The changes in educational paradigms and development of ICT are promoting the modernization of universities and the establishment of open and flexible study programs, freeing academic boundaries.Quality, accessibility and innovation are concepts that are driving the changes of virtual higher education. ACAI-LA Universities Network undertake the challenge of modernizing and internationalizing higher education, and contributing to development and social cohesion in Latin America, with an academic offer in pursuit of excellence, equitable and innovative.This academic offer will be available in the ACAI-LA Virtual Campus with accessible:- Life long learning program, MOOC.- Master for training of trainers, MOOC, certified by the consortium universities.This university campus will integrate online services for: support to students, support to graduates and job placement, and guidance to teachers in methodologies and innovative educational techniques.The curricula will:- Be open and flexible.- Form its students with ICT skills required by the labour market.- Include educational materials and laboratories, accessible to social groups with learning difficulties because of economic, ethnicity, gender or disabilities reasons.- Be available in: English, Spanish, Mayan and / or African descent languages.A sustainable business model will be supported for capacity building in:- Young graduates.- Teachers, who create innovative educational, quality and accessible resources.This scientific and educational cooperation network shows the diversity in Latin America. The ACAI-LA Network consists of three European universities and eight Latin American, four of which are located in less developed countries of Central America and the others are from South America. This condition will improve the impact, dissemination and exploitation of project results, publications and open educational materials.

Eradicating all forms of exclusion, discrimination and marginalisation that result from disparities and/or inequalities, as well as reducing the student drop out rate remain key challenges for the higher education (HE) sector in Latin America. Through the design and testing of educational centers for support and development (CADEP), the ACACIA project aims to foster solidarity and cooperation among HE institutional departments and staff in order to develop innovative educational resources and improved strategies to deal with the socio-emotional distress of students at risk of desertion. Thanks to better intra- and inter-institutional cooperation, the project will provide solutions to strengthen HEIs’ staff skills, modernise HEIs’ organizational structures, decrease student drop out rates and ultimately promote respect of the other’s differences. The structure of the educational centers, articulated in mutually supporting modules, has been developed by a team of researchers and administrators from 14 HEIs in 8 countries from Latin America and Europe. It represents an innovative and replicable tool for HEIs to provide students, especially the most vulnerable, with integrated support using a differential approach. Concretely, the project will set-up three pilot centers in Colombia, Peru and Nicaragua to support and monitor students at risk, carry out training sessions for staff at HEIs, explore new strategies for teaching and improve the use of ICTs in educational practices. Thanks to the project, more than 4,000 teachers and 200,000 students from 11 Latin American universities will benefit from an innovative and relevant professional profile, helping to improve academic results and reduce the drop out rate among students.

The Free Network project is a Joint Action to be implemented in Central America. Its general objective is improving business opportunities for research-based entrepreneurs, promoting spin-off services in Higher Education Institutions and strengthening the innovation ecosystem in Central America. The FREE Consortium identified a lack of institutional regulations supporting the creation and development of spin-off, and the absence in most of the Central America universities of specific units with qualified and skilled staff. As consequence there is a very limited capacity to exploit the research results coming from academic/research staff and students. In this context FREE proposes facilitating the creation and development of spin-off companies. The project specific objective is the creation and modernisation of spin-off support services within 12 CA Higher Education Institutions through institutional and capacity building and the use of a regional network and platform.The FREE Network activities, implemented by 12 CA HEIS and 3 EU HEIs, will include: - in-depth needs analysis on research-based entrepreneurship in PC will provide a good insight of the situation of the CA HEIs in terms of spin-off regulations and units supporting research-based entrepreneurs;- capacity building for Innovation Support Offices (ISO) staff;- creation/adaptation of ISOs with appropriate institutional legislation, qualified HR and relevant infrastructure for providing spin-off support services;- creation of a regional platform for transferring good practices and exploiting synergies at regional level; - an ambitious disseminating and exploitation strategy of the project outputs;

EQUaM LA, which targets universities and quality assurance agencies in Colombia, Argentina, Nicaragua and Panama, aims to support internal university procedures for quality management, and link them to enhanced processes for the recognition of foreign degrees and credits. This will be done via the collaboration of universities and national regulatory bodies, which are shaping quality assurance and accreditation systems. The project targets both quality assurance units and international cooperation staff in partner universities, as well as national agencies for quality assurance. One of its main outcomes is a jointly-developed ‘QA Tool-kit’ for universities. Through its activities (training events, development of the Tool-Kit and testing of the Tool-Kit in university partners), it will enhance internal QA structures and link them to international cooperation structures. This will simultaneously improve internal QA management and also help to increase international recognition of degrees and credits across borders in LA. The fact that the project includes four different LA countries in Central and South America attests to its regional dimension and ambition to support objectives of the Latin American Higher Education Space (ENLACES) in which QA and recognition are fundamentals.

HICA, which was driven by university associations, universities and ministries in 6 Central American (CA) countries, aimed to support the reform, innovation and harmonisation of HE curricula. The project further developed/implemented a regional qualifications framework for Central American HE (‘MCESCA’) – proposed by the prior project Alfa PUENTES (2011-14) – that defines what a student should know, understand and be able to do after each HE cycle, in a Central American social and political context. HICA further completed the MCESCA by defining learning outcomes for pre-bachelor, short-cycle programmes. This was done through national focus groups and consultations with academics, students and other social partners in the different CA countries, guided by a Technical Team that was appointed by national university associations. The project also examined time/credits required for the different HE cycles, with the objective of defining credit ranges to achieve the learning outcomes of the MCESCA. The MCESCA was simultaneously 'piloted' in partner universities. CA partner universities selected at least one study programme to revise and reform, defining work-load based learning outcomes that correlate to the MCESCA. European partners shared practice on curricula innovation in support of this, via a training programme that entailed three workshops, webinars and visits of European experts to CA countries. The pilot outcomes and the MCESCA itself were promoted widely to regional and national political bodies, employers, accreditation agencies, etc. via national promotion workshops in April through June 2018, organised by the associations and the ministries. These were used to enrich and validate the MCESCA as a tool in the region. HICA has had diverse impacts: The revised academic programmes have created a catalytic effect, bringing leadership, students and teaching staff together to implement curricula reform. In addition, CA universities have networked and reinforced regional cooperation. National associations and the ministries benefit from a regionally agreed tool that they can use for quality assurance and teaching reforms taking place in their own systems as well as recognition of studies between countries. The European partners benefit from discussions on frameworks for HE reform in CA, which will provide an important mirror for similar reforms that take place in the context of the Bologna Process.