Student communities are without doubt a strategic resource for urban development. Students are the citizens and the highly-skilled working class of tomorrow. They keep cities lively and diverse. They are consumers of cultural and recreational facilities. They have a distinct expenditure pattern that in some cases is crucial to support the economy of specific areas or neighbourhoods. Increased student mobility at the international level is a major vector of socioeconomic cohesion between regions of Europe. However, European cities are seldom ready to recognise and manage this potential information on students' communities is generally scarce: students are an 'invisible population', being given little space in local policy. Cooperation between education institutions and city planners is often lacking. Cities are passive towards their universities' foreign relations. Attention is paid to student settlements only on those occasions when they become a source of problems or costs for the local community. Nevertheless, the importance of human capital as a determinant of cities' competitiveness demands proactive city policies targeting this community of city users. National or regional education programmes often neglect the 'urban' dimension of the issue, forgetting that human capital is highly mobile, and that it needs to be attracted and managed locally. The present study contributes to the elaboration of a framework for strategic action aiming at the integration and valorisation of student communities for urban development.