Kingston University continues to successfully implement Erasmus+ thanks to its solid practices, which have been created and developed through many years of participation in the predecessors to the current programme. Mobility for both students and staff has been consolidated at an institutional level and this, coupled with extensive promotional activities, has led to an increase in participation over time. In 17/18 we saw a 50% increase in mobility from 16/17, however this year we have not seen the same growth. Although we have still seen an 18% increase on the 16/17 numbers. There are many potential reasons for this slight decline, not least the impact and uncertainty of Brexit. Due to uncertainties surrounding Brexit at the time when students were applying for the Erasmus+ programme, we saw an overall drop in applications from what was initially anticipated. At the time of the funding bid we made the estimation based on the actual numbers of applications we had received. Unfortunately in the months after the selection process, the uncertainty continued and as such we saw a large number of students withdraw from the programme, which then meant our funding needs diminished. The progress in mobility participation has been reinforced by the implementation of the Study Abroad International Learning strategy 2015-2020. Within this strategy is a key target of 15% of students graduating with an international learning experience during their degree. This target does not just include Erasmus+ participants but also those undertaking international mobility outside of the EU, which garners similar numbers to those through Erasmus+, as well as short-term mobility options. The short-term mobility options are particularly of interest for those students who are undertaking accredited courses, which do not usually allow for long term mobility options.A large majority of the degree programmes offered at Kingston University allow students to participate in a full year of mobility abroad. It is worth highlighting however that at Kingston, we do not have any courses requiring compulsory mobility, or foreign language components, and as such, it is considered a success that the number of mobility participants has continued to grow.Of the diverse student population at Kingston, a high percentage are from backgrounds defined as Widening Participation, which is a challenge for the promotion of opportunities abroad. In order to overcome this, the Study Abroad International Learning (SAIL) Office, with the help of the faculties and other student services departments, offer a comprehensive promotional campaign throughout the year to encourage students to participate in studying or working abroad. These include, Open Days, Welcome Week activities, Careers Fairs, faculty led events, information sessions targeted to specific subject areas, as well as general ‘how to apply’ sessions and an annual Study Abroad Fair. All these activities highlight the importance of mobility in general but more importantly the accessibility of the different opportunities to all students and the varying levels of support available to them.Kingston also continues to use Widening Participation funds from its Access Agreement to subsidise travel and visa costs (where applicable) for those wishing to study or work abroad during their degree. We do not however make targeted promotions as all students are given the same information about opportunities and support available so no one feels singled out or excluded.The benefits of the programme among our students are made clear by the increasing interest in the opportunities available to them. As more and more students have a great experience abroad and are coming back and sharing those experiences, the more the numbers will continue to rise. Many of the students come back and continue into their final year with a lot more confidence in what they are doing and what they want to achieve. Statistically, research into student's academic achievements further highlights the importance of mobility:- 62% of students who were anticipated to achieve a Third Class degree before their time abroad went on to achieve a better degree classification.- 60% of students who were anticipated to achieve a 2:2 degree before their time abroad went on to achieve a 2:1 or First Class degree.-30% of students who were anticipated to achieve a 2:1 degree before their time abroad went on to achieve a better degree classificationLonger term benefits of mobility are more appreciated by university staff and this has led to an increase in support given to students and a lot more encouragement mentioned by students than in the past. In particular the support of academic staff is important to help change the minds of those students who do not show a clear tendency to go abroad.

