Motto:Know yourself and be open to the difference of othersShort descriptionThis interdisciplinary project proposes to develop a concept for, and implement, innovative teaching modules for 10- to 14-year-old students. It adopts the theoretical perspective of purposive history and interdisciplinary approaches. The modules will be devoted to specific themes, such as the concept of ‘home’ as national, regional and local identity, musical traditions, fashion, cooking and sports, the future educational needs and skills for the future. The idea is to deepen students' political and historical knowledge on Europe in general, and especially on those European countries that are partners in the project, and awaken and/or deepen their interest in Europe and in the European Union as an inclusive space for lifelong learning and work. This goal will be pursued through cross-curricular themes, resources and activities designed to complement the current school curricula, to be tested in schools (formal education) and in libraries (informal educational events). In addition, the planned activities will assist the participating students in developing their personalities, discovering their own abilities and strengths and enhancing their social skills.The project's structure will also offer the opportunity to teachers, librarians and students to become familiar with new educational and professional paths and emergent working conditions in a globalized world and in a unified Europe. Methodologically, the project promotes the localized involvements of teachers and students according to what makes more sense for them to develop in their particular contexts of learning: thus, they will be able to choose the activities and resources that are most interesting for them among the various ones offered. The project will also encourage students' teamwork and distributed learning through fora and the social media. The project will expand the media skills of the students. With a slight adjustment, the project materials will be usable in other countries and other schools in their cooperation and in their efforts to deepen the students’ knowledge on Europe.The consortium consists of nine partners from six EU countries (Estonia, Finland, the UK, Austria, Poland and Portugal). The strength of the consortium’s team is in the diversity of the countries and the participating institutions. Universities and research institutions as well as libraries, associations and schools participate in the project.

Context/Background: Worcester International is made up of three teams: International Experience (IE,) Language Centre (LC) and International Recruitment Office (IRO). IE is concerned with international exchange partnerships, immigration and visa advice, international student experience, promotion of international opportunities and the administration of the Erasmus + KA103 and KA107 mobility projects. For the first part of this project the team consisted of 3 full time members of staff and 1 part time . Our Exchange and Study Abroad Coordinator transferred to another post internally and was replaced by an International Mobility Coordinator (IMC). In 2019 we were lucky to gain an additional member of staff, the International Mobility Assistant (IMA) whose role was to assist the IMC and to develop short term study overseas opportunities for home students and to administer incoming international summer schools. Unfortunately, the resignation of our IMC in July 2019 threw the full responsibility of the exchange programmes onto the IMA who also resigned in February 2020. We have now appointed (from February 2020) a new full time IMC but the COVID 19 crisis means that we shall not be permitted to replace the IMA this year. This unexpected and unavoidable high staff turnover has undoubtedly had a detrimental affect on this project. Objectives: The objectives during this period were to consolidate strong partnerships across a range of EU countries as per our ECHE and to increase the range of subject areas offering opportunities for study and placement abroad. We also needed to mitigate the fall off in Semester Abroad applicants caused by a University wide move to year long 30 credit modules and a less flexible timetable by increasing the numbers of students undertaking a full Third Year Abroad; to fulfil our commitment to the UUKi Go Abroad Outward Mobility Charter (to which UW is a signatory); to encourage Schools to identify strategic partners for student placements in particular and to increase the number of students from a Widening Participation background engaging in International Mobility. In a time of internal and external turmoil, we did not fulfil all these objectives to our satisfaction but we do see encouraging signs of sustained interest in EU exchanges, particularly in placements and Third Year Abroad.Participants: We set ambitious targets for Study Abroad and our promotion efforts paid off with a greater number of applicants than ever. However, in the end only 16 out of 36 participated; we did better with trainee ships with 12 out of an anticipated 21 participating. Of the 16 Study Abroad students, 5 were from Widening Participation backgrounds which was very encouraging as it was an aim in our ECHE to develop the intercultural skills and life choices of all our students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Twice as many students on trainee ships were women but this is explained by the