Recent global actions such as the climate strike show that young people in Europe are increasingly aware of the importance of a sustainable future for all. An interdisciplinary approach to these issues is needed, but often curricula and learning approaches in higher education are not yet designed in a way that addresses these issues.
Active8-Planet is an international project co-funded by the European Union. Students work together in multidisciplinary teams that also include professional stakeholders. Project leader Ellen Bal from VU Amsterdam: "We work together on assignments aimed at sustainability, a beautiful planet and a brighter future. We are looking at the process of working together in such teams, how these teams are shaped and what multidisciplinary cooperation looks like. We work together with different partners and with different generations on the basis of equality. So not on the basis of hierarchy, but with everyone adding equal value to the project."
Several European universities and partners are involved in the project, all exploring different topics. The VU team is working on a project about the experiences and perspectives of both patients and health professionals in a mental health institution in Amsterdam. They are working with Adagio, a small practice that offers psychological help to anyone who needs it and especially to people who speak other languages.
Adagio wants to make their location more comfortable for patients and healthcare professionals. In doing so, they want to take into account the diverse backgrounds of patients and professionals, the complexity of mental health care and what that requires of the environment, and the fact that Adagio's management wants to take both people and the planet into account when adapting their location. This project, therefore, offers scope to study how people from different backgrounds experience health, space and the environment and how that shapes their mutual relationship.
On behalf of VU Amsterdam, Ellen Bal and Giulia Sinatti of the department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Marrije Prins and Michiel Verver of the department of Organization Sciences are involved in this project.
Read more on the Active8-Planet project on the website.