The project Bridge is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Servicio Espanol para la Internacionalizacion de la Educacion (SEPIE). Neither the European Union nor the National Agency SEPIE can be held responsible for them. -- Number: 2025-1-ES01-KA220-HED-000359236 --
The BRIDGE Digital Museum brings together good practices, educational proposals and images that inspire reflection and action
Social Challenges
Analyse social challenges to intercultural dialogue, social inclusion and democratic cohesion
Good Practices
Discover experiences that generate social impact
Educational Space
Access teaching guides, activities and materials for the classroom
Documentary Photography
Explore the social challenges in a visual, reflective and educational way
BRIDGE Main Challenge: A.3. Educational gaps throughout educational trajectories, including higher education
Traditional one-way university teaching treats students as passive recipients and leaves them to navigate complex curricula with little academic guidance. Standardised mass education ignores diverse starting points, and rising costs, rigid progression and precarious job prospects hit socio-economically vulnerable students hardest, feeding drop-out and widening educational gaps in higher education.
CREATES replaces knowledge transmission with co-creation. Students help design learning outcomes and assessment, while structured academic advising by lecturers, peers and students themselves offers guided pathways through the curriculum. Six universities in five countries developed four open toolkits, an academic paper, a position paper and a policy paper to spread this model across the European Higher Education Area.
CREATES (Creating Responsive, Engaging and Tailored Education with Students) was an Erasmus+ project (2017–2020) led by Leuphana University Lüneburg with six universities from Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, France and Italy. It promoted student-centred higher education through co-creation and academic advising at classroom, curriculum and community level. Four inter-institutional teams produced open-access toolkits on co-creative learning and on faculty, peer and self-advising, plus academic, position and policy papers.
A transmissive model of higher education, in which students passively receive knowledge, combined with weak academic guidance, contributes to early drop-out and a gap between university study and real-world needs. Mass, standardised education ignores diverse starting points; rising costs, rigid progression and precarious employment prospects deepen disadvantage for students with non-traditional or migrant backgrounds.
The OECD reports that 30 per cent of graduates in member countries lack the literacy and numeracy needed to process moderately complex information, and cross-curricular skills are neglected across the EU. In Germany's stratified and rigid system, personalised guidance is a lever for equal opportunities.
CREATES addresses Challenge A3 (educational gaps throughout educational trajectories) by institutionalising academic advising and co-creation. Guided pathways and self-reflection supply the institutional support that is often missing, helping students counter cumulative disadvantage and complete their studies.
Four inter-institutional development teams of lecturers, learning designers, advisers and students designed toolkits for co-creative learning and for faculty, peer and self-advising, grounded in problem- and research-based learning. Drafts were piloted and refined twice, tested with lecturers at multiplier events in Lüneburg and Maastricht and at a student conference, then published as OER with accompanying academic, position and policy papers.
IO1: Toolkit for Co-creative Learning
Teaching guide
A digital guide for university lecturers containing practical tools, programme examples and lesson plans for co-creative teaching. It is grounded in Problem-Based Learning and Research-Based Learning and aims to develop students' autonomy and critical thinking by working on real-world problems that prepare them for social diversity and global citizenship. Each technique is presented in a 'What, Why and How' format that can be adapted to different disciplines and institutional contexts. Students participated in the development team as co-creators. The toolkit was validated at the Lüneburg multiplier event in 2019 with 29 lecturers from Germany, other European partner universities and associated universities in the United States, and is published openly under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Teaching staff
IO2: Toolkit for Faculty Advising
Teaching guide
A digital guide of advising tools and resources for university staff with tutoring and advising roles. It builds on the concept of 'advising as teaching', which treats academic advising as part of the educational process and focuses on students' intellectual and personal growth beyond administrative questions. The toolkit promotes reciprocal dialogue between advisers and students and seeks to reconcile students' expectations with what the institution can offer, helping students make sound curricular decisions. Its accessible format is designed to be adapted to the specific institutional context of each university. It was tested and refined at the Maastricht multiplier event in 2019 with more than 15 lecturers and advisers and is available as an open educational resource.
Teaching staff, Professionals
https://europe-creates.eu/toolkit-for-faculty-advising/introduction/
IO3: Toolkit for Peer Advising
Teaching guide
A digital guide comprising frameworks, planning sheets and case studies for setting up peer advising, based on the 'students helping students' model. It recognises the knowledge that senior students can pass on to newcomers and aims to create safe spaces built on shared experience and equal access, supporting peers in academic questions and in settling into university life. The toolkit is aimed at students who act as advisers and at the coordinators of mentoring programmes, and can be adapted to the needs of individual degree programmes. It defines peer advising, identifies the key decisions students face and offers planning tools for running a programme. The approach was discussed and validated at the International Student Conference in the Black Forest in 2018, where student representatives from five partner institutions exchanged experiences.
Teaching staff, Students
IO4: Toolkit for Self-Advising
Educational resource
A digital guide that supports students' own decision-making during their studies. It includes recommendation systems ('guided pathways') and structured reflection techniques designed to build agency and metacognition, so that students can make their way through university independently and rely less on prior social capital. The tools are aimed at undergraduate students and are scalable and customisable according to individual progress, which makes them suitable for students from non-traditional backgrounds who may receive less guidance from family or networks. The toolkit was validated collectively by the inter-institutional development teams during the project and is published as an open educational resource that institutions can embed in their own orientation or study-skills provision.
Teaching staff, Students
IO5: CREATES Academic Paper (systematic review)
Digital publication
An academic paper offering a systematic review of the scientific evidence underpinning the CREATES approach. It sets out how co-creation and active learning develop the skills needed in the 21st century: agency, analytical thinking, creative thinking, interaction with others and learning to learn. The paper provides the pedagogical rationale for the four toolkits and is aimed at lecturers and research staff interested in educational innovation who want to ground their own co-creative teaching or advising practice in published evidence. It is available as a PDF on the project website under an open licence and can be used as a reading in teacher training courses, higher education didactics programmes or seminars on student-centred learning.
Teaching staff, Researchers
https://europe-creates.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CREATES-Scientific-Paper.pdf
IO6: CREATES Position Paper (EHEA Reform Agenda)
Digital publication
A policy and pedagogical strategy document analysing future social, economic and civic challenges for higher education and proposing a reform of the European Higher Education Area towards more flexible and personalised models of teaching. It frames co-creation and academic advising as systemic reform at three levels (European, national and institutional) and calls for changes in human resources management so that teaching excellence and pedagogical innovation are rewarded in recruitment and promotion. It is aimed at university leaders and decision-makers and is useful in seminars on higher education policy or for staff who want to argue for the institutionalisation of advising and co-creation within their own universities.
Teaching staff, Professionals, Policy Makers
IO7: CREATES Policy Paper
Digital publication
A document of policy recommendations for policy-makers at national and European level as well as university leaders. Drawing on interviews with four experts from organisations including the Irish National Forum on Teaching and Learning and the Association of Dutch Universities (VSNU), it advocates a quality assurance system centred on the learning process and student autonomy in place of standardised bureaucratic metrics. It proposes mechanisms such as 'Teaching Grants' and National Teaching and Learning Forums to give pedagogical innovation status and stable funding, mirroring the research grant system. The paper can be used to discuss how institutional and national frameworks shape teaching practice and inclusion in higher education.
Professionals, Policy Makers
https://europe-creates.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CREATES-Policy-paper.pdf