The Erasmus+ Exchange possibilities have always been the basis for the internationalisation work at the University of Gävle (UoG), ever since the beginning of the implemetation of interenationalisation. The Erasmus programme is well known to the staff and students.The fact that the programme is so complete and covers possibilities for both students and staff means that there were no doubts on that we should continue to apply for the programme to be able to use all the possibilities in it. One of the objectives for having the Erasmus exchange is to keep a steady exchange possibility at the UoG, and this we have succeeded with. Another objective was to raise the numbers of outgoing students. Unfortunately, during the run of this project we met the challenge of a huge re-organisation, where the International Office was split, reduced in number of staff and also sick leaves. This is the explaination to why we have not been able to increase the outgoing mobility numbers in the way we had set up goals for. This also explains why we have not had the possibilities to do follow-ups on exchanges to the extent we wished for, for examle to push the students more to send in their evaluation forms , to encourage more students do an exchange or to work harder on getting more students to do traineeships abroad. Fortunately enough several, changes to the better has already been made, the Institutional International Strategy is about to be re-newed and the organisation of the International Office is looked over at mangement level. An internationalisation project at one of the faculties that aims to find better structures and increase the number om all types of mobilities has started, and the results will be possible to be used for the whole University. The students generally seems satisfied with their Exchanges but there are several things that can be improved, particulary concerning the ourgoing students. This has been noticed, and this means that the Erasmus programme is has an impact in our routines and how we work to meke them better. To integrate international students in the Courses at the UoG enhances the quality of the education and adds new and different perspectives for both incoming students and the home University students. Teachers and staff are also effected by doing Exchanges themselves and by meeting incoming students and colleagues.An increased interest in Exchanges has been noticed in the way more questions has come in to the International Office and as a direct effect of more marketing by the Exchange possibilities, and we are looking forward to seeing this in larger Exchange numbers in the years to come. We intend to work a lot more with traineeships and grow the numbers a lot, as this has been an area getting very Little attention.

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from/to third countries not associated to Erasmus+. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.

The University of Gävle’s Quality Policy states that education should promote students' understanding of other countries, cultural meetings and international conditions. In addition, during this project period, new organisational goals have been defined and a comprehensive Education and Research Strategy has been developed. These documents clearly highlight the important role of internationalisation at all institutional levels. Internationalisation is intended to permeate the entire organisation. The Erasmus+ programme is an extremely important tool for achieving these goals. It is through Erasmus+ that we are able to bring an international perspective into the classroom - through incoming exchange students, through Swedish students who have studied abroad, and through both incoming and returning teachers. Staff who have done an exchange period share their experiences with colleagues and thus increase knowledge regarding internationalisation even at that institutional level.This project period has focused on sending more students on exchange for internships and ensuring that more staff exchanges are fulfilled. We were successful with this ambition, increasing the numbers of participants in both. Regarding staff exchanges, we chose to implement a new approach. We had noted that resistance to internationalisation among the staff was often due to uncertainty, and in particular linguistic insecurity. Staff who often meet English-speaking staff and students have found this a frequent cause for concern. We therefore chose to start planning for larger groups of staff to participate in an English course. We decided to send a test group first, which proved effective. We plan to continue this approach.Another focus we have had during the project period is the inclusion of students with special needs. We believe we have identified a grouping within this framework where a larger grant/scholarship alone is not sufficient, namely students who suffer from anxiety or depression or students with specific learning difficulties. We have begun to explore opportunities and tools to better enable inclusion for these students, using digital solutions, shorter exchanges and exchanges in nearby countries. We hope that the knowledge we have accumulated during this project period will be able to lead to a project within the frame of the Erasmus+ programme.Several marketing efforts have been carried out. Social media, particularly Instagram, has been widely used to spread information about exchange opportunities. Both outgoing and incoming exchange students have been used for promotion purposes, so that other students interested in study abroad and exchanges can receive information and inspiration from current and previous participants. Many times, testimonials and recommendations from exchange alumni can be a decisive factor in encouraging new students to apply. Additionally, class visits, physical information meetings and soup lunches have been organized and articles have been published on our intranet and in the staff magazine LEVE.The number of incoming exchange students admitted is still far higher than the outgoing students. However, we see the incoming students as a resource in our work with internationalisation at home. With international students in the classroom, many students can gain an international perspective on their education at the same time. We see internationalisation as part of our sustainability work. From an environmental impact perspective, it is not appropriate that everyone travels abroad. Incoming exchange students can help us to gain new perspectives on the world, something that also contributes to social sustainability. Incoming teachers and staff are invited to meetings by the international coordinators to discuss their exchange experience and to investigate ways to develop the collaboration between our university and their home institution. Similarly, we try to meet all the outgoing teachers and staff when they return to garner the different thoughts and ideas they have accumulated during their exchange.We chose to accept the offer to extend the Call 2018 project by one year when the Covid-19 pandemic began. However, due to the Covid-19 restrictions, we were not able to use the funds during the extra year.