Promoting Continuing Professional Education in Moldova (MD) in the sense of fostering Lifelong Learning is one of the priorities stated in the national Strategy Education 2020 and Code of Education. As a consequence thereof, teaching staff should be well prepared to these pedagogical challenges, which increasingly require the implementation of innovative and participative learning-teaching approaches enabling teachers to provide their courses more efficiently in different socio-pedagogical contexts, if primary, VET, HE, or LLL.Since pedagogy becomes more interdisciplinary, especially with a view to introduction of web & ICT technologies in teaching & learning, appropriate skills are increasingly required from teacher educators. Due to the lack of trainers both in MD, who can teach other to design and implement e-learning courses as well as to create learning situations in which trainees are encouraged to outline their own objectives and to operate with increasing autonomy, the present project proposal aims at developing and introduction of two new modules “e-teaching for teacher educators” and “Innovative pedagogical approaches”. These modules will be tested, accredited by National Agency of Quality Assurance in Professional Education, and integrated into the learning programs of CPE for teachers at participating Moldavan PU. To facilitate wider implementation of e-technologies in CPE, 5 existing CPE courses will be selected, redesigned according to the blended learning approach, tested, and serve as references for further modernization of curricula.Appropriate technical, didactical, methodical, and organisational support of teaching staff and trainees by creating and utilizing eLearning-based courses will be ensured by Centres of CPE (CCPE), which will be established and networked during the project life at MD PU. Network will be supported by e-platform to facilitate open exchange of e-learning/e-teaching experiences.

"This project is between Kingston University London (KUL) and Universities in both Ukraine and Moldova. For Ukraine there was mainly academic staff teaching mobility (68 teaching mobilities) between Kingston University London, UK and two Universities in Lviv, Ukraine, with additionally a small number (9) of targeted incoming training mobilities for Ukrainian academics in support of their institutional objectives, focussed on active learning, the student experience, education internationalisation and quality assurance.. For Moldova the project focused on pedagogical training (13 mobilities) and some (3) pedagogical teaching practice mobilities focused on academic staff development programmes. Hence the two countries are mostly reported on separately except where Kingston University institutional processes and ERASMUS+ hosting commonality occurred. The planned mobility budget was fully allocated with some transfer from outgoing to incoming mobility for Ukraine and also a reallocation of some teaching mobility to training mobility for Ukraine at the request of the partner institution.KUL has had, since 2015 an institutional strategy to increase international student and staff mobility in the period up to 2020.This project had no student mobility, but for Ukraine one objective achieved was to develop, and apply in January 2018 for ERASMUS+ student ICM. Subsequent to being awarded that project (2018-1-UK01-KA107-047120) KUL has successfully applied for a combined staff and student KA107 project (2019-1-UK01-KA107-061076) with both incoming and outgoing Ukraine student mobility. (In 2019 - already achieved : Incoming 21 ; Outgoing 13 ). . Both country projects had the following overarching objectives for all participating universities:-Objectives:- Support internationalisation of the curriculum- Professional and personal development (teaching and learning) of staff- Enhancing university visibility worldwide Number and type/profile of participants:Ukraine:- 76 planned mobilities, 77 completed (58 incoming, 19 outgoing), one extra using an organisational support (OS) grant transferMoldova - 20 planned mobilities 16 completed.Participants were academic staff, and overall 40% were female, most were junior or intermediate staff.Inbound Participants - were a range of junior, intermediate and senior academic staff with a focus on staff development or a demonstrated interest in internationalising the curriculum.Outbound Participants - were a mixture of teaching and learning staff, faculty teaching academics.No mobility applicants declared any disability or special needs,Partner Country Specifics:-Ukraine Context:Since 2014 Ukraine has been engaged in a programme of internationalisation of higher education with emphasis on quality assurance and the student educational experience. Priority subject areas at the time of starting this project included engineering, environmental science and entrepreneurship. Subsequently security became a priority for Ukraine and this project included some cyber security teaching mobility in year 1.At the time of applying for this project a British Council leadership programme visit took place to KUL leading to senior management declaring Ukraine a target country for network development, focussed on Lviv. This remains, in 2019, a declared strategic priority partnership for Kingston University, with two further KA107 projects in progress with the same universities as in this project.Moldova (Republic of)Context:Higher Education (HE) teachers' training is a key priority for Moldova (MD) within the Erasmus+ Programme, with a focus on improving proficiency in curriculium design, pedagogy, and innovation. This priority is reflected in the national policy document ""Education Development Strategy for 2014-2020 ""Education-2020"" http://www.edu.gov.md/ro/content/politici-educationale-sectoriale. Universities are aware of the need to introduce innovative pedagogical approach and methodologies - particularly related to technology-enhanced learning, curriculum design, and quality assurance and enhancement mechanisms and processes. To help achieve this is goal, Moldovan universities are developing strategic partnerships with EU universities to provide staff with opportunities to visit EU institutions and to collaborate with EU colleagues in research, teaching and training.Activities undertaken:Outgoing - Delivery of professional development workshops on the topics of active learning, inclusive teaching practice, internationalising the curriculum. Participation in ERASMUS conference.Incoming - Delivery of professional development workshops on flipped classroom approaches, legacies of education and emotional intelligence and student diversity. Participation in teaching and learning conferences, institutional visits to other HEIs, round tables with students. No one had any disadvantaged situation, and hence none are recorded as participating in this project."

