This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from EU Member States and third countries associated to Erasmus+ to any country in the world. 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.

This is a higher education student and staff mobility project, please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

<< Background >>Short-learning programmes awarding ECTS-bearing micro-credentials have been touted as a means by which to fill the gap between programmes that HEIs provide and the skills that jobs require. Conventional programmes are ill-suited to provide for this unprecedented acceleration in demand for specific skill sets. HEI processes cannot keep up with the increasingly nuanced combinations of rapidly changing expectations posed both by their students and the workplace. We believe that these challenges can be addressed by moving from structured degrees and courses to stacks of smaller credentials, which verify highly-demanded skills and competences acquired through non-formal and informal learning.Full-time graduate students as well as adults returning to formal education to pursue professional development, should be able to piece together a range of different competencies and areas of knowledge and skills that align with employer requirements, as well as acquire these competencies from a range of learning sources.HEIs are being asked to rise to the twin challenges of digitisation and greening the economy, to do it better by improving access and personalisation, and to do it for cheaper given the economic imperatives of an aging population. No institution can meet these challenges alone. Future Higher Education will involve institutions efficiently providing high quality education in their areas of speciality (deepening their offer), and leaning on collaborations with other institutions to complement it (widening their offer). Micro-credentials will allow students to assemble portfolios of learning from across these institutional networks to make up new forms of qualifications. The MicroCredX project addresses needs of the strategic triangle of HEIs, the world of work and students. The key questions are: How can this cooperation be strengthened in order to cater to the skill demand of employers, and at the same time improve the employability rate of university students and raise the profile of HEIs embracing the adoption of study programme unbundling and micro-credential recognition? What are the skills and competences the industry requires the most? How can curricula adapt to current and emerging labour market needs?However, adopting micro-credentials implies cultural, pedagogical, technological and political obstacles which prevent the progress of skill and competence expression and brokerage that can be greatly enabled by credential portability. A market-oriented redesign of modules, provided as online courses or MOOCs will cater not only to the needs of students of one’s own institution, but also to international students and employees needing professional development. Such a shift could also allow interaction amongst these three learner groups, but it demands a tremendous culture change from faculty members. The same is true for the recognition of outside credentials and their integration into the curriculum.<< Objectives >>MicroCredX will prepare institutions to take advantage of the opportunities of unbundled, flexible learning provision models. The project will:- Work with institutional leadership in HE to identify and dismantle barriers to making course offerings more flexible via micro-credentials;- Assist institutions to extend their educational offerings in the field by integrating modules from other national and international providers.- Launch combined course offerings made up of micro-credentials, specifically tailored to emerging industrial needs.- Enable students to engage in virtual mobilities, taking advantage of these micro-credentials to enhance their studies and integrate them into their final qualifications- Establish a network of institutions active in preparing students for industry 4.0 who recognise micro-credentials from within the network for access and progression- Distil the lessons of the consortium in implementing these offerings into a set of tools which can facilitate other HEIs in following the same path<< Implementation >>Our activity plan progressively moves through a typical quality management cycle of design > operations > monitoring > improvement. Our project is divided into:Phase 1: Making the CaseTo gain institutional buy-in, we need to convince HEI leaders that micro-credentials can contribute towards institutional objectives, priorities or legal obligations, and that, far from being a distraction, MCs can improve institutional performance indicators. To do this we will address the two sides of MC offering, namely working with institutional leaders to demonstrate how (a) providing and (b) recognising micro-credentials can be beneficial to the institution, and working with them to overcome any conceptual and organisational barriers they may encounter.Phase 2: Creating a StrategyOnce buy-in was achieved, each consortium member will prepare micro-credentialing strategies, indicating plans for roll-out of micro-credentials, as well as a recognition model for integrating micro-credentials from other institutions into their programmes. Strategies will be divided into a set of