This is a project for higher education student and staff mobility between Programme Countries and Partner Countries. Please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

The University of Gävle has aimed to enhance the internationalisation work, and doing this the Erasmus+ programme is the most important part. We look upon internationalisation as part of the sustainability work that is so important to us, and the co-operation with our European partners provides a fantastic opportunity to a diversified international touch in our every-day work at all levels of the organisation. To be able to provide our students with the possibilities for an exchange somewhere in Europe we see as something obvious, but we do also want to find ways to give those that for some reason cannot make a traditional exchange an international perspective in their education. We want to graduate students with international understanding and intercultural competence, and this is something we believe we have the possibility to achieve thanks to the Erasmus+ programme.During this project period our focus had been to get a strong development in the number of outgoing students. We have had low numbers for both SMS and SMP for years back, and we wanted a change of trends. Now, at the end of the project we are happy to see that we, through strong marketing efforts, made it! We decided on a strategic goal to go for the student mobility enhancement and to use the possibility to transfer part of the budget from the other posts to be able to meet up with the growing numbers of applicants. Hence, the numbers of staff mobilities are rather low, but it has not in any way meant that we have said no to anyone from the staff that wanted to make an exchange. We have just planned it in a way so that we could use the budgets from the former and latter projects, since they overlap, to admit all staff applications. The staff is the group of focus for the future Erasmus+ project.The marketing to get the outgoing student mobility number to grow has consisted of class visits, mini fairs, distribution of flyers, information meetings, information through the web site and the Student portal and using Instram.A further strengthened collaboration with the Gävle municipality and the Region is created during the time of this project. We have an agreement concerning student accommodation with the municipality housing company, which makes the accommodation application procedure easier to incoming students.The University of Gävle has been part of the European project CompeteIn, diven by the municipality and the Region. The project is about the internationalisation of small and middle sized companies in the region and the plan is that the incoming international students are important as a resource in this development. The project will run for another two years, and is long-term goal that we hope will benefit both international students and the surrounding society.The number of incoming students is stable, a number much larger than the one for outgoing students. However, we look upon this as something positive for the international environment at the university, having students from so many countries here. That contributes greatly to the internationalisation at home, since most of the international students are mixed with Swedish students in their courses. The incoming students does in that way also contribute to market the Erasmus+ exchange opportunities.The outgoing students have, once they got back home, been invited to give talks about their exchange experiences at student exchange information meetings. It has been much appreciated, and for many of our students it has been an important factor when they finally decided to go for an exchange. It is important to hear from a peer that it is a great experience.Incoming staff were invited for meetings with the International co-ordinators to discuss how the exchange has worked out, and if there are any possibilities for development in the collaboration between our institutions. Outgoing staff were offered support from the International co-ordinators through the whole process of complete an exchange.The University of Gävle continued the work with digitalised internationalisation within the teacher training programme, that gave many at the same time an international perspective in their education, both with us and at our partner university in Belgium. Except for the fact that this is an including and sustainable way to work with internationalisation we see the long-term benefit that the students will get out to work as teachers and bring their international contacts with them in their every-day work. That way, the surrounding society will benefit as well. We have been talking about this way of working with international partner universities as well as other Swedish universities, and a lot of interest has been shown to us.We will be happy to continue develop this within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme.