Successful previous LA and EU HE cooperation revealed differences between HESystems, academic recognition principles and practices. A long path is still ahead in terms of streamlined mobility recognition with fair credit transfer and grade conversion. Most LA countries have no credit system nationally applying to HEIs and the majority has regulations to frame mobility abroad, but handles recognition on individual basis and equivalence without grading is very common, negatively impacting students. RecMat joins partners from AR, BR and EU with the core aim of contributing to promote mobility between EU and LA, by reducing barriers related to academic recognition and building LA HEIs capacity to implement a fairer recognition process. Partners will work at two levels, linking the policy and practical dimensions behind academic recognition. Unlike previous initiatives, RecMat targets not only International Officers, but teachers who are the main decision makers in LA HEIs in what recognition is concerned, who are distant from Bologna rationale and usually show high resistance to recognition. This will be achieved by involving teachers in blended-training and in piloting concrete case studies, to evidence practical successful processes. Through a peer-to-peer approach, RecMat will raise teachers’ awareness about the importance of ensuring full recognition and stimulating fair grade conversion. RecMat activities will capacitate HEIs to formally frame recognition and build a linkage with IT teams by providing training to IT staff and enabling LA HEIs to outline concrete technical solutions to ease recognition. Through the organisation of public (inter-)national events and policy forums, RecMat will bring the topic to wide discussion, encouraging a high number of HEIs to adopt similar processes and sharing with them the project's innovative outcomes (MOOC, Digital Compendium and Conclusions Paper) towards the improvement and transparency of academic recognition processes.

DIEGO project answered to the necessity to cover the growing request of energy in Latin America with clean and sustainable sources and to have new professionals able to effectively operate in the sector. All countries involved in DIEGO have a great potential in term of renewable energy generation. The National Governments are promoting national laws to support RES adoption, mainly of small systems, which can contribute to the reduction of poverty and security of supply, meeting the energy needs also in remote areas.The main objective of DIEGO project was to improve the capacities of n. 6 Universities in Latin America (n.2 in Guatemala, n.1 in Uruguay and n.3 in Argentina) on renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainability, training new experts prepared for the labor market. The European partners (Sapienza University of Rome, University of Cadiz and University of Cyprus) contributed, among other activities, in the development of the courses, in the training of local experts and in the management of the action.DIEGO, according to the specific needs of the Universities, focused on the development of six modules on renewable energy as Solar Photovoltaic, Solar Thermal, Wind Energy, Biomass and Geothermal, Energy Efficiency and Emerging Technologies. More than 100 students have been trained and 26 of them had the opportunity to do a 6 weeks Internship in Europe.The project met all the objectives and produced the following outputs and results: - n. 1 Report about Universities needs and 1 report on “Local needs and national status on renewable energies”.- n. 1 manual on “Methodology for the development of courses on RES” - n. 107 participants to the one-day seminar on Bologna process- 17 bilateral agreements signed by consortium members, - One-week course held at UNIROMA1 on Universities internationalization (13 staff members trained)- n. 6 syllabus and didactic materials developed specifically for each LA universities- n. 6 DIEGO courses accredited into the 6 LA universities- n.1 didactic laboratory set up / improved in each LA university including Video conference tools- n. 2 e-modules delivered on MOOC platform (finalized by 264 students)- n. 215 students selected and successfully approved at least one DIEGO course- n. 26 best students selected in the LA university participating in n. 6 weeks of intensive courses in Europe- n. 5 final conferences organized within the LA universities (n. 227 participants in total)- n. 8 international project meetings- Scientific and dissemination papers followed DIEGO implementation as well as planned joint courses and new collaboration among participants Universities.The Consortium is planning to submit new projects on forecasting calls and to improve the scientific collaboration (mobility of students and staff) also involving Universities in rural areas.

The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and specifically Internet of Things (IoT) in Argentina and Uruguay is growing at a relatively slow pace and we found the main reasons being: the lack of cooperation, the scarceness of human resources in the area of interest, and the heterogeneous thus ineffective educational methodology and offer in a state of the art topic. The aim of the project NEON is therefore to modernize the higher education system, to improve and diversify the training of human resources, both in the academic field (students, professors,) and in the industrial sphere (technical staff) and to motivate a broader spectrum of people towards IoT, which nowadays is one of the most innovative and most impactful technology in the ICT field, as it can influence and improve several aspects and processes of our lives. The main goal of the institutions that take part in the project will be the creation of a Network of Competence in IoT. This network of competence will serve as a hub and common knowledge base for both academia and industry in order to foster an improved technological advancement through exchange of knowledge and needs. Specifically, the network of competence will connect universities in Argentina and Uruguay with local industry (and with EU universities) in order to address their needs, offer teaching and training opportunities to both teachers, staff and students, improve the infrastructure through the creation of joint university-academia laboratories and offer internships. All these activities will be related to modernizing the curricula by including the IoT topic, developing new hands-on based education, acquiring digital skills and learning methods to strengthen the relation between HEIs and the wider economic and social environment fostering capacity building, innovation, creativity and employability so that to contribute to local economy growth.

Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC) represent a progression of how cities apply digital technology to serve their populations, pursue sustainable socio-economic development, and transform themselves. The urban development that leads SSC requires a growing number of competencies to work together in order to plan, design, implement and manage the ongoing transformations of the city, enabled by technological innovation. Considering the great attention the concept of SSC has reached in Latin America, our project aims at integrating it into various university courses using new teaching and learning tools, as well as developing new curricula in all levels of education process. Given the increasing number of competencies needed and its interdisciplinary characteristic, the curricula for SSC will be implemented in areas such as ICT, Business Administration, Computer Science, Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism, Urban Planning, Political Science, among others, using a collaborative and international network of selected academic institutions in Latin America and Europe. The main outputs of the project include the development, evaluation and implementation of new courses and programmes on SSC to reach students, policy makers, public managers and other members of the city administration, professionals, managers and entrepreneurs, as well as university faculty that will be trained to apply the developed ICT-based tools to their classes. Besides academic curricula and specialization programmes, the project will provide an e-learning platform filled with a Massive Online Open Course on SSC. The main impacts of the project are to improve the quality of learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches in the Latin America region, increase the employability and competitiveness of the students, and for the faculty members to increase the quality of their classes by using new learning and teaching tools and new content, as well as promoting life-long learning.

In Latin America, especially in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico the automotive industry represents between 9-17% of the manufacturing GDP focusing on manufacturing and being employment industry number one. All countries are manufacturing countries – very little development is conducted as the qualified human capacities are missing. Therefore, big OEMs identify ARG, BRA and MEX as little attractive for development as skills are lacking.ASCENT will close the current lack of skilled labour on automotive engineering (AE) to increase the positive impact of the automotive industry on regional development through the execution of expert trainings for academic staff, students and companies interested in AE and sales management to be also able to sell developments. Further, the installation of testing bays will lead to increased knowledge on AE, higher standards in teaching and will also create higher employability of graduates and more university-business cooperation through the operation of the 6 competence centres on AE in ARG, BRA and MEX attached to the testing bays.Through the expert trainings the target groups are going to receive upgraded knowledge on AE and sales to reach the following aims:• to spread the knowledge of AE during the counselling sessions of the competence centres • to increase the number of projects on AE with companies and • To increase the employability of students due to upgraded knowledge on AE and sales To expand generated knowledge a network for AE and sales will be established. It´s promoted through cross-border conferences and it´s important to add value to the automotive industry in Latin America.Through the cooperation with companies, associations and governmental bodies, the university-business cooperation will be improved. This leads to three advantages: • increased employability of students in the automotive sector• increased teaching standards• strengthen cooperation uni-business