pilot activities to take place during the lifetime of the project, as well as expansion plans for after this.Phase 3: Launching an OfferInstitutions will start implementing their strategies by launching 25 micro-credentials via a catalogue, with the aim of having 400 students enrol and supporting a minimum of 60 virtual mobilities. The initial launch will consist of a limited pilot which will allow us to identify and correct emerging issues with regards to the provision and recognition models.Phase 4: Expanding our OfferThe pilots will be followed up by network expansion - both in terms of the ambitions of the individual partners of the consortium, as well as by increasing the number of institutions participating in our recognition network. As part of expanding the offer, we also plan to transform the project consortium into a membership network. The network will have an expanded membership, standardised processes as well as formal work and growth plan going beyond the project.Phase 5: Reporting ProgressTaking stock of progress, and promoting our achievements are an essential part of the project, in particular to allow us to show the strengths of the approach, and win over new department heads within our institutions and recruit new institutions to the network. To this end, we will publish ‘annual report’ style progress reports, both as individual partners reporting on our micro-credential strategies, as well as the network as a whole.<< Results >>MicroCredX will design tools and deliver guidance to help fulfil the above ambition first on the level of the universities within the consortium, then by an extended network of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The concrete outcomes will consist of:PR1 Micro-Credentialing Opportunity Analysis ToolThe tool will support institutions to design MC strategies that assist them in meeting their overall mission and institutional objectives. Each HEI partner will use the tool to produce its own MC strategy, indicating work to be done on its own and as part of the consortium, and report on progress periodically.PR2 Recognition StrategyRecognising MCs from other institutions can allow HEIs to benefit from economies of scale via shared courses, improve their ability to offer niche courses, and increase the flexibility of the overall learning offer. The consortium will suggest a model recognition strategy that is optimised for offering micro-credentials in conjunction with industry partners. Project partners will then sign a consortium-level recognition agreement, which will provide for a pilot recognition of MCs amongst themselves.PR3 Micro-Credential CatalogueThe MicroCredX Platform will adapt existing technology and use the Europass Learning Model to publish data of 37 courses in an online catalogue that will provide sufficient meta-data to enable MicroCredX partners to issue Europass-compliant digital credentials to ca. 300 students (out of 400 enrollments) who successfully complete these courses. Within this ecosystem, we will also pilot 60 virtual mobilities by the end of the project.PR4 Micro-Credential Network ModelThis will create the systems and processes necessary to move beyond piloting and establish a network which is designed to grow significantly in terms of (a) institutions participating in the process, (b) micro-credentials supplied by institutions and (c) number of virtual mobilities supported.By formally establishing a network with at least three new members by the end of the project, creating and validating a set of joining criteria, onboarding processes and a sustainability plan, the MicroCredX consortium will embark on implementing a growth plan.ImpactThe project will serve as a pilot for plans of a larger rollout of micro-credentials by the partner and associated universities. Within the participant organisations, administrative barriers hindering adoption of micro-credential strategies will be dismantled. The partners will be the first to utilise the project results and create their own MC strategies and sign Recognition Agreements. This will mean: - A closer and deeper cooperation between the five HEIs, and the facilitation of greater student mobility between them, thereby developing a pan-European talent pool.- Better understanding of the benefits of data interoperability, credential transparency and portability by standardised course and credential documentation.- Opportunity for skill profile alignment of HEIs’ micro-credentials with industry demand by reflecting achievable skills and competences in learning outcome meta-data.Eventually we foresee that- an increasing number of Recognition Agreements will lower admission departments’ administrative burden,- HEI’s can grow their student population by external learners’ enrollment in the HEI’s courses published in the Catalogue,- a wider range of recognised courses will offer more flexible learning pathways and better learning customisation to career choices of participating HEIs’ learners.In the long term we will help shaping a future where Europe’s citizens, including but not limited to university students, would not have to enroll in full time degree programmes to improve their employability. In our vision anybody can pursue building highly flexible and customised learning pathways taking courses from several education and training providers with the aim of acquiring highly job-profile specific skill sets and competences.

