"Visshe Uchilishte po Menidzhmant (VUM) is a private business school strongly committed to the principles of internationalization. The higher education institution has been participating in the Erasmus programme for academic mobility since 2003. VUM has one of the highest international business students rates in Bulgaria and students from more than 30 countries study together at VUM in undergraduate and master programmes fully delivered in English. The current Erasmus+ mobility project aimed at fostering the internationalization of VUM academic community and its curriculum and at extending its international academic and non-academic stakeholders network. The Erasmus+ mobility project was carried out in line with VUM Internationalization Strategy and EPS. The project primary target groups consisted of VUM academic community members, e.g. students, faculty and administrative staff who took part in academic mobility. Project secondary target groups included VUM students and academic and non-academic staff members who did not personally participate in mobility but who benefited from the knowledge and international experience gained and shared with them by their mobile peers. Outside VUM, project secondary target groups included prospective employers of the mobile students as well as VUM local community members.In 2014/2015, in total 32 outgoing Erasmus+ mobilities were carried out at VUM, 9 of which student mobilities for studies, 12 student mobilities for placement and 11 staff mobilities. Given the large number of full-time international students at VUM, 8 of the 21 mobile students held citizenship other than Bulgarian. All mobile students studied in VUM English language undergraduate programmes in the fields of business, management, tourism and hospitality. As a result of their mobility, the mobile students obtained new practical knowledge in these subject areas and improved their global skills, including their foreign language proficiency and ability to work and live in a international environment. Last but not least, through the mobilities for studies and placements, the students developed also other key competencies such as a sense of entrepreneurship and initiative, critical and analytical thinking and ability to learn.The staff mobilities for teaching carried out in the mobility project aimed at exchange of good practices and gaining new professional knowledge and innovative skills for teaching. As a result of the teaching mobilities, VUM teachers were introduced to new teaching methods and pedagogies and got acquainted with new trends and developments in their specific teaching and research fields. Thanks to the teaching mobilities, the curriculum at VUM will be gradually updated and will become more global and reflective of the new concepts and practices applied in the business, management, tourism and hospitality areas. The staff mobilities for training of VUM staff members provided opportunities for exchange of good practices in the fields of university management and financial diversification, international students recruitment, student engagement and management of the academic processes.In addition to the outgoing mobilities, in 2014/2015, 14 incoming students studied at VUM in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme. Through their integration in the academic and social life of VUM, VUM non-mobile students benefited from the opportunity to learn how to learn and communicate better in a multicultural environment. The incoming students' involvement in VUM student life contributed to the so called processes of ""internationalization at home"".Thanks to the outgoing and incoming mobilities carried out in 2014/2015, VUM established and/or further developed academic partnerships and links with employers in more than 10 European countries. This enhanced VUM international profile and enriched the institution's international cooperation portfolio."

This is a project for higher education student and staff mobility between Programme Countries and Partner Countries. Please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from/to third countries not associated to Erasmus+. 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.

Compared to the past, the world has become globally open and young people need to leave their usual comfort zone and explore different lands through studying, working and travelling. This creates new multicultural environments on places, which are traditionally mono cultural. However, Europe is facing major challenges in promoting social inclusion and cultural diversity as core values that unite the Member States. By exploring and sharing good practices and innovative methods and strategies of dealing with the challenges in multicultural environments for youth organisations and overcoming cultural shock, stereotyping, prejudices, discrimination and stigmatisation through intercultural communication and dialogue among young people, the project “Building Intercultural Competences” will raise awareness among young people about the importance of intercultural communication and mutual understanding.The general objective of BIC is to help young people understand the importance of social inclusion and cultural diversity and build intercultural competences.The specific objectives are:- to provide young people with methods and strategies to overcome stereotyping and cultural shock by engaging them in debates, workshops and experiments and producing an interactive online guide for intercultural communication.- to contribute to capacity building and the organisational environment of youth organisations by exploring good practices in building and managing multicultural environments and producing an interactive online guide for NGOs, working with young people.To achieve the general and specific objectives, the following activities will be implemented:- Exploring good practices in building and managing multicultural and integrative environment in youth organisations- Collecting good examples and creating strategies for overcoming stereotypes, prejudices, stigmatisation, discrimination and cultural shock in young people when moving to another country or when living, working or studying with foreign nationals at home- Engaging young people in debates about social inclusion, stereotypes and their consequences- Producing interactive online guides: ‘Guide on Intercultural Communication for Young People’, which offers methods and strategies for dealing with the challenges in multicultural environment, and ‘Guide on Building Multicultural Environments for Youth Organisations’, contributing to capacity building of the NGOs, working with young peopleThe main target groups of BIC are young people aged 18-30 regardless their origins, social status, experience, and youth organisations working with people who are interested in or exposed to intercultural situations.The project foresees the direct involvement of at least 200 young people in the events, in which non-formal and informal methods of training will be used, and more than 3000 users of produced guides.BIC unites one higher school and five NGOs, working with young people. By conducting the project’s activities in six European countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Malta and Portugal), the results will have international relevance and will be multiplied in countries, outside the partnership. The European dimension of BIC will allow the transfer of good practices between youth organisations in different counties and will promote social inclusion, cultural diversity, tolerance and mutual understanding among young people with different cultural and social background.The expected tangible results include the production of two interactive online guides, the implementation of six local debates, two piloting sessions, one blended mobility of young people and one international forum.In long run, the project will produce the following intangible results:- increase the motivation of young people to explore other cultures and make them more confident to be what they are and not be afraid to show their differences- make young people aware of cultural diversity and the opportunities it opens to them- improve young people’s communication skills and expression competences- encourage young people to exchange their experience and ideas and to accept differences- improve the organisational management of youth organisations, especially when working with young people from different cultures (migrants, refugees)The expected results will have impact on several beneficiaries. As the main beneficiaries are young Europeans, the project dissemination activities will aim to impact on them by stimulating their attention towards social inclusion and cultural diversity. Partners aim to empower young people to travel and explore new cultures. The second group of beneficiaries are the youth organisations in Europe, which can implement new methods and strategies in building inclusive organisational environment in their structures. The project will also engage indirect beneficiaries, among all, local communities and civil society, schools and universities, public authorities.

