<< Background >>The UPPSCAle strategic partnership is a powerful transnational collaboration aiming to innovate, improve and standardise Bachelor Physiotherapy pain science curricula across Europe. Pain science is a core field in a physiotherapy curriculum and physiotherapists are essential members of healthcare teams managing people with pain within a biopsychosocial framework. Chronic pain affects millions of people worldwide across the lifespan and is a global cause of disability in the developed and developing world alike. Poorly managed pain is costly not only for the affected individuals and their families (12-30% EU member states) but also for governments and taxpayers with estimated direct and indirect costs of chronic pain are between 2-3% of GDP across member states (annual cost of 441 billion euro to Europe).Pain management is the primary reason people attend physiotherapy for treatment. The International Association for the Study of Pain 2010 Declaration of Montreal states that all patients have the right to have access to the appropriate assessment and treatment of pain by adequately trained healthcare professionals. However, there is currently no standardised curriculum or common training framework for physiotherapists, with professional education about pain management repeatedly documented as inadequate worldwide. Hence the inequities in pain science knowledge across Europe results in inequitable health service delivery and costs and most importantly to significant differences in patients quality of life.Greater connectivity between higher education systems with standardised curricula will also reduce obstacles that face physiotherapists applying to practice their profession across geographical borders in EU member states. Once graduated Physiotherapists are consistently the 4th most mobile regulated profession that travels abroad to practice their profession in the EU. Under the EU Directive 2005/36/EC in principle physiotherapists are permitted freedom of movement to practice their profession across geographical borders of EU member states. However, as there is no common training framework for physiotherapists, and training requirements differ from country to country, having professional qualifications recognised can be challenging between one EU member state and another. A standardised curriculum in pain science physiotherapy could reduce challenges that graduates face and serve as a test case for physiotherapy curricula as well as other health professional Bachelor programmes. In summary, there is a need for the exchange of best practices pain science through the development of sustainable products for faculty as well as students. This project is therefore timely, with the right partners and with the right blend of expertise to develop a cadre of highly trained academics capable of addressing current and future needs.<< Objectives >>The UPPSCAle project objectives are focusing on harmonising pain science education across Europe by offering a roadmap for all academics in Bachelor programmes seeking to ensure their graduates can meet the evolving challenges of pain management. The project will take advantage of the considerable expertise of all the partners involved to achieve this through the various project activities and outputs that can be utilised by academics across EuropeUPPSCAle has three main objectives:Objective 1: Curriculum bench marking of Bachelor Physiotherapy pain science curricula against international best practice (European Pain Federation EFIC Pain Physiotherapy curriculum) to identify gaps in learning. ; Objective 2: Augmenting knowledge and skills through evidence-based professional practices;Objective 3: Enhancing and standardising Teaching and learning methodology based on dynamic Open Education Resource that addresses identified limitations to support academics with student learning across Europe and beyond.<< Implementation >>Three core project activities (PA), one building on the next will be undertaken(i)Needs Analysis: A curriculum review process mapping partners current pain science curricula against international best practice (European Pain Federation Pain Physiotherapy curriculum) will be undertaken, facilitated by experts in curriculum design in NUID UCD Teaching and Learning Centre.(ii) Capacity Building: Two week long face to face Teach-the-Teacher Pain Schools will be developed to standardise and up-skill academic partners with both theoretical and hands-on skills development sessions. Materials developed for and during the Pain Schools Outputs will be incorporated into the Open Education Resource.(iii) Addressing Limitations: An open education resource will be developed and maintained on key and emerging pain science knowledge to ensure that Bachelor Physiotherapy programme curricula content can meet the evolving challenges of pain management across Europe and beyond. Through all three core PA dissemination of progress and project results (PR) will be disseminated widely through the UPPSCAle communication strategy in partner countries and beyond to allow other institutions join in the curriculum review and enhancement process, to build a community of physiotherapy academic staff (special interest group) to further develop and enhance pain science education.<< Results >>This 24 month project results include a number of sustainable outputs that will enhance and standarise pain science education in Bachelor Physiotherapy programmes across Europe:1. Open educational ResourceThe OER will house all educational outputs from the UPPSCAle project; gaps identified through the curriculum review process can be addressed by accessing the Teach-the-Teacher Pain School Manual and the knowledge and skills content on the OER. This will augment and promote state-of-the-art pain science education that healthcare professionals, patients and health services will benefit from. The OER will be hosted by UCV and be accessible.2. Open source files accessibilityUPPSCAle Project results will all be freely available for institutions removing barrier of funding issues that arise in institutions across Europe.3. Curricula availability & comparisonsAcademics can review and augment their current pain science curricula using a pedagogically sound approach against international best practice recommendations (European Pain Federation EFIC Pain Physiotherapy curriculum). 4. Special interest group The UPPSCAle project will develop a special interest group for academic physiotherapist teaching pain science to engage with each other, sharing knowledge on the topic. It will also allow for discussion around the development of a common training framework for physiotherapy education. This would ultimately enhance patient care, reduce healthcare costs and limit obstacles faced by physiotherapists seeking to have their qualifications recognised when they wish to practice professionally across geographical borders of European Union member states. 5. InterconnectivityThis project will further enhance inter-connectively and teaching excellence between universities in Europe, increasing their capacity to operate jointly at transnational level, boosting internationalisation of their educational and research activities, and through exchanging or developing new practices and methods as well as sharing and confronting ideas.

