Future Universities as Activating Resonance Spaces. New Roles in Society—Innovative Approaches

Abstract

This paper draws on more than five years of intensive debates and explorations with a large number of active and engaged citizens and scholars, teachers, students, staff and university leaders. It will sketch emerging pictures and patterns of the new role of universities as an Activating Resonance Space addressing future societal challenges—beyond teaching and research focused on an industrialized and business-driven world. Based on more than 15 years of engagement in community service learning as a participative and empowering approach of Project-Based Learning and teaching, the paper proposes important steps toward an institutionalization of transformative learning and teaching, which will address current and future societal challenges.

1 Changing Paradigms

Traditionally, higher education has been defined by the type of knowledge one had acquired—i.e., what you officially have been credited for (Bachelor/Master). According to this model, universities¹ educate highly specialized and excellent professionals and scientists/scholars.

The value of universities still is measured by the amount of explicit knowledge supposedly gained, by the amount of external funding spent, and by a scientific impact factor—which is measured by the number of citations in relevant scientific journals. What if universities of the future would need to go beyond just academic excellence? Should a “scientific impact factor” be supplemented by a “societal impact factor” (Håkansson, 2005; Smith, 2001; Weber et al., 2015), which measures the results of a university by the positive effects it has on the common good and civil society?

Universities today are challenged by new conditions and requirements based on basic changes both in technology and society: specialization and technological excellence may not be sufficient any more to address the growing complexity and challenges we are experiencing in our world. Therefore, in the future, educational success of Higher Education will have to be measured by how flexibly graduates can adapt to constantly changing environments and new requirements. For the twenty-first century and the future global challenges of an interconnected and increasingly complex world, we need a new understanding of learning: parallel to effective academic knowledge transfer and application, we need to foster the skills and competences of both students and faculty/staff of universities, how to address societal challenges and how to transform business, communities, and our societies for our common future. Hence, universities need to educate and establish joint learning spaces for a constant re-orientation and re-invention, both on individual, group, and institutional levels.

Frameworks and conditions for successful action in professional domains, everyday life and organizations have changed significantly: not only in the last 2 years of global pandemics, but for 10–15 years already. Thinking in terms of certainties, cause-effect relationships, input–output categories is no longer sufficient as the main school of thought, especially for people who act responsibly. We are moving into a “post-linear” age that demands new skills from societal actors: to deal creatively with uncertainty (Stark et al., 2017), but also to identify and use opportunities and potentials for a new “world of resonant relationships” among actors, referring to researchers like Hartmut Rosa (2018) and Bruno Latour (2005, 2021).

A large part of the leaders in business and society have been, and still are, educated based on the model of “cause-and-effect” and “input–output”, which is also paramount in an industrial world. Hence, their patterns of decision-making have a high impact on the future of our rapidly changing global civil society, but do not fit anymore with the complex challenges we are facing today and in the future.

As we are entering a “post-linear age”, both managers and employees in our business world or social institutions, and politicians and active citizens will need to be characterized by a high level of self-reliance and collaborative competence. We all need to acquire skills to act both professionally and responsibly under conditions of high uncertainty. They do not deny imponderables in order to pretend confidence—they name and analyze imponderables in order to ask deeper questions. They do not restrict complex realities to supposedly secure, basic facts. Instead, they will be able to develop a comprehensive picture of a complex situation and ways to act responsibly in uncertainty. They will clarify personal considerations and priorities; act as opponents of “no alternatives” and as advocates of a conscious decision-making for one of several alternatives. They will name spheres of interest and channels of influence on decisions and thus complete the full picture of a decision-making situation.

However, parallel to our predominant idea of leadership, higher education today still, and largely, follows an idea of linearity and predictability; input–output relations. Therefore, the need for a higher education that cuts across disciplines and prepares students for ambiguity and non-linearity, supporting differentiated and complex thinking and action, becomes all the more evident. As future responsible leaders, leading networks, and groups to influence the “post-linear age” will be significantly shaped by the cultures and academic narratives of our universities, the core of a future university therefore rather should be transdisciplinary: “thinking outside of the box”, deeper learning from errors, encouraging experimentation, and foster a culture of critical and productive questioning. To promote a true “culture of deeper learning” (Reimers, 2021) within and between civil society, business, and our societal institutions, we need to develop personalities and identities of future generations and leaders by reinforcing social and societal responsibility and a sense of community (Heidbrink & Hirsch, 2006).

