Report from the B-SHAPES Winter School in Halmstad
Border studies + Knowledge sharing | 02 February 2026
Report from the B-SHAPES Winter School in Halmstad
Border studies + Knowledge sharing | 02 February 2026
From 28 to 31 January 2026, the B-SHAPES Winter School “Inclusive Policy-Making in European Borderlands – Culture, Landscape and Minorities” brought together a small group of early-career and practitioner participants at Halmstad University in Sweden. The Winter School was designed as an intensive, discussion-oriented programme focusing on how borderland contexts shape policy processes and governance, and on how cultural heritage, landscape, and minority perspectives can be better integrated into inclusive territorial development. The interest was very high: from around 120 applicants the organisers had to select the chosen 17 participants. CESCI was represented by Melinda Istenes-Benczi.
The programme combined keynote-style inputs, interactive discussions, poster sessions, and a practical policy workshop. It also included opportunities to observe cross-border cooperation in practice through an optional field visit to the Helsingborg-Helsingør area.
Day 1 – Setting the scene: policy processes and heritage governance (Wednesday, 28 January)
The Winter School opened with a warm welcome, following an optional guided tour of the university led by Olov Andreasson (Halmstad University) and Oriana Miraka (Halmstad University). After a buffet lunch, introductory remarks were delivered by Sara Svensson (Halmstad University), Anna Parkhouse (Halmstad University), and Valerie Scheib (Region Halland), highlighting the Winter School’s focus on inclusivity, governance complexity, and the day-to-day realities of cross-border policy-making.
The first substantive session “The Policy Process in Borderlands – Complex Governance in Challenging Times” held by Sara Svensson, offered a conceptual lens for understanding borderlands as policy arenas shaped by multi-level coordination, overlapping institutions, and competing narratives. Svensson also walked participants through several policy cycle models, using them to show how agenda-setting, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation can look quite different in cross-border contexts. A memorable takeaway was her reminder that borderlands are inherently relational – “we need the other side of the river, otherwise it’s not a river” – underscoring that border regions are not simply “peripheral” spaces but often laboratories of innovation where governance arrangements must continuously adapt to shifting political, economic, and social conditions.
A dedicated coffee break and poster session on policy challenges created an early opportunity for participants to exchange ideas and present ongoing work in a supportive setting. The afternoon continued with “Inclusive Borderland Heritage Management” by Joanna Kurowska-Pysz (WSB University in Dabrowa Gornicza), which explored how cultural heritage can be managed in ways that broaden participation, recognise marginalised perspectives, and strengthen local agency, while still meeting administrative and funding constraints. The day concluded with a group dinner at Bistro Jarlen, which further supported peer learning and network-building in an informal setting.
Day 2 – Heritage landscapes, advocacy, and minorities in governance (Thursday, 29 January)
Thursday’s programme shifted toward cross-border cultural heritage landscapes and the role of advocacy in shaping European border region agendas. The morning began with “Cross border cultural heritage landscapes” by Caitriona Mullan (AEBR), who underlined that genuinely inclusive planning must also consider the “missing minorities”—groups that are absent from formal processes, under-represented in data, or overlooked in dominant narratives. This was followed by “Advocacy for European Border Regions in the Area of Culture” by Martin Guillermo Ramirez (AEBR). Together, the sessions offered a practical European-level perspective on how border regions articulate shared priorities and mobilise networks to influence policy discussions, including those related to cultural cooperation.
As on the first day, a coffee break was paired with a poster session, reinforcing the Winter School’s emphasis on participant contribution and iterative discussion. The late morning session — “Minorities and marginalized groups in borderland governance” by Martin Klatt (South Denmark University) —then placed minority issues at the centre of policy analysis. Discussions highlighted how minority and marginalised communities experience border regimes, public administration, and cultural narratives differently, and why inclusive governance requires both targeted mechanisms and sustained institutional attention.
In the afternoon, “Narratives and policy” by Elzbieta Opilowska (Wroclaw University) provided a valuable bridge between governance structures and meaning-making: how policy narratives are formed, who gets to shape them, and what happens when competing interpretations of heritage and place meet institutional decision-making. The final session of the day “Story Maps: A Tool for Policy?” by Fredriika Jakola (University of Oulu) introduced story mapping as a policy-relevant method, demonstrating how spatialised narratives can support engagement, stakeholder communication, and evidence-building for inclusive cultural heritage planning.
Day 3 – From learning to practice: designing inclusive heritage plans (Friday, 30 January)
Friday centred on application and synthesis. A policy workshop engaged participants in designing inclusive cultural heritage plans, with presentations and group work aimed at translating concepts into actionable planning approaches. This workshop format helped connect the week’s themes – complex governance, minority inclusion, narrative framing, and policy tools – into practical steps that can be adapted to diverse borderland contexts. The morning concluded with a concluding discussion and a sandwich lunch.
An optional programme element then offered a field-focused extension: a trip to the Helsingborg/Helsingør area. Participants who joined visited Helsingborg Concert Hall for a discussion on cross-border cultural cooperation and policy, hosted with representatives. The group then travelled by ferry to Helsingør for a guided tour in the cultural harbour and a lecture on cross-border cultural initiatives, welcomed by Jens Frimann Hansen, before returning to Halmstad.
Day 4 – Optional study visit to Copenhagen (Saturday, 31 January)
An additional optional excursion on Saturday extended the Winter School’s learning beyond the classroom through a place-based programme in Copenhagen. Participants had the opportunity to visit Amalienborg Palace and Copenhagen City Hall, using these institutional and symbolic sites as prompts for informal discussion on governance, representation, and the cultural dimensions of public policy. The excursion reinforced the Winter School’s broader ambition to connect academic reflection with lived urban and institutional contexts.
CESCI’s contribution: poster presentation on WaVE and policy mainstreaming
CESCI was represented by Melinda Istenes-Benczi, who presented a poster connecting project-based cultural cooperation to longer-term policy change through the example of WaVE – WAter-linked heritage Valorization by developing an Ecosystemic approach. The poster, titled “From projects to policy,” argued that cross-border cultural cooperation becomes sustainable when it is institutionalised, embedded in governance routines and policy instruments rather than relying on short, ad hoc project cycles. It outlined key initial challenges (project-dependence and personal networks, high administrative transaction costs for smaller cultural actors, and culture being treated as a “soft add-on”), and described how WaVE helped shift toward a more strategic, portfolio-based approach: mapping heritage assets, prioritising pilot actions, and turning heritage into investable concepts supported by regular stakeholder validation and EGTC coordination. In the Hungary-Slovakia border context, results included organising 17 heritage elements into three pilot packages, building an “institutional memory” through workshops and a survey to support follow-up funding, developing research on tangible and intangible heritage (including crafts, legends, and storytelling-based thematic routes), and strengthening interregional learning via peer review that improved the replication toolkit/action plan.
