Flip the University

What will the university and its campuses look like in the future? National and international trends are pointing towards transformations that touch the whole university and the idea of the University, spelled with a capital U. How do universities tackle the challenge? And how should we develop academic learning and working environments – also as part of the surrounding urban community?

Niclas Sandström and Anne Nevgi published the article called (published in Finnish) in Yliopistopedagogiikka e-journal in November, 2017. The text is about the university as a learning landscape. The authors discuss how the university as spaces, communities and processes should be conceptualized and how it should be managed and led.

Towards the end of the article, they present the idea of the flipped campus of the future. By flipping the campus, they refer to the integration and alignment of educational leadership and facilities management, and the opening up of the university in its surrounding community.T

The authors also refer to how the built campus landscape should be based on flexible activity-based spaces where teachers, researchers and students meet each other and create essential moments of collaboration, also with stakeholders from outside the university.