number of Nursing placements we have. An equal number of males and females went on Study Abroad. A greater number of male academics went on teaching placements (7:2); more females than men went on training placements (7:2). Overall, the ratio of men to women was equal.Result and Impact: 100% of staff, incoming and outgoing, were satisfied with their mobility experience. This will have an impact on next year's project as returning staff are expected to feed back to their schools and staff who have had a good experience are generally more enthusiastic about promoting mobility to other staff and to students. More than 96% of incoming and outgoing students were satisfied with their overall experience. This has already had an impact in that students have been willing to come forward to promote the Erasmus + project at out annual Study Abroad Fair . Long term impact: Although this project has suffered from high staff turnover and external factors such as the uncertainty over the UK exit from the EU, enthusiasm for the work remains high. It is well supported by the new Director of International and the VC has recently endorsed international mobility as a means of educating one another about the way things are done differently across the globe. UW has just come in the top five universities for International Student Experience in the WhatUni Awards and it is recognised that our incoming exchange students from the EU make a significant impact to courses at module level and are very satisfied with their experience. We remain confident that our excellent longstanding and loyal partners from across the EU as well as our exciting new partners will wish to send and receive students from us and collaborate with our staff for the duration of our next project and beyond.

MEETINGDEM aims to implement and evaluate an innovative and inclusive approach to supporting community dwelling people with mild to moderately severe dementia and their family carers, called the Meeting Centres Support Programme (MCSP), in three EU countries: Italy, Poland and United Kingdom. This evidence-based, person-centred, approach has been positively evaluated, and implemented in 90 meeting centers in the Netherlands, and is now well-placed to be trialled and implemented in other EU countries. Demonstrated benefits include high levels of user satisfaction, reduced behavioural and mood problems, delayed admission to residential care, lower levels of caregiving-related stress, higher carer competence, and improved collaboration between care and welfare organizations. Project partners in the three countries will utilise strategies and tools developed in the Netherlands and adapt them to country-specific requirements, establish a group of appropriate organizational collaborators in each country, develop an implementation plan and toolkit, implement MCSP, and evaluate the programme in a controlled trial in terms of its impact on the behaviour, mood and quality of life of people with dementia and carers, its cost effectiveness as a result of changes in use of other (more expensive) services, such as hospitals and residential care, and psychotropic medications. An overall evaluation will draw together findings from the three implementation countries to develop recommendations for successful implementation of the MCSP across the EU and beyond. The project will be carried out over a 36 month period. In Phase One (M1-18) activities will focus on establishing an initiative group of relevant organizations and user representatives in each country, exploring pathways to care and potential facilitators and barriers to implementing the programme, and developing country and context-specific implementation plans and materials. In Phase Two (M19-36) training will be provided to organizations and staff, after which the meeting centres will be established and evaluated for impact, cost-effectiveness, user satisfaction and implementation process

Project context: Worcester International is made up of 3 teams: Language Centre, Recruitment and Marketing and International Experience. The International Experience Team consists of 3 full time members of staff and 1 full time. It is mainly concerned with the management of International and EU partnerships, visa and immigration advice, promotional activity through social media etc. and student support. The role of Exchange and Study Abroad Coordinator is one full time post within this team and The Coordinator is responsible for incoming and outgoing staff and students, travelling to and from EU and International countries. We applied for and used ERASMUS+ Key Action 1 103 funding to create, maintain and support mobilities for some of these outgoing students and staff. In 2015-2016, 67% of the outgoing students and 100% of the staff members I was responsible for were eligible for funding under ERASMUS Key Action 1 103.Objectives: I began the role of Exchange and Study Abroad Coordinator at the end of August 2015; the funding for this project had already entered the University bank account, the students had been placed, staff members were submitting requests to undertake mobilities, and new ERASMUS+ agreements were being prepared in readiness for the following year. This role had been transferred from part into full-time. Considering this context, one of the main objectives this year has been for me to learn the mechanisms and timeline of the ERASMUS+ project. This has involved reading through