This year's excursion took place from October 8 to 11, 2024 as part of Project 2. Project 2 is at the heart of the Bachelor's degree program. This year, the Upper Austrian municipalities of Bad Kreuzen, Dimbach, Waldhausen im Strudengau, Pabneukirchen, Sankt Thomas am Blasenstein and Münzbach were explored on foot and by car and the first important insights into the region were gained. After all, regional planning can only work locally!

On the first day, the students were guided through the respective municipalities by the mayors of the region. On the second day, there were exciting keynote speeches by local planners Norbert Haderer, opens an external URL in a new window and Jürgen Hackl, Andrea Vetter and Tobias Holzer (State of Upper Austria, opens an external URL in a new window), Gerold Markgraf (Upper Austrian Transport Association, opens an external URL in a new window), Christian Lang (Freistadt-Perg District Chamber of Agriculture), Franz Rummerstorfer (Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce, opens an external URL in a new window), Friedrich Kaindlstorfer (Danube-Upper Austria Tourism Association, opens an external URL in a new window) and Manfred Hinterdorfer (Perg-Strudengau Local Agenda Group, opens an external URL in a new window).

At the Gasthof Schiefer “Zur Zugbrücke”, opens an external URL in a new window, where the students were able to stay overnight, they worked diligently on the regional SWOT and the structural map of Strudengau North. SWOT stands for “strengths”, “weaknesses”, “opportunities” and “threats” and is a helpful tool for identifying an area in such a way that planning strategies tailored to the area can be developed.

In the second half of the excursion, the students independently worked out the fields of action to be addressed, explored the region and spoke with locals. The next steps of the project are vision development, the mid-term presentation in which the results of the analysis and the visions of the work groups are presented, the development of a regional concept and a corresponding catalog of measures as well as a lead project. The students' proposals for the further development of the region will be presented at a final presentation in January.