In higher education strategy development, we have been experiencing a strange discrepancy since I have entered the university system as a teacher and researcher some 25 years ago. We are stuck between:

• An uplifting demand and debate for reform, which sees universities as an intellectual and future-oriented basis for technical and social innovations for the demands of future global and networked civil societies (Mittelstraß, 2003)

• The actual structural changes, which tend to be short-tempered, adapting to political and economic interests and demands and bowing to the administration of quantitative measures and qualitative shortages instead of actively and creatively shaping them.

Therefore, the question remains of how to rethink higher education and universities in addition to and beyond digitalization. The first steps of developing our universities for “resonating” toward societal challenges have been made by establishing Campus-Community Partnerships between universities and civil society.

2 Campus-Community Partnerships

Universities and Higher Education Institutions (HEI), since the 1970s, have become increasingly business-oriented. This is why universities sometimes can be viewed as being designed according to the industrial model (Robinson & Robinson, 2022).² Growing awareness and competition toward global sustainability in the last 10 years promoted new strategies, unique selling propositions, and clear mission statements beyond excellence in research, as well as an expansion of university cooperation and funding options.

The concept of “Campus-Community Partnerships” is associated with a number of approaches toward the transformation of Higher Education: Community Service Learning (CSL), Community-Based Research (CBR), Community Co-Creation, University Civic Engagement, Social Entrepreneurship, Community Outreach, Engaged Universities and more.

Campus-Community Partnerships (CCP) (Stark et al., 2014) become relevant to higher education strategies, because they go beyond opening up a traditional “academic ivory-tower”; they also go beyond “university-business-relationships” which seemed to be prevalent for decades. In many universities, CCPs are part of HEI’s mission statement, they can help to raise the profile of universities and, as a program, address fundamental questions of university development.

Campus-Community Partnerships integrate different formats in which universities (campus) and civil society actors (community) work on (practical or research) problems of the community for mutual (operational) benefit and act jointly in the process of working on them (partnership). Principles of CCP, like

• 1. Orientation towards the common good,

• 2. Generation of immediate or operational benefits for all participants, and

• 3. Collaborative process design at eye level,

distinguish Campus-Community Partnerships from other approaches focusing on collaboration between science and business.

Community Service Learning (CSL) (Aramburuzabala Higuera et al., 2019) has clear methodological similarities to Problem-Based Learning, Project Learning and Research-Based Learning. Programmatically, however, only CSL intends to focus on the common good and is therefore understood as a form of Campus-Community Partnership. Research projects often collaborate with organizations outside the university, including non-profit organizations. However, these organizations generally are objects of research and are researched without being involved. Community-Based Research, on the other hand, aims to include the legitimate interests of the university and the community partner in the research process, with regard to the research results and, if applicable, their utilization. Voluntary engagement, even if initiated and mediated by the university, usually focuses predominantly on the aspect of the common good. To be considered a Campus-Community Partnership in the above sense, it needs to be systematically linked to academic teaching/learning settings. A Training Workshop for executives of a company by the university can become a Campus-Community Partnership if, for example, a local school is involved as a participant and beneficiary.

The examples suggest added values that can be expected when existing practices are changed with Campus-Community Partnership principles in mind; in this respect, we see these principles as a prerequisite for harnessing all potentials for both universities and (civil) society.

3 Community Service Learning

Especially for the side of universities as primary initiators of Campus-Community Partnerships, a broader context is also central, which Ramaley’s (2000) view of Community Service Learning illustrates:

“Service learning can be viewed as a form of pedagogy designed to enhance learning and promote civic responsibility as well as one of a set of strategies to link the capacity of a college or a university to the needs of society” (Ramaley, 2000).

In the past decades, a growing number of universities in Europe are collaborating with local community partners beyond business. Based on a teaching format originally developed in the US, civic/public engagement is an integral part of curricula. Community Service Learning and its didactic and strategic approach has led to (mostly temporal, sometimes permanent) Campus-Community Partnerships which have become more relevant for higher education institutions who want to focus on a “social responsibility mission” beyond teaching and research. They aim not only at initiating social change and innovation within their local communities based on their academic resources, but simultaneously enhance individual values for social responsibility for their students and staff (Altenschmidt et al., 2009; Hofer & Derkau, 2020). As a result, a variety of national/regional Higher Education Networks on “Community Service Learning” and “Education for Societal Responsibility” have been growing since 2009.³ The German University Network for Societal Responsibility⁴ by now is the largest non-partisan university/college network in Germany. The European Association for Service Learning in Higher Education (EASLHE – https://www.easlhe.eu/) has been established as an international resource to expand the idea of community service learning for students, teachers, researchers and national/regional networks on a European scale.

