The Societal Interaction of Higher Education Institutions

Participatory Urban Design at Live Baltic Campus

This paper explores knowledge-based urban development related to higher education and campuses. The increasing local engagement and the political appreciation and economisation of HEIs can be found in the discourses of civic university and HEIs as entrepreneurial actors. This article also provides an introduction to design thinking, which has been used as a user-friendly tool for fulfilling the ideals of urban campus development in the project ‘Live Baltic Campus – Campus Areas as Labs for Participative Urban Design’. The project aimed at developing campuses as innovation hubs where different stakeholders, residents as well as businesses, are being taken into account; reflecting the prevailing campus discourses. As a takeaway message, the result of the project can be summarized as a formulation of the core themes of urban campus development.