Karlstad, Rangsit & Wollongong Universities collectively attach great importance to operating in an international context and with high levels of mobility. Karlstad University’s strategic plan describes and prioritises the mission & goals and efforts are continuous to achieve them in the form of planned action, analysis & evaluation. Karlstad’s strategy can be summarised as aiming to increase internationalisation of both staff & students and with this increased internationalisation to enhance systematically quality & global understanding in all courses of study & research. Karlstad University cooperates in a number of carefully selected international networks, such as Erasmus+ and with carefully selected bilateral partners such as Wollongong & Rangsit to develop both cooperation & exchange programmes. The three universities in this project have well-developed administrative support for international work. At Karlstad, the International Office (IO) operates within the central university and performs operational internationalization, coordination of international exchange agreements; staff exchanges; handling of incoming & outgoing exchange students and grant allocation etc. Internationalization issues of a strategic nature are the responsibility of the university leadership together with faculties and these are coordinated, planned & evaluated by the university thematic board. The board includes representatives from the faculties, leadership, IO & student body. At Rangsit, the International Service Centre carries out this work and at Wollongong, the Office of Global Student Mobility. Erasmus+ is the most important network in which Karlstad operates. It provides Karlstad with the opportunity to work actively with partner universities to create successful and mutual mobilities within a well -established and recognised quality framework. Without a doubt, it contributes to our goal of greater international mobility for students & staff. We can in a positive way, preserve the experience of outgoing students and staff as well as visiting international guests and create favorable conditions at Karlstad to be an attractive partner in international cooperation. The Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) project supports Karlstad in extending and supporting this strategic work, within a quality framework from Europe, to the rest of the world. The partners were able to fulfil all the planned activities for the project, demand for student exchanges outstripped supply. Whilst we did not achieve one of the teaching activities, we were able to transfer this, with approval, into a positive administrative mobility. As set out in the institutional agreements, students & teaching staff exchanges were between the Business Schools & Informatics Departments. Administrative staff exchanges were mainly between central university departments with one from the Informatics Department. The gender of the students was almost balanced however, the staff exchanges were dominated by male staff. Teaching staff were all male, whilst 75% of the administrative staff were female. Karlstad has valuable and well-established partnerships with Rangsit & Wollongong, where student & staff exchanges took place, and discussions are ongoing constantly to identity opportunities and develop partnerships further. The impact of the student & staff exchanges made during the project period has led to deeper, closer & more sustainable collaboration with all of the partners. Specifically, the ICM project supported students from Wollongong to study at Karlstad achieving Wollongong’s goal of increased outgoing mobilities and Karlstad’s goal of increased international mobilities. By cementing the balance of student flow between Karlstad & Wollongong the ICM project has directly improved the sustainability of our partnership for the future. Without this security and outgoing flow of students from Wollongong, the future of the partnership had been in question. The ICM project has also directly resulted in an increased number of students between Rangsit & Karlstad, this has increased the diversity and number of students in both institutions and supported Rangsit’s goal of increasing internationalisation and building solid relationships in a European context.The ICM project has also resulted in the starting of exchange opportunities for teaching staff and administrative staff between Karlstad & Rangsit / Wollongong. Exchanges between these partners would not have been possibile without ICM. The visits have resulted in closer cooperation, development of teaching and pedagogy and new research opportunities. Administrative staff have shared good practice, exchanged work experiences and brought home new ideas to implement. Closer cooperation has also led to clearer understanding of how education institutions function in different cultures and countries.

The proposed research project "Developing Action Competence for Insect Preservation" (DACIP) approaches the current problem of insect decline from an educational perspective using methods of Educational Design Research (EDR). The research project aims to (i) improve theoretical understanding of citizens’ readiness to take action against insect decline and (ii) to design and investigate options to raise citizens' abilities to preserve insects. To achieve these aims, a novel theoretical framework - Action Competence for Insect Preservation (ACIP) - will be developed in a first step. In a second step, this framework is used for developing novel quantitative and qualitative research instruments to investigate citizens' abilities to preserve insects and for designing innovative educational interventions to raise citizens’ ACIP. These interventions will include wildlife gardening and citizen science as core elements. In a third step, the effectiveness of these interventions will be assessed: For this assessment, the designed interventions will be implemented at compulsory schools in Karlstad (grade 7). The change of ACIP will be assessed in a pre-post-design with 500 students, comparing the intervention group with a control group using the new quantitative and qualitative instruments. Consequently, the proposed research project provides three important benefits: a) The new framework (ACIP) builds a foundation for the development of conservation initiatives addressing citizens effectively b) The new instruments make it possible to investigate citizens' abilities in preserving insects: This can be used to assess the effectiveness of initiatives focusing on insect preservation, which can boost the effectiveness of such iniatives by enabling targeted improvements. c) The designed interventions to foster citizens' ACIP will be made available on a large scale. Therefore, the project can contribute significantly to achieve global biodiversity and sustainability goals.

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

MATT wants to investigate new multiscale mathematical problems where the evolution of fluctuating internal surfaces with respect to time and space has to be considered. Such evolutions happen at small, unobservable spatial scales, as the evolving surfaces are typically contact interfaces between microscopic material phases. A prime example is the modeling of mechanical microstructural changes in steel (e.g. Bainite formation from Austenite) under fast temperature changes (pointwise sensor measurements are here unavailable). Besides thermoelasticity, other real-world examples leading to the same class of mathematical problems include swelling of porous media, growth of tumors, and thawing of glaciers/permafrost (now, a global problem). As the scale heterogeneity renders numerical simulations impossible, one must identify simplified models that are able to accurately describe and predict the material behavior while still being simple enough to allow for fast numerical simulations within the expected physical range. The objectives of MATT are: (a) develop a general mathematical framework for rigorously connecting different scales crossed by free boundaries, (b) design multiscale numerical schemes to simulate and validate the produced models, (c) facilitate the Researcher a quick development towards scientific independence, (d) boost the Researcher's awareness of the role the applied mathematician must play in science, technology, and society. Mathematical homogenization (two-scale convergence/periodic unfolding) is the main working tool. Due to the inherent non-linearity of moving boundary problems, several new results regarding uniform estimates and compactness arguments will be established and used to ensure convergence. Multiscale numerical schemes will be designed and implemented in Python/FEniCS. Experimental data for the Bainite transformation from Austenite will be used to validate our findings.

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.