**4.2. Recommendations for action**

This present research has examined which portfolios of spatial- and content-related courses and modules are necessary for shaping these future competences in the area.

Reasonable further steps for universities interested in creating a cross-border study program could be the formation of the network to foster cross-border collaboration and share and refine the portfolio of modules together. An exchange of modules with other universities in the specialization areas of tourism, knowledge management, and logistics could be made possible, precisely by digitizing the modules. A resulting challenge for higher educational institutions will be finding the right higher education partner for cooperation and coproduction of intercultural and mutually creditable modules and curricula.3

As the potential network of universities needs to address international target groups and prospective international students, their joined forces approach of cross-border cooperation might have positive effects on marketing and offers like this. Therefore, it is an example for cross-border cooperation itself. Another target group is the employers in the area. They need to be informed about the new educational offers and the advantages digitalized learning formats have for intercultural training and education in the economic area of the Fehmarn-Belt Fixed Link.

Overall, this current research has provided some ideas on which portfolios of spatial- and content-related courses and modules are necessary for shaping future competences in the area. The suggestions are based on theoretical approaches to spatial development, trends in digitization, and an industry structure analysis (Porter's Five Forces) for two economic sectors largely affected by the fixed link across the Baltic Sea. In creating a cross-border online study program, sharing modules, and refining them together, universities might be able to build up the competences now that future managers in the area will need when the Fehmarn-Belt Fixed Link opens up.

<sup>3</sup> To start a course offer based on the ideas discussed above in a pragmatic, hands-on way of doing, in a first step, modules from the specializations Nordic Management, Tourism, and Logistics from the West Coast University of Applied Sciences in Heide, Germany, for instance, could be made available for an international target group. They could be shared, translated, and refined together as online courses with other universities in the context of this emerging economic area of the planned Fehmarn-Belt Fixed Link.
