Table of contents
Intro
Values
Strategy Movements
Organising Transitions
Sustaining Pathways
Supporting Infrastructures
WdKA Strategy
2025 and beyond...
«Our students play a key role.
They make the difference in finding solutions to societal challenges. It is our job to prepare them. That is why we are stepping forward and taking on this responsibility.»
Introductory note of the Strategic Agenda 2023-2028,
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences
The Academy, which is part of the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (RUAS), embraces this important statement in its own strategic policy plan 2025-2028. Having a strategy is good, making it work is better.
This is why we took the opportunity to redefine how the Academy does strategy. Over the course of a year, we engaged in a participative strategy process with more than 150 staff and students. We listened deeply to each other, crafted desirable futures together, and prototyped strategic directions that will now unfold.
The result of this intensive process is not just this guiding document but also the Academy’s strengthened ability to continuously engage in strategizing and collectively find answers to complex questions––for the Academy, for Rotterdam, and society at large.
Introducing the people of our Academy
«Currently, I view myself as a maker; I produce ideas by making them tangible. The process of creating a work allows me to communicate complex thoughts. It challenges me to interact with knowledge, seeing it as a constantly evolving process in which to experiment. Rather than a passive recipient, I am an active contributor.»
Sophie Otten 4de jaars Advertising & Beyond,
Dual Degree student
«Education cannot remain static while the world around us changes. Schools must adapt, listen to the city and its communities, and challenge students to actively shape the future. By intertwining education with societal issues, we create a dynamic learning environment where learning and contributing go hand in hand. As a newly graduated art educator, I carry the responsibility not only to pass on knowledge but also to create space for dialogue, reflection, and transformation—both within and beyond the classroom. In this way, my students are not just shaped by the world; they help shape it in return.»
Thijmen Burgerhout,
Alumni BA Fine Arts and Design Teacher Training
«Nothing today seems more certain than transition, in my classroom, in our organization, in the creative field, and in the world – together we have chosen for dialogue, realism, and optimism to inaugurate these uncertain futures. In this strategy, we look at the long path ahead but we also look to our side, acknowledging and welcoming those who move with- and around us. We do not have to change – we are the Change.»
Leroy Sirasit van Halen,
Tutor BA Fashion Design
«We see it as our responsibility to empower students to be able to act in and care for the world to become the new generation of cultural producers who will contribute in unconventional ways to changing the complex and interconnected world we live in. By creating an educational environment, where the tradition of studio practices sits at ease with practices driven by ideas and context, and where artists and designers together, through an interchange of ways of making and thinking, create new knowledge to tackle some of the most pressing and challenging issues of our time - questions of ecology, climate change, migration, coexistence and inequality as existential urgencies of our time. Subtending this, it is our mission to contribute to the world we live in, working collaboratively and creatively with the professional field, enabling the next generation of creatives to move with confidence and be responsive to continually changing contexts, technologies and infrastructures.»
Úna Henry,
Dean Willem de Kooning Academy
The Academic Context
Eventually, everything connects. The world we live in is sustained by countless complex interdependencies. Within this web of relations, our Academy grounds itself in Rotterdam, a city characterised by its many local communities and cultures that connect it to Europe and beyond. What happens locally has global implications.
We take this entangled world seriously, engaging with our environment as an ever-evolving ecology. For us, ecology is not limited to environmental aspects, but also includes social, cultural, technological, and economic dimensions. This allows us to overcome the boundaries that oftentimes limit the ability of interdisciplinary teams to collaborate effectively and find answers to today’s pressing societal challenges.
Drawing on our expertise in creative practices, teacher training and cultural production, we aim to equip our students and staff with the means to navigate these challenges in co-creation with the professional field. As future-makers, they will apply creative practices to enhance the sustainability of Rotterdam’s Delta region, future-proof the economy, care for vibrant communities and sustain a smart and social city.
From strategy to strategizing
Actions
Movements
Initiatives
Values
At the Academy, strategy is a collective practice purposefully anchored in our values. It enables us to proactively engage in debate, prototype our way forward and collectively decide under uncertainty.
Our strategy spans multiple time horizons and connects future aspirations with present-day actions. It embodies our pragmatic Rotterdam mindset of getting things done while maintaining a clear vision of the bigger picture.
ARooted in long-term values, three strategic movements branch out to host a range of dynamic strategic initiatives. This allows us to remain both focused and adaptive at the same time, directing resources to where they create the highest value for our students, staff and Rotterdam.
With this text, the strategizing process is only beginning. Taking our Values and Movements as guiding elements, we will continue to reflect our actions and uphold our aspirations in the ever-changing context of the world around us.