The UvA’s Placemaking course has been nominated for the Dutch Education Award and thus has a chance to win a cash prize of €1.2 million, €800,000 or €500,000. Placemaking (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies) has become an inter-faculty teaching initiative, led by Katusha Sol and Rosanne van Wieringen. Minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf will award the prize money during the Comenius Festival on 29 June.
The Dutch Education Award
The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science hands out the Dutch Education Award in recognition of educational innovation and to honour outstanding and innovative achievements by teaching teams. The prize money is awarded to teaching teams in senior secondary vocational education (MBO), higher education with an applied emphasis (HBO) and research-oriented higher education with an emphasis on theory (WO).
Placemaking at the UvA
As part of the Placemaking course, students work with local parties to improve the UvA’s campuses and surrounding areas together. Students immerse themselves fully into the local area. They then design interventions based on the insights they have acquired. In addition to generating support, involving local parties usually ensures that the intervention is followed up. Last but not least, students pass on the lessons learned to the local community and new student teams. Thank to this relay format, the Placemaking course has built up a sustainable network of more than 40 local parties. The website lists almost 100 student projects.
At last – a course in our degree programme that lets me apply knowledge and theory to a real-world problem, for which we then need to come up with and actually build a solution. This is what makes Placemaking so cool! You’re really making a difference, our solutions are still there and they work!
Placemaking student, academic year 2021-2022, semester 1
The Dutch Education Award
The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science hands out the Dutch Education Award in recognition of educational innovation and to honour outstanding and innovative achievements by teaching teams. The prize money is awarded to teaching teams in senior secondary vocational education (MBO), higher education with an applied emphasis (HBO) and research-oriented higher education with an emphasis on theory (WO).
Placemaking at the UvA
As part of the Placemaking course, students work with local parties to improve the UvA’s campuses and surrounding areas together. Students immerse themselves fully into the local area. They then design interventions based on the insights they have acquired. In addition to generating support, involving local parties usually ensures that the intervention is followed up. Last but not least, students pass on the lessons learned to the local community and new student teams. Thank to this relay format, the Placemaking course has built up a sustainable network of more than 40 local parties. The website lists almost 100 student projects.
At last – a course in our degree programme that lets me apply knowledge and theory to a real-world problem, for which we then need to come up with and actually build a solution. This is what makes Placemaking so cool! You’re really making a difference, our solutions are still there and they work!
Placemaking student, academic year 2021-2022, semester 1