Establish more small group rooms. Make academic activities and student activities more visible. Offer more sport and fitness facilities. These are a few of the many ideas contributed by Aarhus University students and staff, as well as local citizens, in connection with a public idea generation process in autumn 2016.

Over 970 individuals contributed proposals and ideas for how the buildings and grounds on the Nørrebrogade property could be used when the university begins overtaking the property in 2020 and a completely new building complex is added to the existing campus.

To gather these ideas, the university’s mobile information caravan, AUtoCampus, toured the university and selected locations in town. Input was also collected on the background of debates at two workshops to which about 70 internal and external stakeholders were invited. And finally, anyone with a bright idea had the option of submitting their input via the website nycampus.au.dk.

Among a wide variety of exciting and creative ideas, there were are a number of proposal which were repeated by many respondents. These include:

• Establish more residence halls and more housing for international students and researchers
• Use signage, etc. to make the area accessible to international visitors.
• Establish more small group rooms and more reading rooms
• Encourage interdisciplinarity, for example by locating different research and degree programmes in close proximity
• Create a variety of small green spaces on campus
• Provide facilities for collaboration with business and industry
• Provide good facilities for innovative businesses and start-ups
• Invite culture onto campus throughout the year, for example through concerts, theatre and film
• Make academic activities and student activities more visible on campus.
• Offer more sport and fitness facilities.
• Include cafés, shops and daycare institutions on campus
• Provide good facilities for innovative businesses and start-ups