Action Research (PAR) nature of the project, and its predecessor LED seminar. This framework allows knowledge to be co-created rather than simply transferred to communities top down.Disciplines involved in the projects are mainly landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, and architecture, social and urban studies. The consortium consists of the following university and NGOs partners: LE:NOTRE Institute (Netherlands, the project coordinator), Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Umwelt Nürtingen-Geislingen (Germany), University of Bologna (Italy), Szent István University Budapest (Hungary), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden) and the NGO Partners KultúrAktív (Hungary) and EtaBeta Cooperative (Italy).The teams will exchange their work in a cross-cultural perspective during the LED online course, LED2LEAP living Labs and Intensive Study Programs (ISPs). The goal is to prepare future professionals to operate in cross-cultural and transdisciplinary contexts. Engaging with local partners will allow them to gain a deeper understanding of the complex challenges to address. The project goals will be achieved by the following activities: (1) Development, testing and documentation of the LED2LEAP methodology in partnership with local communities; (2) elaboration of a European professional development certificate for democratic landscape professionals (3) a series of blended learning activities combining student engagement in local ‘LED2LEAP Living Labs’, international reflection in the LED online course and international mobility of staff and students to one of the university’s ‘LED2LEAP Living Labs’ in the framework of three ISPs.Since this project follows the methodical paradigm of a pedagogical and PAR cycle, the learning activities will be implemented during the process, and thus, evaluation and revision of the activities are closely interrelated. The output 1 ‘Reflection in Action: Community Learning Model’ will focus on identifying relevant methods for working with the communities, implementing local LED2LEAP Living Lab, joining online course and three ISPs, and evaluating and revising. Output 1 will be exploited and disseminated in order to involve the wider context of participatory planning and community activation. The international meetings on the project outputs and core activities will be organized around the consortium partners. The project is expected to have impacts on the teaching staff involved (e.g. developing transformative competences). Students and other learners participating in the blended learning courses and the LED2LEAP Living Labs are expected to improve several competences (e.g. thinking, norms and strategies). Impacts will also occur on the institutions and municipalities in which the ‘LED2LEAP Living Labs’ are going to be initiated and activities held. Additional impacts might occur in the municipalities/areas ISPs will be held. All partner institutions are asked to disseminate the project activities and results on a national level.The project is also expected to have European and international impacts (e.g. the new recognition process for professional development at EU level). In general, the project will support the raise of community-centred and participatory planning and design across disciplines (from local to European and International level), with all benefits related to it, in particular in the view of social coherence.