3rd INVEST Summer School Bulgaria started with 7 VHL students

20-05-2022

The preparatory weeks for the 3rd Summer School have started. In this series of six, it is - following Greece and Finland - Bulgaria's turn. And this Summer School is live, for the first time ever: 29 May, 7 students from VHL will travel for a week to the Agricultural University Plovdiv. From our Velp location, Saki Morita, Saeed Haderbhai, Harwin Kloosterman and Tara Dixon will join. And from our Leeuwarden location, Hedzer Buren, Merit van der Schaar and Harm Okkema will represent us. 

Rik Eweg with students

Harm explains why he is participating: “I am following the Management of the Living Environment programme in Leeuwarden and am currently in the second year. I read the call on the portal and immediately thought this would be an attractive opportunity. We’ve had no experience with international cases until now and this is obviously a perfect way to learn. It also allows me to improve my English and certainly looks good on my CV. We do a fair amount of field trips in my programme, and even took a field trip to Brussels, but never anything on this level.” He has not been to Bulgaria before and says: “I am particularly curious about how students from other countries approach problems and how this differs from what we teach in our programme. Those preparatory online lessons are of course necessary to prepare well but I am especially looking forward to the week in Bulgaria, where we can really get to know the people. I think I'll put something typically Dutch/Frisian in my suitcase to give people a little taste of where we come from. Suikerbrood or stroopwafels might be a nice idea.”

Lecturers Sarah Zernitz and Simon Matahelumual will travel with us to Plovdiv. In the two preparatory weeks, they give online lectures on sustainable transitions. They teach students how to work with different stakeholders in the region to find solutions to complex issues. Professor Rik Eweg also teaches an online class and joins the two lecturers on the jury to assess the assignments at the end of the week. Rik: “I hope to teach participants more about the utility of Living Labs. For example, I'm going to tell them more about the four design principles of a Living Lab and why it's also good to use an SDG as a goal. And of course I will be presenting the INVEST Living Labs.” 

Want to know more about this or future Summer Schools? If so, visit this site.

If you would like to read more about our partner universities in Greece, Finland, Bulgaria and Slovakia, please visit the INVEST website.

Bulgarije