Civic Engagement, Community Service Learning and Campus-Community Partnerships are closely interconnected. Community Service Learning is a pedagogical method which integrates Civic Engagement into academic teaching by addressing real-world problems of the community within the framework of student projects (Berger Kaye, 2010; Rosenkranz et al., 2019; Seifert et al., 2019). In Community Service Learning, practical Project-Based Teaching connects academic fields and disciplines with needs of real-life communities and challenges (Altenschmidt et al., 2009). Thus, society will benefit from Campus-Community Partnerships, while students can address significant actual issues in self-organized and responsible ways. Community Service Learning produces action- and experience-oriented learning environments that encourage strategies beyond linear problem-solving routines, substantive and continuous reflection, and the experience of practical problem-solving (Sliwka, 2007). New formats of Problem-Based Learning combined with digitalized learning have been developed into a concept of “deeper learning” (Sliwka & Klopsch, 2021).

Community Service Learning can show positive impacts on the personal and social development of students and future leaders: they can gain a clearer sense of their identity, self-worth, and belonging, and develop fundamental key competences and social responsibility. Community Service Learning, on the one hand, can make education more meaningful and relevant. On the other hand, Campus-Community Partnerships have the potential to close the gap between educational institutions and their communities (Eyler & Giles, 1999).

Many actors may contribute to the field of Community Service Learning: the picture above (Fig. 7.1) shows which actors are represented or are likely to play a role in Community Service Learning and Campus-Community Partnerships.

Fig. 7.1

(Adapted from Ruda et al., 2015)

Actors Represented in Community Service Learning.

Community Service Learning as a teaching approach is linking universities and civil society and is well known in some places on the globe (North and South America, Asia).⁵ Elsewhere, Community Service Learning is still a relatively new approach to teaching in Higher Education. In Europe, Ireland and Germany have been on the forefront to adopt this innovative teaching approach since around 2005.

4 An Innovative Approach Towards Teaching and Learning

Community Service Learning facilitates academic teaching and learning in collaboration with civil society: teaching is student-driven and practically oriented, linked to research, connected to real societal challenges, and aims to develop innovative solutions.

Project-Based Community Service Learning related to real-world challenges teaches students how to take responsibility for their own actions and for social concerns: Programming a handicapped-accessible website, designing and implementing a sensory garden for dementia patients, developing PR or quality concepts for social institutions, or inventing new fundraising ideas—depending on the field of study, many areas of application are conceivable. Off-campus involvement is embedded in the course of study. Many CSL projects are interdisciplinary: technical and methodological knowledge will be mutually shared and implemented in real-world settings.

Acting practically on the basis of theoretical knowledge promotes methodological and both social and personality-building skills in students. Depending on the learning setting, students test and expand their analytical, planning, and creative problem-solving strategies. They develop competencies for working in a team and dealing with conflicts, and demonstrate their communicative skills when working with “real” customers. Last but not least, the students experience how to make a difference and be significant, a decisive factor from a psychological point of view. Self-efficacy, the daily dose of “I am needed”, is crucial for mental health and success. In this sense, Future Skills for Higher Education will be transformative and transdisciplinary, and may establish what Otto Scharmer calls “Vertical Literacy” (Scharmer, 2019; Stark, 2022).

One aspect that is very specific to Community Service Learning, and new to university teaching, is that CSL promotes the students’ sense of social and democratic responsibility. An essential moment can be found here, which especially favors the development of social and personal competencies. The students perform a community service, move out of their “comfort zone” and view their social environment from different perspectives.

5 Universities and Students Co-Creating and Re-Designing Civil Society

The concept of Community Service Learning therefore opens up a multidimensional “added value” with regard to personality development of students, the networking of universities and the civil society environment, and the concrete benefit for public organizations and society in general.

“Universitas” emerges—in a novel sense—when scholars cross disciplinary and academic boundaries into practice, and help practitioners generate and bring new realities into the world. For research, another move may be equally important: practitioners cross the boundary into reflection and theoretical concepts inherent in their practice and outcomes will become accessible and fruitful to research discourses. A vibrant transformation of the university and higher education requires opening up to practice and its inherent potential for the future; to the practice of organizations, to the practice of individuals, to societal practice.