Being a necessity of the modern world, speaking foreign languages is also one of the key skills putting VET learners ahead as a requirement of the international job market. According to CEDEFOP, the European Council Recommendation of 2018 defines foreign language skills as one of the key competences for life-long learning. Strengthening foreign language skills in initial and continuing VET is among the European Union priorities for 2015-2020. As a VET organization offering hospitality and catering education, fostering the professional language skills of our learners is one of the most important educational aims for our school. Being lack of language skills related to their professional field poses a huge obstacle for learners in finding job opportunities. Problems related to lacking foreign language skills are especially felt by the learners from front-desk and service departments since they are in face-to-face interaction with guests. Before the project, we have conducted a need analysis and implemented surveys on different groups: learners in initial VET, employees in continuing VET and VET staff. The results have shown us that we need to generate new resources and content enriched with digital tools for professional language education. The project aims to produce professional English resources on front-desk and service education for learners, employees and educators in initial and continuing VET. The project activities will serve to generate two intellectual outputs: an e-learning portal and a mobile application as open educational resources. To achieve these outputs, the project will be conducted in the partnership of five partners. Three VET schools with hospitality and catering departments will generate the pedagogical and linguistic content of the outputs. The fourth partner is a software company that will bring added value to the project by producing the technical infrastructure of the outputs. The last partner is a higher education institution with tourism and ICT departments which will act as a quality assurance unit for the project. This complementary partnership will enable the production of innovative educational resources. The intellectual outputs will serve as open educational resources fostering professional language education with a content-based and digitally enriched approach with a focus on speaking and communication skills in English. They will fill the resource gap in professional language teaching for hospitality and tourism fields in VET.Throughout the project, there will be three transnational meetings: a kick-off meeting in November 2020 in Turkey, a progress meeting in October 2021 in Romania and a final meeting in October 2022 in Portugal. The issues and activities related to project implementation and management will be handled in these meetings. Each partner organization will send 2 participants to each meeting. As a requirement of the meetings, participants will be assigned among the staff members taking responsibilities in project implementation and management.Two Learning Teaching and Training activities are planned in the project. These LTT activities will bring added value to the project as they are structured in a way contributing to the production of intellectual outputs.The first LTT activity will be held in April 2021 in Turkey. The linguistic and pedagogical content of the outputs will be completed in this activity. For this reason, 2 VET schools (from Romania and Portugal) and the higher education institution will send participants for this LTT activity. VET schools will assign two English teachers and 1 VET teacher as participants and the higher education institution will assign 1 tourism faculty member and 1 quality control member.The second LTT will be held in May 2021 in Greece. The technical infrastructure and design of the intellectual outputs will be completed with this LTT activity. Only the higher education partner (Vısshe Uchılıshte Po Menıdzhmant) will send 4 participants into this LTT activity. Three participants will be chosen among the faculty members from the ICT department and the other participant will be an assigned quality control expert.Multiplier events will be held by the 3 VET school partners after the finalization of intellectual outputs. They will serve as extensive dissemination activities strengthening the sustainability of the project results.The project outcomes are supposed to affect wider target groups such as VET learners, VET and language teachers, front-desk and service employees, sectoral stakeholders, associated partners, higher education institutions with tourism departments. Therefore, dissemination activities will be conducted in an extensive manner in order to ensure the sustainability of the outputs. We believe that the partnership will achieve the project results to reach policy/decision-makers in ministerial level and this will enable the use of intellectual outputs as education materials in VET education.