LC 00421

Who are we?

In our HZ Innovation Studio The Garage, students will engage and design relevant solutions for a variety of challenges in forms of project groups. They will meet and collaborate with industry stakeholders, fellow students, researchers and lecturers. Why we call it The Garage? We see the range of projects as metaphorical cars that need repairs. The Garage is always open and ‘mechanics’ (students) constantly work and cars come and go. The cars, as a metaphor for the projects, are in need of a certain fix. The repair takes a certain amount of time, approach and tools.

The projects combine a multitude of concepts that are top of mind in our region. In this, entrepreneurship, governance, regional planning, change or development are linked to health, wellbeing, sports, recreation, leisure, hospitality or tourism. In our studio, students can work for example on improving business processes in hotels, create circular business models for campsites, brainstorm for new coastal health experiences or stimulate residents’ healthy living.

Potential projects reach us directly, via HZ Nexus or HZ colleagues. Matching projects have one thing in common, they all share the objective to regenerate Zeeland somehow. When they are deemed as potential match, they enter the project formulation and framing stage and after this, students can get to work!

Feel free to take a look at our projects page in which all projects that students worked on, are shortly explained by means of a project description and the most important outcomes.

What's in it for students?

Working in our innovation studio allows students to complete either their minor. their minor repair, HZpersonality points or graduation assignment. The innovation studio provides coaching and a vibrant workspace in the tower of the HZ on the second floor.

Students participating in multiple projects here at our innovation studio will learn an awful lot by exploring, ideating, discussing, prototyping, testing, innovating, learning and do so again if needed. Coaches and fellow students are there to assist and motivate. In our studio, we work together. Although the pandemic made it so that students more often desire to work online from time to time, we do try to regularly meet at our hub (in the tower) since we believe this can be beneficial for group dynamics. Students, seen as our colleagues, have their own desk available. Project teams could work in separate spaces while we also have sufficient opportunities to brainstorm, discuss, drink a coffee or have lunch

Project teams are composed of students with as mixed backgrounds in study program but also mixed nationalities. The interdisciplinary set-up allows to learn from other students. Work with people from different studies, cultures and nationalities to develop cross-cultural skills. We blend English with Dutch (students) from time to time, making it possible for students from ranging levels of language mastery to join.

Students are made aware of our existence and possibilities by means of our manual, student testimonials, descriptions of past and future projects, word-to-mouth, suggestions from their study coaches, social media or via our in-class visits. In these latter we present the Garage or provide a workshop that covers parts of the ways we think about and do things.

Each semester, the Garage also welcomes one or two graduation students that help develop and scale our innovation studio. Students work, for example, on improving our wellbeing program, design thinking toolbox, the formulation of interdisciplinary projects and marketing. Additionally, it could be that we are supported by fellow HZ lecturers or researchers in supervising particular projects. These colleagues also come and go, are guided in our way of supervising but do use their own knowledge, skills and tools. Although many projects and most talks in the studio are conducted in English, it is also possible projects are carried out in Dutch by Dutch speaking students only. However, in order to stimulate internationalization at home, hosting numerous HZ and external students from various nationalities and cultural backgrounds, we prefer English as our used language.

Why important?

Working on real-life projects with a variety of stakeholders is a great opportunity to grow knowledge and network. The province of Zeeland and our extensive partner network offers perfect possibilities to improve our region. Completing design challenges related to understanding the context, creating a new concept or proposing a business case is rewarding.

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See our students at work and let Nele and Marlene introduce you to the Garage in the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPWL8M-anag