The overall objective of PLOTINA is to enable the development, implementation and assessment of self-tailored Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) with innovative and sustainable strategies for the Research Performing Organizations (RPOs) involved. This objective will be achieved by: i) Stimulating a gender-aware culture change; ii) Promoting career-development of both female and male researchers to prevent the waste of talent, particularly for women; iii) Ensuring diversification of views and methodologies (in this case by taking into account the gender/sex dimension and analysis) in research and teaching. PLOTINA is a partnership of RPOs, Professional Associations and Partners with specific expertise in monitoring the progress of the project and in the dissemination. The consortium represents the diversity of European RPOs as well as the diversity of European social and cultural environments. The workplan will proceed in four overall stages: i) Assess the current situation in all Partner RPOs; ii) Design GEPs for each RPO, iii) Design, implement and evaluate Actions in the Partner RPOs to address the targets of the GEPs, iv) Create a platform of resources that can be used by RPOs across Europe to implement their own GEPs suited to their own situations. The GEPs Actions will support systemic and sustainable changes at the institutional and departmental of the PLOTINA’s RPOs. The end results will be a set of modular and adaptable resources for other RPOs at the starting stage in the setting up of GEPs, in particular: Tools, GEPs Library of Actions, research and teaching Case Studies and Good Practices. Strongly aligned with a European Research Area (ERA) objectives on gender equality, PLOTINA will contribute to increase the number of female researcher, promote their careers and integrate of the gender dimension into the design, evaluation and implementation of research, to enhance its quality and relevance foster excellence and the social value of innovations.

BackgroundThe development of international operations is very important to Hyria and therefore internationalisation was one of the focus points in its strategy and operations for the period of 2011-2017. In a new strategy, launched in 2017, internationalisation is not mentioned as a focus point, but it takes in the account of changing needs of workers’ skills and competence due to the e.g. digitalisation, urbanisation, climate change and globalisation. International activities at Hyria are aiming to increase our students, teachers and work life partners’ professional and international skills by offering them a possibility to participate in the international mobility programs. By enabling our students and teachers to acquire new skills and knowledge the quality of education increases as well as student’s employment opportunities. At the same time, Hyria fosters the co-operation with the world of work and serves the needs of the area’s working life by producing a highly skilled workforce. Objectives and expected resultsThe most important objective is to increase the students’ professional skills, knowledge and attitudes by emphasizing the acquisition and development of key competencies of lifelong learning. These objectives were met, especially for the key competencies of lifelong learning. There were quite a wide variation of the development of professional skills. In some destinations the language barrier prevents full acquisition of the new professional skills, but is some destinations ours students are offered a vast range of tasks and duties that even exceeds the set objectives for professional growth. Development activities The other objective was to continue the development of international activities at Hyria. In this time the development activities were focused on the following issues: -Going Abroad -orientation and preparation course was transformed from the camp format to training that takes place at the college during the weekend. Training is implemented twice a year. The content of the course remained quite the same. -New co-operation agreements (MOU) were signed. -A new Training/Learning Agreement was created to be filled in and printed from the student database Wilma. -Four new study units were created for enabling the students to include internationals studies on their curricula. The dimension of two study units is 5 competence points, whereas one is 10 and one 15 competence points. The study units are formed according to the individual choices of 5 courses/work placements and/or study periods abroad made by the students. -International activities was chosen to be one of the areas analysed in Hyria’s knowledge management project. As a result of these activities the mobility periods were implemented according the ECVET procedures, the procedures of international activities were improved, internationalisation is spread into the different departments and students, as well as we gained the stronger cooperation with companies. Mobility59 student and 26 teacher/staff/world of work mobility periods were implemented between the time period of 1.8.2017–31.5.2019. The students’ mobility was comprised by the 12 different study fields.The mobile students were second or third year students (young) as well as adult learners. 3 selected students received additional monetary support (exceptional costs) for living and cultural expenses due to the fewer opportunities (economical). Within the project we arranged 26 mobility periods for Hyria’s teachers and staff, and company representatives (Hyria personnel 20, the Finnish work life representatives 6). These mobility periods were connected either to job shadowing, teacher/expert exchanges, visiting new partners and work placements for agreeing about the co-operation/quality reasons or co-operation meetings.