Learning within civil society projects generates a different depth of processing than is the case with lectures or even seminars. Experiential learning in the sense of John Dewey (1963) plays an important role here. According to his assumption, learning appears to be successful when it is oriented towards solving practical problems of action. If, in addition to imparting specialized knowledge, education also is important for promoting the potential of individuals and groups to pro-actively and collaboratively shape our democratic society (Scharmer, 2019), the actors of the universities, and especially the students, need to play an active part in these community-oriented efforts.

In this respect, universities need to develop their social and civic responsibility. They need to go beyond sustainability in the ecological sense, but also promote concrete civic engagement for democratic education (Baltes et al., 2007; Sliwka, 2007) and, through concepts such as service learning, enable a learning community of civil society and academic institutions for mutual benefit.

Promoting a sense of social responsibility in community-oriented projects (Community Service Learning) among students additionally raises the potential for engagement and innovation among students and faculty as a potential of universities; both of which are resources of civic development that have been underutilized in Germany to date. According to destatis,⁶ approximately 2.9 million students at universities and colleges in Germany hold an invaluable potential for public engagement on federal, regional or community levels. If academic learning and civic engagement can be combined, not only the gap between democratic education and engagement in schools and later professional activity will be closed, but countless examples and role models for an active civil society will be developed.

6 Future Universities: Activating Resonance Spaces for Societal Innovation

Higher Education Institutions—being one of the core institutional system actors in our societies—are highly relevant for academic teaching and research but will play another crucial role for future societies. Future Universities also may develop as Activating Resonance Spaces for our society (Rosa & Endres, 2016; Stark, 2022). To establish universities as resonance spaces, and to exchange and share implicit and explicit knowledge (Stark et al., 2018), skills, and wisdom, we will need to establish an expanded and transparent “communication and reference framework” for societal innovation (Sailer et al., 2019). We will need to go beyond a mutual understanding of those acting within the academic system.

A mutual and collaborative eco-system within the scientific community will still be central, but not sufficient. Rather, through its various formats (teaching, research, transfer) and institutions, universities need to recognize, understand, and respond to the demands and challenges of society—in other words, “relate” and “resonate”. At the same time, universities as “resonance spaces” need to be heard and echoed in society, as an active member of a societal discourse on science-based discoveries, insights, and innovations.

Therefore, the idea of university becomes—in the sense of Carayannis and Campbell’s (2012) quintuple helix (Goldsmith, 2018)—an active (and vibrating) part of society (Fig. 7.2).

Fig. 7.2

(Adapted from Carayannis & Campbell, 2012)

Quintuple Helix Innovation.

Following Carayannis and Campbell (2012), the idea of Future Universities can be sketched as a university “in Modus 3” (Roessler, 2016).⁷ It is characterized not only by well-developed Campus-Community Partnerships (Stark et al., 2014), but based on a fully developed transformational literacy (Scharmer, 2019) and transdisciplinary, transformational research with a strong focus on societal (not only technical) application (Schneidewind & Singer-Brodowski, 2013), which is linked to research-based teaching and community-based research (Altenschmidt & Stark, 2016; Hacker, 2013). Transformational research and education as well as the strong link to civic society can also provide an important ‘missing link’ between applied research and basic research at different types of universities (Schneidewind, 2019).

Similar to “Industry 4.0”, which is replacing the original idea of mass industrial production by individualized products and services, the learning, research and development in “Universities as Activating Resonance Spaces of/for society” will become more individualized. Lifelong learning, research, new forms of production (Ming et al., 2022), and new work will constantly intertwine. The different actors of society (students, teachers, or partners from companies, civil society organizations, entrepreneurs, creative people, artists, politicians…) will interact actively and contextually.

Teaching and learning in this context will go beyond a one-dimensional transfer of knowledge (from teacher to student; from university to society). It will be a continuous, mutual reflective experience. Learning will take place in coordinated and negotiated ways; in a continuous exchange of different actors in physical as well as virtual spaces. A multidimensional and resonating space, which will enable, create, and maintain its references for research and learning will not simply fade away after finishing projects or degrees. Mutual knowledge and skills from academia, arts, and experience will resonate to current challenges and enable an urgently needed re-reflection for responsible innovation. In short: “Activating Resonance Spaces” are needed as innovative enablers for communication between all social actors. Future Universities (like Modus 3-Universities) should act as, and provide, resonance spaces for the future of our societies and planet.