"The overall purpose of the project ""Digital education in nursing"" project (DEN) is to modernize the existing curriculum for nursing students by developing digital modules regarding lectures / examinations into new forms of education. The project will run for 24 months and the expected results are supposed to have long-term positive effects on nursing education in the EU. The pandemic has been the reason why the traditional academic education in nursing has forced to be transformed into digital forms without the lecturers being given the opportunity to adapt the pedagogy to the digital education. If we do not make this transformation in a systematic and student-friendly way, we will have fewer nurses / specialist nurses and deteriorating patient care that is not in line with the EU-s recommendations and goals. The lecturers need support to develop their pedagogical skills from the traditional way to a more digital way in order to maintain the required and necessary high quality in nurse education. The traditional way is not sufficient, or applicable, to meet today's requirements especially not for satisfactory examinations. Previous research has shown, that the kind of examination methods chosen, are important for how the education is designed, and in the next step in what way the examination is able to test the required knowledge in order to guarantee that the students will fulfill the requirements of the teaching's goals. The traditional pedagogical method is not sufficient, or applicable, to meet today's requirements with digital teaching. This can have a negative impact on students' fulfillment of learning goals and reduce the students possibilities to succeed in their examination. In the long run, this may contribute to a reduction, i.e. a deficiency, of nurses in the whole EU.The project consortium consists of five partner organizations representing five EU countries (Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia and Sweden). The consortium's strength is based on the competence of each partner organization that represents different skills, knowledge and experiences from nursing education and digital education and relevant development areas to ensure a successful delivery of the project's results. All partner organizations have a strong tradition in nursing education and have already successfully collaborated in a European (Erasmus +) project (see project references). All partners organisation have worked with the digital nursing education at different level during pandemic 2020.The primary objectives of our project are to enhance the ability of lecturers at the involved universities, and participating organisations, to provide high quality education, including digital education •to focus on building teaching capacity to implement, with both blended, and on line, teaching and learning; •to develop digital pedagogical competences of lecturers, enabling them to deliver high quality digital education; and to develop and/or use high quality digital content such as innovative online resources and tools. •to share and exchange experiences, expertise, and resources, and in collaboration, create a digital course of mutual interest•to collaborate regarding digital technology by using different providers and experts in educational technologies and with experiences in relevant pedagogical practice.The expected results of the DEN project are the following:1. teachers and lecturers will have an increased understanding of digital teaching pedagogic;2. to identity, adapt to, and develop the necessary measurements, assessments and actions required for quality enhancement of digital teaching and learning processes;3. to train lecturers and other teaching staff for harnessing pedagogical and methodological principles and new modes of teaching and learning to be able to adapt to higher nursing education.4. to develop methodology and platforms for broader integration between digital teaching and learning for postgraduate studies in nursing.Our project will have long-term benefits both for our PO as well as other universities. We will modernize and renew and make flexible curricula with innovations for nursing education. We will publish our results and our handbook online, thus enabling other universities to use the results of our project."

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.

The call 2017 in the Erasmus+ programme continued and strengthened the University of Applied Health Sciences participation and practices in the Key Activity 1, Learning Mobility of Individuals. The University as before promoted and supported the student and staff mobility as part of its mobility and internalization strategy. The types of mobilities realized in the Call 2017 were the mobility of students for studies and traineeship and the mobility of teaching staff for training. Students participated in mobility for studies at partner universities and in mobility for traineeship. The importance of the project and mobilities was as always the strengthening of the international experience of students and staff, of the University's internationalization objectives and cooperation. The number of total mobilities realized in the project was eleven (11). Nine (9) mobilities were realized by students and two (2) by teaching staff. The foreseen number of student mobilities by the grant agreement was eight (8) mobilities. Student mobilities comprised both mobilities for studies and traineeship, where three (3) students participated in the mobility for studies and six (6) students participated in the mobility for traineeship (the grant agreement stipulated grants for three (3) mobilities for studies and five (5) for traineeship. Mobility for studies comprised students spending their mobility period at a partner institution.The total duration of student mobilities for studies was around ten (10) months. Mobility for traineeship involved six (6) students spending their mobility periods at host institutions in Austria, Slovenia, Greece, Germany and Poland . The total duration of student mobilities for traineeship was around eighteen (18) months. The study programmes which were represented by the students were: Environmental Health Engineering, Physiotherapy, Nursing and Radiological Technology.The average duration of mobilities for studies was three (3) months and for traineeship was around three (3) months and the total mobility of students spanned a period of about 28 months (the foreseen period in the grant agreement being 40 months). Staff mobility included two (2) members of teaching staff from the study programme of Radiological Technology. Staff training included attending a training course specifically designed for professional development of teaching staff and a training workshop to improve particular skills for further enhancing professional and teaching activities. The granted number of staff mobilities was two (2) for the purposes of training mobility. The students reported improvement and enhancement of previously attained knowledge and skills and got a new experience which they can use in their official studies. The teaching staff could improve their teaching skills.

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.