documents and files, observation, and liaising with different University departments. I have also been supported by the ERASMUS+ Coordinators' workshop, HEURO and BUTEX, and at a Training Week supported by funding from this project at Karlstad University, Sweden. Alongside this, feedback from staff and students (please see the report submitted for the 2014-2015 project) indicated a need to look at the process of undertaking a mobility. This learning experience (and this report will highlight instances where things did not go to plan) and the focus on creating a strong process will create a solid framework by which future engagement in ERASMUS+ at the University of Worcester can be grown. For example, we would particularly like to increase the number of varied and high quality mobilities.Numbers and type/profile of participants: 34 students participated in a mobility. All students undertook a mobility as part of an undergraduate course at the University of Worcester. The trend from 2014-2015 indicating that a significant proportion of students who were mobile were from different countries in the EU continued. However, we have begun to see a shift resulting from increased promotion to all students. For example, we sent a home student to Turkey which was a new destination for us. An early review of 2016-2017 indicates that this change is continuing and we are seeing more of a balance between home and EU students undertaking mobilities. Within this project, 11 staff members completed a mobility, some of whom had not been involved in ERASMUS+ before. Description of undertaken activities: Out of the 34 students who undertook mobilities, 26 of them completed a study assignment and 8 of them a traineeship. Out of the 11 members of staff who undertook a mobility, 7 completed a teaching assignment and 4 training. We also used Organisational Support funding to support a further 11 mobilities. Results and impact attained: The exchange programme at the University is thriving and the numbers of mobilities supported by funding from ERASMUS increased from the previous year. For example, in 2014-2015 23 students undertook a study mobility compared to 26 in 2015-2016. There has also been much more development in the area of recording and disseminating qualitative information from mobilities and this will be discussed further in subsequent sections. Longer-term benefits: Our new partner in Turkey, Uskudar University, was the only one in 2015-2016 that could teach modules for our course BSc Psychology (accredited by the British Psychological Society). It has traditionally always been difficult include a mobility on our accredited courses due to insufficient modules abroad, so breaking through this barrier will have significant benefits for this course and others which have similar requirements. The increase in the number of partnerships in 2015-2016 means that we are now able to offer a greater number of places to staff and students to complete mobilities. Traineeships have been very successful and good experiences are encouraging other courses aside from Nursing (e.g. Business, Science, Social Work) to emulate this. These benefits are encouraging our students in particular to think about other ERASMUS Programme countries as important sources of skills, opportunities for further study, different living environments etc. We have also begun to think about building on this successful to apply for other forms of ERASMUS+ funding.

The main goal of the proposed project is to provide an advanced mathematical model (WRF-BioChem) for modelling the emission, dispersion and concentration of bioaerosols at the regional scale. The model will with this development be able to handle feedback mechanisms between biology, chemistry and weather. The model is developed to go beyond state-of-the-art by developing the mathematical model for oak pollen and by doing it at the species level. The project supported by a three companion projects on grass pollen, fungal spores (Alternaria) and pathogens – all at species level. These projects deliver the needed resources for detection. As such the mathematical model will be a validated model that will be generally applicable for bioaerosols including pollen, pathogens and fungal spores. Detection of pollen will be carried out by supporting staff and projects using both traditional methods based on optical detection at the genus level and next generation sequencing at the species level. This proposal requires multidisciplinary approach to the problem as pollen appearance and behaviour in the air is dependent on many factors, including meteorological conditions, chemical composition of the atmosphere or surface properties as well as feedbacks between these elements. WRF-Chem currently used in air quality modelling will therefore be adapted for studying transport of bioaerosols in a way consistent with the transport and transformation of other air pollutants. Until now, no atmospheric model is used for the simulation of pollen at the species level in either Europe or in USA. Also, it will be the first time simulations of oak pollen will be possible in Europe or in USA. Also, it will be the first time simulations of oak pollen will be possible in Europe. Finally, it will be the first mathematical model that allows for a full feedback between meteorology, chemistry, bioaerosols and the terrestrial biosphere. The model developments will be implemented in forecasting.