The increasing amount and availability of collected data (cancer imaging) and the development of novel technological tools based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), provide unprecedented opportunities for better cancer detection and classification, image optimization, radiation reduction, and clinical workflow enhancement. The INCISIVE project aims to address three major open challenges in order to explore the full potential of AI solutions in cancer imaging: (1) AI challenges unique to medical imaging, (2) Image labelling and annotation and (3) Data availability and sharing. In order to do that INCISIVE plans to develop and validate: (1) an AI-based toolbox that enhances the accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, interpretability and cost-effectiveness of existing cancer imaging methods, (2) an automated-ML based annotation mechanism to rapidly produce training data for machine learning research and (3) a pan-European repository federated repository of medical images, that will enable the secure donation and sharing of data in compliance with ethical, legal and privacy demands, increasing accessibility to datasets and enabling experimentation of AI-based solutions. The INCISIVE models and analytics will utilize various cancer imaging scans, biological data and EHRs, and will be trained with 1 PB of available data provided by 8 partners within the project. INCISIVE solution will be investigated in four validation studies for Breast, Prostate, Colorectal and Lung Cancer, taking place in 8 pilot sites, from 5 countries (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Serbia and Spain), with participation of at least 2,600 patients and a total duration of 1.5 year. INCISIVE moves beyond the state of the art, by improving sensitivity and specificity of lower cost scanning methods, accurately predicting the tumor spread, evolution and relapse, enhancing interpretability of results and “democratizing” imaging data.

The integration of edge computing, advanced 5G connectivity, and decentralized processing drives the widespread deployment of private edge ecosystems capable to reshape numerous industry sectors. However, unlocking the full potentials of edge-level intelligent management requires concerted efforts in platform development and cross-sector collaboration. COP-PILOT, develops a Collaborative Open Platform framework geared towards orchestrating end-to-end services across diverse industry domains. In crafting an open platform, COP-PILOT provides a flexible solution designed to effectively manage various industry sectors while ensuring robust security, automation, and intelligence features. Regarding interoperability, the framework seamlessly integrates with underlying technologies, ranging from IoT platforms to core infrastructure, facilitating collaboration across the compute continuum. Furthermore, COP-PILOT empowers the development of advanced cross-sector applications by offering support for cutting-edge network services, thereby enabling heightened security, resource management, and automation capabilities. The implementation strategy revolves around two primary directions: enabling platform implementation and real environment integration. For the former, COP-PILOT adopts a modular orchestration approach, simplifying the onboarding of complex applications through a user-friendly generative AI interface. This approach includes integration with multi-tiered data processing, policy-driven optimization, and dynamic reasoning capabilities, ensuring alignment with prevailing industry standards. In terms of real environment integration, the platform is deployed across four large piloting clusters, addressing a diverse array of edge paradigms. These use cases span across energy, smart city, agriculture, and industrial manufacturing sectors, fostering the development of cross-sector applications in mobility, logistics, and resource management.