7 Shapes of Future Universities

Specific shapes of Future Universities as described below may act as a common framework for transformative learning, teaching, and research.

• 1. Future Universities will act as an initiator, co-designer, enabler, and one of the active players in a societal resonance and learning space. Actors will establish a concept of theory as “practice understood” (Dewey, 1963). Experiential knowing does not end at lecture hall doors (Killius et al., 2003). Learning is not restricted to a short time in life (at schools and universities), it develops as learning in the time of life (“lifelong learning”), applying even more to working life and social practice as an Open Loop University.⁸ Relations between university, working life, and social practice therefore must be reorganized online and offline.

• 2. The architecture (the buildings) of the Future Universities as Resonance Spaces therefore will meet requirements needed in the interaction of its technology, building style, and design. Resonating Spaces need to be enabling spaces to allow various forms of active learning (skills for Co-Creation, Future Skills for innovative communities and transformational learning). These requirements will need to go beyond traditional “classroom-office” structures still dominating many of our universities today and towards Open Spaces like “Learning Hubs”, “Co-Working Spaces”, and “Experimental Floors” in which students, teaching and university staff, and civil society will be supported by digitalized features to learn mutually how to transform our future.⁹

• 3. Regionally-based international networking as part of Future Universities: “Think global, act local” narrows this down. Many medium-sized companies embedded in their regional environment often and successfully act as global players. The resonance space takes this anchoring in the region into account, but also creates international networking beyond digitalization. Future Universities will highlight the poles global vs/and local to provide a complementary frame of reference in the resonance space.

• 4. Resonance Spaces may act as a framework curating its own physical-virtual structural potential. From the point of view of intellectual capital (human, structural, relational potential), the resonance space will enable smart links between micro-, meso- and macro-levels of a “Knowledge Society”. Resonance Spaces will help to transparently classify insights generated on a macro- or meso-level and co-creatively inspire transdisciplinary research. They also will initiate practical-research applications and exchange with experiential knowledge in (regional) micro-levels.

• 5. Resonance Spaces may act as “scaling spaces” for individual and societal impact. They will open opportunities to share, evaluate, and reflect insights, innovations, and open questions with the community. They will enable actors previously unknown to meet and collaborate with new questions and projects. Both academic and practical routines may become re-vitalized by involving external actors; mutually best practices will be shared and resonated with.

• 6. Future Universities as Resonance Spaces will expand previous approaches to a university of the future, which have been addressing “educational processes” from a university perspective only. If members of the university dip into working and community life and community members will be part of the academic life in return, universities finally will become and serve as a resonance space for a responsible knowledge society (Open Loop University). Alumni will become populi. Universities as a Resonance Space will be identified as a citizen university: master classes will mutually use and reflect experiences that have not been made in university life and by non-university members. This will require a participatory intellectual constitution to support a citizen- and society-driven research life, enhanced within the resonance space.

• 7. Resonance Spaces will re-invent traditional universities in structural and hierarchical terms: Transformational learning and teaching implies that planning and administrative processes (enrollment, curricula, exams, formatting study programs) gradually will develop into a joint process between teaching and research staff, students and civil society. The practice of learning and teaching, as well as respective results, will be a joint responsibility. The best way to link learning and leadership is to teach what you learn, and to experience research.

8 Transformative Literacy Links Learning and Leadership

In essence, Future Universities will integrate not only different scientific-academic levels but also the experiential level (learning by doing). They will create transformative eco-systems in the sense of “systems thinking” and individual change. “From Ego to Eco” will broaden and deepen a perspective of transformative learning, building on, but even going beyond, what we believe to be core elements (properties) of a “university of the future”.¹⁰ Scharmer (2019) argues that in our Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) there still is a growing “blind spot” when it comes to transformational learning and collaborative and co-creating eco-systems (see Fig. 7.3).

Fig. 7.3

(Adapted from Scharmer, 2019)

Matrix of Systems Learning and Leadership.

A quest for transformative literacy is particularly of concern in transitional and uncertain situations: not only “in year 2 of a global pandemic”, but even more in times of war and a highly threatened international security. In which stage of a global transition process are we actually? How can we, as universities, react to turmoil and uncertainty for students, teachers, researchers, and citizens? Are we walking together or are we (institutionally, but also individually) in different stages that will make “walking together” difficult? What is the role of higher education institutions in designing transformative learning spaces and formats in times of uncertainty? How can we support each other—and especially students, teachers, researchers and citizens, who have lost their home and safe places?

