Contents and background of the project: During the previous IP project “Mediation in Civil and Criminal cases to Foster European Wide Settlements of Disputs” (2013 – 2014) the partner universities came to the conclusion that the students in EU countries and governmental and non-governmental organizations working in judicial sector lack academic and practical study materials and a comprehensive book on mediation. Therefore the project team decided to gather information on needs of involved benefiting institutions and bodies to be address during the particular project. The project team aims at drafting of widely used and publicly available study materials and e-book on mediation. The objective is to create a network of practitioners and academics of mediation, to address their education raising needs, to elaborate study materials and e-book, to organize disseminating seminars and conference in participating countries, to organize IP course on mediation for multinational group of students, to test the project results and to publish materials and e-book in the internet. 4 universities are participating in the project from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Italy. The following methods will be used during the project: - direct interview and interactive discussion method (to be used with future beneficiaries of the project, to clarify their topical study needs); - academic discussion method (to be used among project partners during preparation of the study materials, e-book and approximation of results); - analytic method (to be used during research of study materials); - practical pedagogical method (to be used during IP course with students and seminar participants); - practically professional method (to be used in communication with governmental bodies and NGOs while disseminating study materials and e-book).
Mediation is an effective interdisciplinary method of dispute resolution (where legal studies, entrepreneurship, administration and psychology converge), widely known in countries such as Canada, Australia and Great Britain, but not so well established in continental Europe where the use of mediation is just starting to spread. Students in EU countries and also governmental and non-governmental organizations working in judicial sector lack academic and practical study materials and a comprehensive book on mediation. Therefore the project team decided to gather information on needs of involved benefiting institutions and bodies to be address during the particular project. The project team aims at drafting of widely used and publicly available study materials and e-book on mediation. The objective is to create a network of practitioners and academics of mediation, to address their education raising needs, to elaborate study materials and e-book, to organize disseminating seminars and conference in participating countries, to organize Intensive course on mediation for multinational group of students, to test the project results and to publish materials and e-book in the internet. 4 universities are participating in the project from Latvia - Turiba University, Lithuania - Vilnius University, Estonia - Tallinn University of Technology and Italy - Genoa University. The objective of this project has expanded towards creating a multinational network of academics to continue to build close cooperation teams, prepare teaching materials for mediation studies and to organize a mediation course geared at cross-cultural groups of students that will contribute to the continuous improvement of its content. In the 2nd part of the project all study materials and articles prepared by the academic team were published in its final version. This project directly addresses the needs of at least four groups - students studying law and psychology, governmental organizations involved in administration of justice, NGOs interested in the amicable settlement of disputes, and academics teaching conflict management and dispute resolution methods. In frame of the project we created 4 main outputs: E-book on mediation, additional self study materials (Self-evaluation questions, PowerPoint presentations, group tasks and reading materials), video lectures about different mediation sub-topics and network of mediation experts. All materials are published in project webpage http://mediation.turiba.lv