Inception

The Class of 2020 is founded by Frank Uffen and Charlie MacGregor.

The first Class Conference

The conference was sponsored by 9 private and non-profit groups trying to open the market with deregulation and new investment. The conference was hosted in Casa400 Amsterdam, the first hybrid of PBSA, hotel and campus facilities founded in the 1960’s.  Over 100 representatives of universities, housing operators and elected officials attended to discuss the Class’ predictions that international student numbers would double and that 85.000 new rooms were needed in the Netherlands alone. The keynote was delivered by Alma Sealine, President of ACUHO-I showing that student housing is a contributor to academic success and can be a top 3 reason for students to choose a university.

Launch of partnership programme

The Class of 2020 announced a new partnership programme focused on building networks, exchanging expertise and best practices.

Partner excursion: London

In May, all partners of The Class of 2020 were invited to visit some of London’s most innovative student housing schemes. London-based operators discussed design, toured the projects, and talked about the prospects of the European market and growing importance of branding.

Annual Conference: The Next European Renaissance

Our first annual conference that was fully in English and had its focus on the European market instead of just the Dutch was held at Casa 400. We welcomed nearly 300 guests and 24 speakers in Amsterdam to discuss the opportunities that higher education and student accommodation present to get Europe out of crisis mode.

Partner excursion: Barcelona

Hosted by Melon District in cooperation with RESA, a group of delegates from our partners gathered in Barcelona to learn about student accommodation developments in the Spanish market. We also took the opportunity to host our first strategic partner meeting.

The Class Conference: Investing in Student Housing

Over 260 participants from 20 countries gathered in Amsterdam on 12th November to network and discuss the future of student housing in Europe. Themes included the shift in perception of student housing, investment opportunities and product development.

Partner meeting: Berlin

In April, The Class travelled to Berlin for our second partnership meeting. We undertook site visits and in-depth sessions about the future of The Class, the German student housing market, and also strengthened the networks in The Class community.

The Class Conference: Rolling out the red carpet

Over 450 delegates gathered on November 4 and 5th for site visits and a conference held at DeLaMar Theatre in Amsterdam. The Class established itself as the leading European platform on student housing and described as a “movement” gathering strength and matching public interest with commercial energy. City marketeers addressed the economic power of universities and talent for cities and companies while universities declared that for them to grow international student mobility, they need sufficient and good student housing.

Launch of regional sessions

Together with our partners we have launched regional sessions: in-depth student housing sessions in different European countries. In 2016 we organised sessions in Madrid, Berlin and Amsterdam.

Launch of higher education membership

We believe that connections between universities and housing providers are key in solving many of our student accommodation issues. The Class has launched a membership for the higher education community to support and develop the profession of housing officers in Europe.

The Class Conference: Learning Hubs – The future of the university-city in Vienna, Austria

This conference was our largest and first international one! The energy from the speakers and participants inspired us to continue touring our future annual conferences. The Class of 2020 showcased how cities and universities are increasingly discovering the power of collaboration to better accomplish their goal to become premier “Learning Hubs”.

Res-life workshop

We ran a residence life workshop in Amsterdam in May, bringing together residence life experts from North America, the UK and Europe to discuss student needs, from community building to combatting loneliness and addressing mental health.

The Team

As a team, we have had some departures and exciting arrivals. In 2017 we welcomed Jorick Beijer as the new Foundation Manager for The Class of 2020, along with new research team leads.

The Class Conference in Lisbon: The Global Student: Building Bridges Over Growing Barriers

The theme of The Class Conference 2017 envisioned the European student living sector as a source of unity against a growing divisive political discourse emphasising borders and differences. Our conference gathered more than 70 highly recognised speakers to discuss through 20 panels the future of student living, working and learning. It equally focused on investment trends, the future of education in Europe, the role of technology and the way talent is shaping knowledge cities.

The Milano Urban Campus Advisory Project

On invitation of the city council of Milan, we launched the Milano Urban Campus advisory project in which we could truly leverage our thinking and network towards tangible impact. With 8 of our partners and local stakeholders, we co-created new urban campus strategies that re-invent the future of abandoned railyards in Milan.

“The power of having 20 industry leaders co-creating for four days onsite is incredible. But what are the odds of that happening? In a competitive landscape, The Class of 2020 is one of the few platforms able to facilitate such meeting of the minds, allowing public stakeholders to tap into incredible collective intelligence. We started the Milano Urban Campus as a pioneering project for The Class, and it turned into a methodology. One putting the university at the heart of the city, leveraging on (international) talent as placemakers and drivers of new knowledge economies. All of that is strikingly topical today, as European city centers have to come up with strategies for re-emergence. The key? Solid positioning and programming for sure, but mostly, strong partnerships around a shared purpose.”  

Jorick Beijer, Founder of Blossity, previously Director of The Class of 2020 from 2017-2019

The Class Conference: From Post-Industrial City to the New Urban Campus in Milan

With 650 attendees coming from 27+ countries, strong presence of the higher education industry and the many students involved, the 2018 European Class Conference was bigger and better than ever before. Alternatives underpinned by a long-term structural trend proved to be increasingly attractive. The Conference reports a pipeline in Europe now accounting for 350 projects & 105,000 beds, with a focus on Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna.

The Class goes global

The Class team expanded its global network outside of Europe to exchange best practices in student housing, coliving, coworking and hybrid hospitality. We visited 7 vibrant urban cities including Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Melbourne, Dubai and New York City.

The Advisory: The Future of Urban Living goes global

Together with Berlin Partner for Business and Technology and fifteen leaders from the real estate, student accommodation and the urban sectors, The Class of 2020 conducted a series of in-depth interviews, complimentary research and analysis to propose the outlook on the future of urban living and talent attraction.

The Class Conference: Blended Living

The Class of 2020 hosted the world’s largest student housing and coliving conference in Berlin. Around 800 industry experts, city government and higher education institution officials discussed the challenges and opportunities that blurring boundaries create for the future of living, working and learning.

The Class Academy

To benefit our community’s continuous learning, The Class of 2020 shaped and organised The Class Academy on PropTech: Operational Excellence for Resident Satisfaction in Shared Living. It was an interactive training session designed and executed by the industry, for the industry to address common operational challenges to co-create innovative solutions.

Launch of The Class Insider

We introduced The Class Insider to stimulate a real time collaboration between the higher education stakeholders and student accommodation operators. Since COVID-19 forced our industry to pivot quickly as uncertainties appear every day, we created a weekly (virtual) platform to share the expertise and insights on the most urgent topics we identified every week for 4 months. This initiative stimulated collaboration share correct information from direct and trusted sources.

Launch of The Class Radar

We launched The Class Radar to share up-to-date industry news with our community when COVID-19 invaded Europe.

The Class Conference: Fast-Forwarding Our Future

Our first-ever virtual conference was broadcasted live from The Student Hotel studio in Amsterdam. Given the need to convene virtually, we completely re-imagined our flagship conference and welcomed boundary blurring leaders from across industries to inspire our community to make a better future happen faster in a talk show style format.