Although still unfolding, the contemporary crisis in democracy has been extensively studied already. This paper asks the particular question whether universities can help to address the crisis, not just study it, and, if yes, how. The paper has four parts. First, it puts together a comprehensive critical inventory of methods, techniques and types of action in universities that can be recognised, where available, as directly meant to contribute to addressing the crisis in democracy. This inventory includes various types of dedicated educational strategies and initiatives (some quite traditional, like civic education, others more recent and innovative, including digital components), research initiatives, advocacy, and public engagement models. Second, the paper specifically investigates whether building and strengthening trust between higher education and society should have a place in this toolkit. Third, it provides a framework for assessing the appropriateness and potential impact of these methods, techniques and types of institutional action, taken individually or in their combinations in various concrete settings. Fourth, the paper discusses whether new modalities of engagement by universities in addressing the crisis of democracy are necessary and possible, considering both immediate and longer-term challenges in this area.

Track 2: Governance and Management

Objectives or Purposes

The purpose of this paper is to track the historical development of the Royal Danish Defense College (“RDDC”), which has educated Denmark’s military officers since 1701. Denmark has gone from a large empire to a small state within the past few centuries yet has employed its armed forces to superb political and strategic effect, maintaining power, both hard and soft, even as its physical size has diminished. In 1952, Denmark’s Prime Minister Hans Hedtoft explained the lessons learned from the nation’s recent history, stating “we are a people of peace…but we have learned that we must be able to defend freedom against aggressors.” (Rasmussen, 2005).

How a democracy trains its military leaders highlights the values of the society, and the RDDC trains all of Denmark’s military officers. Close and supportive relationships among the democratically elected civilian authorities and military officers work to guarantee the future health of Denmark's vibrant democracy.

Methods and Data sources

This paper is a historical study drawing on several collections of primary literature, including materials in the archives of the RDDC and Royal Archives. The author has conducted site visits of the Copenhagen naval base formerly often referred to as the Holman naval base, and RDDC campus in Copenhagen. Secondary literature on Danish naval history, education and training programs in the Navy, and naval academies worldwide has been surveyed for this paper. Finally, newspapers, magazines, and academic journals have been analyzed to provide a wider foundation for the secondary literature employed here.

Excerpt of Findings Section: the RDDC's Modern Curriculum

The RDDC’s curriculum has been swiftly and thoroughly revised to meet the shifting and pressing needs of the Danish military in the 21^st century. Developing a comprehensive cultural education curriculum has been key; and as Haugegaard explains, “building sound and respectful partnerships with military partners is a process in which an understanding of cultural dynamics is a key to success.” (2020). The RDDC’s cultural education modules have proven exceptionally useful for Danish officers navigating their various overseas deployments in post-9/11 military and peacekeeping campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, East Africa, and elsewhere. These difficult deployments have required that its officers be able to work with their peers in different militaries. As Crosbie et al. (2014) states, “effective education has the promise of enabling officers to identify and potentially fill the operational gaps that emerge across partner countries’ capabilities.” (44). Above all, the RDDC has highlighted the key importance of “culture as an operational enabler,” (Haugegaard, 2020), that understanding the local context and being culturally proficient helps boost the chances of operational success and accomplishing the military mission.

At the RDDC, the curriculum is in two main parts. Basic military strategy, which consists of 66 hours of training, centers on “how the use of military power correlates with the state’s strategic objectives and how the military interacts with other instruments of state power in the pursuit of national security interests. There are three residential sessions of three days duration each, and the rest of the class hours are conducted by distance learning. (Crosbie et al., 2014, pg. 53). Next, students can choose their advanced strategy course. The advanced strategy courses also consist of three residential sessions, with a major focus on international conflicts and strategy and modules dealing with scenarios in the South China Sea, or Baltic or Arctic seas, with an emphasis on dealing with Russia in these latter two scenarios. The other advanced branch of study consists of four residential periods, and analyzes intrastate conflict such as civil war, insurgency, terrorism, and rebellions. (Crosbie et al., 2014, pg. 53).