Based on the results of an iconic workshop conference at the Tutzing Academy in 2021 which brought together students, presidents, staff, researchers, and teachers from universities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Fig. 7.4), major challenges for Future Universities may be developed around reflective questions instead of answers:

Fig. 7.4

Results from “Universities of the Future”—Wolfgang Stark, 2022

• How can we learn to work and collaborate together? Shaping our future together with different perspectives is already a challenge for disciplines and stakeholders within universities. Co-creation between civil society and academia¹¹ additionally requires an exchange between different forms of how experiences and insights are processed.

• Can spaces for reflection, creativity, and freedom be developed at universities and in civil society for new forms of collaborative learning? Not only digitalization processes will require to re-purpose and re-design traditional spaces (classrooms, offices) in universities. The collaboration of science, civil society, and companies to transform our society also needs new (both virtual and analog) creative, free, reflective, and open spaces inside and outside universities.

• How do we reshape the triangle of civil society—universities—business? Relationship dynamics between civil society, universities, politics, and economic stakeholders are changing. In the context of global societal change, universities can, and need, to play an active and important role as a “resonance chamber of our society” in reshaping cooperation.¹²

• In what ways can we rethink and test our respective roles? If new forms of collaboration and co-creation also produce spaces for reflection and freedom within/between universities and civil society, the roles of stakeholders will also be re-negotiated. Students as (co-)designers of study programs, or as co-teachers, will change traditional hierarchies in higher education. Civil society as “agenda setters” and co-producers for research and teaching will enable new forms of knowledge and methods in the academic world.

• How can we connect creative-artistic thinking with research and teaching? Artistic thinking (Bertram, 2018; Kagan, 2011; Stein Greenberg & Kelley, 2021) is emerging and will take over a new significant role in the academic, societal, and business world. Artistic thinking and artistic research and reflection will shape knowledge processes and change more dynamically than the rational world of science. If both art and science and art and social change will develop into the “Art of Transformation” (Kagan, 2011; Schneidewind, 2019), new possibilities and potentials we have not been aware of before will arise.

• In what ways do we develop competencies necessary for transformation? The necessary competencies we need to transform our society often only become visible in the spaces between disciplines, between science and civil society, and between institutions.

The core of a new university therefore should rather promote transdisciplinary thinking out-of-the-box, systematically encourage learning by mistakes and experimentation, and use this experience to foster a culture of critical and productive questioning, promote the development of a learning culture in and between social organizations, and, last but not least, build the personalities and identities of future generations and leaders by strengthening social and societal responsibility and a sense of community.

Initial steps and open questions toward transformational teaching and research in Universities of the Future has started in many places.¹³ Beyond national and international “flagships”, there is an abundance of small “pockets” of innovative and transformational teaching and research in the universities of the world. Yet, at the same time, the vast majority of teaching still is based on the traditional one-way-street. Small innovative “pockets” rarely are connected, so innovation—in a more traditional way—has to be re-invented over and over again.

To break the wave, an interactive, dynamic, and adaptive market and information place—which should consist of an interactive online platform as well as offline elements—can serve. This marketplace makes it possible to match and further develop the different actors with their ideas, competencies, questions, searches, and resources as well as existing projects and results in a dynamic process.

9 Systematic Self-Reflection on “Transformation”

Talking about transformation can create the feeling of talking about the same thing but meaning very different goals (Göpel, 2016).¹⁴ One way to start a target debate on “transformational literacy” is to share beliefs, concerns, and innovative ideas between students, teachers, and civil society as an integral part of each university program.

This is also where Maja Göpel’s (2016) “tractions of transformation” come into play:

• Back to economic growth—at the expense of…?

• Inventing a new, sustainable, and safe world, do we, like always, start from a northern/western hemisphere perspective, or which one?

• What is the future “eco-system” of universities? What role do they play in it?

• Who are the real “transformers” (students, teachers, university administrators, politicians, companies…)?

The last question may be an important one for future scenarios. It is clear that universities and civil society are (supposed to be) connected. Will it be also clear that the students’ point of view takes a more prominent place?¹⁵ Actually, who belongs to civil society—who do we need to perceive?

Future Universities will need to add social responsibility and experiential wisdom to academic knowledge in order to increase their practical and societal relevance. Therefore, Future Universities will be competitive, but also emerge into collaborative universities in terms of civic relevance and excellence. That is how Future Universities will contribute to mastering the major future challenges of our society.