Do you feel the gap between learning about the world’s challenges and actually being able to make a difference?

Sometimes just knowing about these problems might make you feel overwhelmed and you might not know where to start. That awareness can come with a sense of frustration, hopelessness, or “eco-anxiety.” You learn about the scale of the problems, yet the path from your classroom to creating tangible change can feel unclear, even impossible.

This minor is designed to bridge that gap. We bring university education closer to the ground by connecting you directly with creative spaces, movements, and grassroots initiatives where change is already happening. We move from theory to action by activating your imagination and equipping you with highly practical, often-overlooked skills—like writing a compelling funding proposal—that turn ideas into reality. And we embrace artistic expression and creative practice as vital tools for research, community building, and collaborative inquiry.

This is where learning transforms into doing—and where your creativity becomes a way to shape a more hopeful future.

Are you ready to move from concern to action, from ideas to impact?

Join the Changemakers Playground. Let’s build the future, from the ground up. Curious to learn more? Head to our website: Changemakers Playground. Info

Content
This minor is a hands-on, collaborative space where you will tackle a real-life challenge of your choice in your own community, town, or region. You will be given freedom to involve real-life partners – businesses, organisations or communities – in co-creating your solution.

Here, you won’t just study change—you’ll design it, propose it, and have the chance to launch it.

You will discover how culture and art are powerful engines for social transformation. You’ll explore alternative economic models that put community first. You’ll gain direct experience with cutting-edge design approaches like value-sensitive design, transition design, more-than-human design and design justice. And you will learn to identify funding opportunities that can support the implementation of your project, prepare a project proposal and apply for relevant funding.

But the Playground is more than a study program. It’s a creative workshop, a collaboration hub, and a launchpad for your ideas. Through hackathons, co-design sessions, roleplay, and field visits (for example to The Festival of the New European Bauhaus or similar events), you’ll learn to craft solutions that are not only creative and inspiring but have the real potential to drive change.

Your journey will produce a portfolio of tangible outcomes—from publications in our course zine to a fully developed, fundable project proposal. For the most ambitious, we provide dedicated coaching to help you seek funding and actually implement your project.

The skills you will obtain in this Minor are cross-sectional and can be relevant in a wide range of possible career paths, such as Service Designer, Project Manager, Cultural Policy Advisor, Sustainability Consultant, Urban Innovation Officer, Impact Entrepreneur, Social Enterprise Founder, Innovation Lab Facilitator, or Community Engagement Specialist.

Courses

Module 1 (Block C) – Culture-led Transitions Culture is at the forefront of driving positive change. It can inspire people to imagine and co-create a viable, low carbon, just and sustainable future. However, the creative sector needs new approaches and models to become more sustainable and inclusive. In this module we will focus on these two dimensions:

New Models for Creative Industries

This module is about the ways creative industries can transition towards a more sustainable and inclusive future by adopting alternative economic and organisational models (solidarity economy, governing the commons, cooperatives). You will be asked to find a local creative community and prepare a case study about it. The end result will be published in magazine.

Designing for Transformation

You will learn about some of the newest approaches to designing projects for social impact: Transition Design; Value-Sensitive design, Design Justice. The focus will be on the cultural and creative sectors and the possibilities of bringing together arts, culture and technology to design experiences, services, spaces that inspire the transformation.

Module 2 (Block D) – Designing Transformative Projects

In this module we will look at various strategies that explore plausible, networked and desirable design solutions. Each of these strategies will be taught in a laboratory/workshop-led set up with hands-on experimentation and visualisation techniques.

DESIGN: the plausible, the desirable and the networked

In this course, design becomes a way of imagining and shaping futures that are not only possible, but worth striving for. You will explore approaches such as world‑building, grassroots community advocacy, and the creation of desirable services to question how things are and envision how they could be. This course

invites you to use creativity as a connective force—linking imagination to action, and transforming design into a tool for meaningful collective change.

DEVELOP: Successful Project Proposals

How do you go from an idea to action? In this course, you will obtain skills and knowledge that will help you bring your ideas to life. You will learn where to look for and how to apply for funding, from identifying a suitable type of funding, to developing and submitting a proposal.

Additional costs

Some additional costs may be involved in field visits. These visits are optional.

By the end of the course, you will:

• Understand the role of culture and art in driving positive change,
• Learn about alternative economic and organisational models for creative community-based projects,
• Apply design approaches such as value-sensitive design, transition design, design justice, more-than-human design,
• Identify funding opportunities and craft compelling project proposals,
• Collaborate in international and cross-disciplinary teams.

The skills and knowledge you’ll get in this programme will be applicable in a wide variety of career paths from design, to consulting, to entrepreneurship and policy-making.

You have an interest in cultural and creative industries and design and are passionate about making a positive impact in the world. You can work independently and are comfortable working in international and interdisciplinary teams.

Enough oral and reading English language skills to follow classes in English and to produce written documents, such as project proposals.

The minor doesn’t require an internship or workplace. This course may not be attended by part-time students.

Friedman, B., Hendry, D. G. (2019). Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination. United States: MIT Press.

Hopkins, R. (2025). How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Traveller's Guide to Changing the World. United Kingdom: Chelsea Green Publishing.

Irwin, T., Tonkinwise, C., & Kossoff, G. (2020). Transition design: An educational framework for advancing the study and design of sustainable transitions. Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación, (112), 9–31.

Voices of Culture. (2023). Culture and creative sectors and industries driving green transition and facing the energy crisis: Brainstorming report. European Commission.

Blocks C and D. The schedule and the days are not yet known.

With the exception of the first teaching period of the academic year (starting September), the lesson and test schedules are always posted on Mijn Rooster four weeks before the start of each teaching period. The schedule for the first teaching period of the academic year can be found on the site three weeks before the start. The most up-to-date schedule is always visible on Mijn Rooster.

At HU, full-time education may be scheduled between 08:30 and 19:00. 

The assessment will be based on the competencies demonstrated in your portfolio. The portfolio will consist of two parts:

1. A range of outputs you will produce individually or with your team throughout the course, such as zine publications, project proposals, strategic analyses.

2. Your own reflection on your learning process and the skills and knowledge you have obtained during the course.

Signed learning agreements for minors in the CD period can be uploaded up to and including 4 December 2026 in Osiris Application, see the instructions on the learning agreement or check our site. Learning agreements that are received after 4 December will not be processed. 

Please note: Learning Agreements will be considered in order of entry in Osiris Application (first come, first serve). A submitted learning agreement will not entitle you to a spot within a minor unless the following is the case:

* The minor is not yet full: each minor has a maximum number of places per period

* The student has submitted the learning agreement in full (including his/her own details and signature and the stamp of the examination board).

* HU has signed and stamped the learning agreement