Significance of Work

The new security landscape after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has sparked a renewed focus on military security in Denmark, and indeed across all of Europe. (Frederick, et al., 2025). Further, the ways in which the world's democracies educate and train their military officers is crucial to understand, especially during an era in which anti-democratic forces, dictatorships, and authoritarian regimes threaten the peace and security of the international community. Denmark offers many valuable lessons for civilian and military leaders in the world's democracies, which is key during an unsettled and dangerous modern moment.

Students play a crucial role as stakeholders in higher education governance. Through their participation in institutional bodies, student unions, and representative organisations, student leaders contribute to decision-making processes, articulate the interests of the student body, and act as intermediaries between students and university leadership. At the same time, higher education systems are becoming increasingly complex and dynamic, shaped by digital transformation, internationalisation, sustainability agendas, and evolving governance structures. In this context, student representatives require a range of transversal competencies that go beyond disciplinary expertise and traditional forms of student activism. Skills such as communication, negotiation, intercultural collaboration, digital literacy, and strategic leadership are increasingly relevant for effective participation in institutional governance. Despite the importance of student representation, systematic capacity-building opportunities for student leaders remain limited in many higher education systems.

The Erasmus+ funded project Next Level Skills for Student Leaders (NELS) addresses this gap by developing and implementing an international training programme for student representatives from Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. The programme aims to strengthen transversal competencies among student leaders while fostering intercultural dialogue and collaboration between student organisations across different higher education contexts.

The NELS programme was designed based on a qualitative needs analysis conducted with student representatives from both programme regions. The analysis highlighted several areas in which student leaders expressed a need for further training, including communication and negotiation with institutional decision-makers, leadership and organisational skills, digital competences for collaboration and advocacy, and the ability to address cross-cutting topics such as sustainability and diversity.

Based on this needs analysis, the training programme was structured into three thematic modules. The first module focuses on “Future Challenges” and addresses developments affecting higher education, including megatrends, digital transformation, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The second module, “Next Level Skills,” focuses on leadership competencies such as communication in virtual environments, communication with decision-makers, dealing with resistance and conflict, and intercultural communication with stakeholders. The third module, “New Ways of Student Organising,” explores different traditions of student movements in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa and discusses strategies for organising student initiatives and advocacy activities.

The programme is delivered entirely online using a learning management system and digital collaboration platforms, enabling transcontinental participation without physical mobility. Sessions combine thematic inputs with facilitated group work and plenary discussions, emphasising peer learning and practice-oriented reflection. Sessions are jointly facilitated by representatives from student organisations and partner universities from both programme regions.

The paper presents insights from the design, implementation, and evaluation of the programme. Two programme cycles have been completed so far, involving approximately 600 participants per cycle (around 1,200 participants in total). The programme evaluation combines quantitative and qualitative methods, including participant surveys using Likert-scale items and qualitative reflection reports.

The findings highlight three key insights. First, the results confirm the importance of transversal competencies for student representatives operating in increasingly complex higher education governance environments. Communication and negotiation with institutional decision-makers, digital collaboration skills, and intercultural communication emerged as particularly relevant competencies. Second, international peer learning proved to be a central element of the programme, enabling participants to reflect on different governance contexts and approaches to student representation. Third, the evaluation demonstrates the potential of virtual transcontinental training formats to support large-scale capacity building while also revealing challenges related to unequal digital infrastructure.

Overall, the paper contributes to discussions on student participation in higher education governance by highlighting the role of structured leadership development programmes for student representatives and by providing insights into the design of international capacity-building initiatives in higher education.

Klemencic, M. (2024). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Student Politics and Representation in Higher Education (p. 648). Bloomsbury Academic.

World Economic Forum. (2025). The future of jobs report 2025. reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_Report_2025.pdf