This project responds to the need for and current absence of a truly comprehensive curriculum on social security. The latter means that all disciplinary (law, economics and social policy) and national perspectives are combined into one EU-wide curriculum. The only way to develop a widely accessible, comprehensive and European curriculum is to work with the virtual exchange of courses between different European universities. The project therefore envisages three objectives: 1) developing a joint format for virtual course exchange, 2) creating a joint curriculum and 3) broadening academic and professional networks. In order to attain these objectives, the project activities are divided into six Intellectual Outputs: 1) surveys of needs, expectations, best practices and evaluation amongst the organizations and participants involved, 2) IT development of a format as well as the selection of on-line tools for teacher-student interaction and an open on-line platform, 3) specialized pedagogic and didactic support, 4) a feasibility study into the establishment of a fully recognized and accredited blended Master in European Social Security, 5) joint curriculum-building and 6) dissemination and networking. The participating organizations are selected on the basis of their expertise to lead at least one of the Intellectual Outputs as well as their offer of courses for virtual exchange. The four participating organizations are universities (the KU Leuven, the University of Ljubljana and the University of Copenhagen) and one research center (CECL Athens). A second ring of satellite contributors is foreseen. They will not implement an Intellectual Output but will offer and accept courses for virtual exchange. From these different organisations, teachers are asked to redevelop their courses for virtual exchange, based on IT, pedagogic/didactic trainings, formats and support. These courses are open to registered students, with a selection of courses also offered to broader target groups (e.g. PhD researchers, professionals, policy-makers). As regards the management of project activities, a bottom-up approach was chosen. This means that each of the four participating organisations is responsible for one (or more) Intellectual Output(s) and jointly decide in the Project Board. However, to allow for daily management, the KU Leuven will coordinate the project, as delegated by the Project Board to the Project Manager. As regards the implementation of the learning activities themselves, the methodology shall be based on a strong pedagogic, didactic and technical format developed by experts in these areas. They shall combine these different aspects into one student-centered approach. The methodology for redeveloping current courses for virtual exchange is therefore that the newly developed format is explained to the involved teachers in trainings, after which they will implement it and can always count on the support and quality monitoring by the technical and pedagogic/didactic professionals. In the end, this project envisages two broad results: 1) multidisciplinary and cross-border course exchange on European social security based on a format and 2) a feasibility study into a fully recognized and accredited blended Master in European social security. The impact of the project can be understood to occur at different levels. 1) For the involved teachers, the impact will amount to new IT and pedagogic/didactic skills for the improvement of their teaching. This shall also have an impact on their professional skills in a wider sense, namely entailing more transversal IT and communication skills. 2) For the involved students and other learners, the impact will be an increased exposure to European perspectives on social security, more IT skills, more links to the professional world (through the diverse group of learners) and more possibilities for their role in social security capacity-building in developing and emerging countries. 3) For the participating organisations, this project will impact on their ability to innovate the curriculum and will enable them to exchange knowhow. 4) For other relevant stakeholders, such as European and national policy-makers, the results from the project's experiences will enhance their capability to understand the challenges and opportunities of innovative learning pathways. The longer term benefits of this project for the participating organisations is that they may offer a fully integrated programme on European social security for many years to follow. In that sense, this project is the beginning of a process in which more organisations may join this initiative and more students can benefit from this innovative form of teaching. The long term benefits are also the increased likelihood that the experiences may help this type of blended teaching in other educational networks, the increased priority for it in policy-making and the increased knowhow on social security.
The EFESE project (European Format for the Exchange of Social Security Education) was conceived to respond to the absence of a truly comprehensive curriculum on social security; in other words, a curriculum that combines several disciplinary (e.g., law, economics, and social policy) and national perspectives into one EU-wide curriculum. To develop a widely accessible, comprehensive and European curriculum, EFESE created a format for course design that could be virtually disseminated and exchanged between different European universities. The format fosters a blended learning approach and suggests a structure for blended courses. Blended learning combines online and residential learning; consequently, the physical mobility of teachers and students can be partially replaced by online mobility. This strategy decreases the financial and time constraints that usually come with 'traditional' mobility, partly enabling the participants to 'be mobile while staying local'. Another advantage is that blended learning is a student- centred approach; the student progresses at his/her own pace and chooses the content and delivery method (e.g., video, text, PowerPoint, etc.) according to his/her individual background, needs, and interests. Apart from testing and widely disseminating the format, EFESE also trained teaching staff (two intensive programmes) and launched an open access online manual on blended learning. Moreover, EFESE also offered two intensive programmes for learners (i.e., university students) in which the EFESE format was fully implemented. In total, the format was applied to the teaching practice in more than 20 cases. The three project objectives (i.e., developing a joint format for virtual course exchange, building a joint curriculum and broadening academic and professional networks) were attained through several activities organised into six intellectual outputs: IO1: Surveys of needs, expectations, best practices and evaluation amongst the organisations and participants involved. IO2: IT development of a format as well as the selection of on-line tools for teacher-student interaction and an open on-line platform. IO3: Specialized pedagogic and didactic support. IO4: Feasibility study on the establishment of a fully recognized and accredited joint master degree in Social Security. IO5: Joint curriculum building. IO6: Dissemination and networking. Initially, the project partners were the KU Leuven (Belgium), CECL (Greece), the University of Ljubljana-UL (Slovenia), and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark); the latter being replaced in January 2016 by the University of Groningen, RUG (Netherlands). The impact of the project included the exchange of knowledge and expertise in the fields of blended learning and social security between various academic and research institutions. More specifically, the project set the basis for the exchange of educational material between universities and experts through the EFESE format, a joint curriculum in social security and a strong network. University students and researchers were able to increase their exposure to various European perspectives on social security through the virtual delivery of courses, assisting them to enhance their capabilities to work in an EU or international environment. Furthermore, the intensive training events had an impact on the knowledge and skills of teachers and students on issues surrounding blended learning and ICT methodologies. Professionals and policy makers benefited by actively being involved in the EFESE network, participating in the multiplier events and accessing the project outcomes. The project made an innovative contribution to enhancing the concept of mobility towards the virtual dissemination of educational material. In the future, more and more academics and tutors can gradually benefit from the EFESE format by applying it to their teaching activities. Moreover, the joint curriculum proposed by EFESE can further be implemented as a joint programme allowing the involved universities to further enrich their educational relationships. The strong EFESE network, consisting of universities and research institutions, can enhance the base of expertise and can further disseminate the EFESE format throughout and beyond Europe. This will result in more organisations joining this initiative and more students and teachers enjoying the benefits of this innovative form of teaching.