LED (Landscape Education for Democracy) is an interdisciplinary, international course unit training conceptual thinking, diversity management and intercultural communication for building leadership competence in the spatial planning professions. To meet contemporary needs in spatial planning, we need to rethink design and planning education so that future practitioners will have the knowledge, skills and sensitivities necessary to design and implement democratic decision making in landscape planning. LED promotes empowerment, participation and active citizenship among young people by directly addressing the topic of participation and active citizenship, thus enhancing relevant competences needed for facing social, cultural and environmental challenges in Europe. It also includes training participation methods in interdisciplinary constellations as a fruitful ground for groundbreaking new ideas for local change. In this way it clearly supports the objectives of the 2013 Communication on Opening Up Education through providing an open, online course. LED focuses on the importance of the practical, everyday application of the principles of the European Landscape Convention, the Aarhus Convention and other key accords that address landscape decision-making along democratic principles. The course utilizes gives students the opportunity to master - methods and theories typically not taught in spatial planning programs like landscape architecture or urban planning. These include: Participant Action Research, service learning, participatory design, ecological democracy and ecoliteracy. Among the many important professional skills students will acquire in the course is developing appropriate and effective means of including marginalized or disadvantaged social groups. The students will be prepared for this in the theoretical phase of the project as we will provide case studies from a variety of cities to provide best practices for how to engage marginalized groups and include them in the planning process. Objectives To provide a multi-element learning module on landscape and governance in a European context that introduces innovative learning methods of which both learners and educators will benefit. This includes: • curricular innovation by introducing landscape and democracy as a cross-disciplinary subject; • introduction of interdisciplinary, problem-based learning environments - both online and on site; • introduction of highly interactive online learning activities based on constructivist learning theory; • further education of teaching staff in the above mentioned areas; • local/regional impact of the problem-based learning activities by taking up local problems; • mutual learning of all European partners involved, increase of European awareness and diversity appreciation; • promoting empowerment, participation and active citizenship among young people by directly addressing the topic of participation and active citizenship, thus enhancing relevant competences needed for facing social, cultural and environmental challenges in Europe; • providing training participation methods in interdisciplinary constellations as a fruitful ground for groundbreaking new ideas for local change. Methodology Competence and experience existing at institutions from different European regions will be brought together in order to conduct the following activities: • Basic course (5 ECTS) consisting of online lectures and web-based materials aiming at understanding the theoretical foundations of community-based design, public participation and civic engagement; • Collaborative course (5 ECTS) during which students cooperate online in international teams, document local challenges and develop new ideas in a collaborative project; • International intensive programme (5 ECTS) during which students cooperate on site in one of the ‘landscape democracy labs’ at three of the partner universities. These labs are supposed to become local incubators for community-based projects and will sustain beyond the lifetime of the EU grant; • Development of an online platform that can visualize the project’s impact and assess who is changing their approaches and where. This would be hosted at the Centre for Landscape Democracy; • Conduct an accompanying research on the subject-specific, pedagogic and cultural implications of the entire project aiming at scientific publication. Results The project will have several permanent intellectual outputs, including: • Learning materials compiled by instructors and by student teams, available online with completely open access; • Guidance documents for instructors at higher education institutions interested in implementing the course in their own context; • Certification system for democracy in landscape planning;
a) Context/background of the project The LED (Landscape Education for Democracy) programme was conceptualized and implemented as an interdisciplinary, international course unit training conceptual thinking, diversity management and intercultural communication for building leadership competence in spatial planning. Inspired by the 2000 European Landscape Convention (ELC) and European Water Framework Directive (WFD), it aimed to increase transparency, public awareness, social learning and participation in landscape change.The project partners aimed to change design and planning education to teach future practitioners how to design and implement democratic decision-making processes in landscape planning. b) Objectives The LED course gave students foundational intellectual and professional tools necessary to take an active role in planning and design processes that are democratically-determined, socially-sustainable and inclusive of diverse populations. The LED partners co-designed and implemented through action-research a 15 ECTS study-module that included a blended learning course for students in environmental planning that combined both traditional and virtual learning environments. The consortium offered 10 ECTS as a blended learning model. Nürtingen-Geislingen University have offered 15 students of their ‘Planning and Design Methods II’ module between 5 and 15 ECTS in exchange for focusing their master theses, studio or research paper on LED-related topics. On-site intensive programmes in Italy, Germany, and Hungary complemented the online seminar. During the intensive, students formulated solutions in partnership with local municipalities and NGOs. c) Number and profile of participating organisations. The project was implemented by a consortium of universities (University of Kassel and Nürtinger in Germany, St. Itzvan in Hungary, the University of Bologna in Italy) and an NGO (the LE:NOTRE institute in the Netherlands) operating according to the detailed work plan included in the application, which outlined the deliverables and responsibilities of each partner. d) Description of undertaken main activities. The LED partner carried out the following activities: (i) development of online course materials on theory, methods, tools and case studies in landscape democracy as a blended course, (ii) implementation of summer intensive workshops organised by three of the consortium partners, and (iii) the envisioning and implementation LED recognition model to certify and certify knowledge, training, and practices that can help promote landscape democracy. After a rapid development phase in the Fall of 2015, the course was offered in the Spring semesters of 2016, 2017 and 2018. The testing has been accompanied by a rigorous evaluation and subsequent improvements. The programme attracted approximately 242 students, evenly distributed across the five academic partners and an equal number and auditors from other world universities. 45, 60, and 65 students enrolled in the online course in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The July 2016, July 2017 and June 2018 Intensives attracted 22, 20 and 30 students respectively, with a consistent presence of 10 staff members. All of the activities were documented and made available publicly through the project’s wiki page. e) Results and impact attained • increase of students' confidence in their ability to identify and act upon landscape democracy challenges; • increase of internet-based course delivery and increased cross-institutional cooperation among all partners • professional development opportunities for LED staff to use online learning as a pedagogical tool. The LED project aimed to be transformative of both academics practitioners and municipalities we engaged through the programmer's activities. In addition to the project partners, many scholars and practitioners from around the world have participated in the LED project activities either as lecturers, tutors during the intensive programmes, or as guests in one of the many dissemination events. The project's adoption by the partner universities was mixed. While Bologna and HfWU integrated the course into their curricula, other partners will offer it as an elective. The impact of the course activities on the participating students and faculty was measured through pre-post exposure surveys measuring perceptions, values, and knowledge of landscape democratic theories and method. The LED partners also created a cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural European certification system to recognize professionals and citizens involved in Landscape Democratic processes. The LE:NOTRE partner Anna Szilagy-Nagy is currently leading the efforts to formalize the certificate.