SUMMARY OF BEST+ Context: Administrative staff exchange has already been established as a welcomed procedure in European universities. It provides staff with motivation and practical skills, at the time that is seen as a way to develop institutional partnerships helping universities to “internationalise”. However, it is not easy for staff to get away from their duties and engage in a staff training for their usual time of duration of a week. Staff members also report on the lack of content-based course activities that could help them improve their competences during their trainings. Objectives: BEST+ project has innovated in the way university staff members engage in staff trainings and develop their competences. To achieve this goal, a cost and time efficient new approach called blended staff mobility has been piloted, combining traditional on-site staff mobility with online activities. Three courses have been designed and implemented, as described below. Number and profile of participating organisations: A total of seven institutions have participated in the project BEST+. Four public universities: University of Alcalá, ES (with the role of coordinating institution), University of Eastern Finland (FI), University of Latvia (LV) and University of Lodz (PL) together with the Erasmus Student Network (BE), the European University Foundation (LU) and NUVOLE (IT), as the software developer. The European University Foundation is a network of 35 universities (19 members and 16 associate partners), which facilitates dissemination and sustainability of the project. Description of undertaken main activities: An online platform has been developed by NUVOLE to serve as a learning platform for staff trainings that can be shared by all university staff members working in international relations: http://blendedmobility.eu/ BEST+ partners have created three courses on relevant topics oriented to develop staff competences and enhance the quality of staff mobility, tackling the following issues: Intercultural competences, international attractiveness of universities and international student experience. The courses can be can further developed and the content re-used for future staff trainings. Additionally, the project has devised guidelines for blended staff mobility, which describe the different methodologies that can be used to efficiently run blended staff mobility courses and to implement them in the online platform. The project has the ambition to have a significant impact on EU policies, being part of an important policy shift towards a more digital Higher Education that is globally competitive. Digital professional development and strong international relations are two important pillars to achieve this goal. Concrete policy recommendations have been brought forward and discussed at different forums, such as the final conference in the European Social and Economic Committee (24.10.2018) or EAIE Conference 2017, with the aims to impact the follow up programme of Erasmus+ and to create a mind shift within university leaderships on how they train their staff members. Results and impact: The consortium has tested the three courses developed in three different staff trainings. The course "Intercultural competences" has been led by University of Eastern Finland (FI) and tested at University of Latvia (LV), "International attractiveness of universities" has been led by University of Alcala and was tested at University of Eastern Finland (FI) and last, "International student experience" has been led by ESN and University of Lodz (PL) and tested at University of Lodz (PL). EUF has been very active with dissemination and support to all the activities in the three courses and the final conference, which served well the purpose to disseminate the final project results to a target audience of experts at EESC, Brussels, such as T. Babrauskiené, (Member of the European Economic and Social Committee), J. Gehringer (Unit Higher Education, European Commission), K. Goeman (KU-Leuven) and Piet Henderikx (EADTU). The online-platform has been implemented by Nuvole and is hosted by EUF, which will continue hosting it. Around 100 staff members in international relations have been involved in the three courses for the piloting phase but the impact has extended further to their colleagues and contacts and to the contacts reached by the consortium partners and their networks. As an example, the learning platform has been used after the BEST+ project has finished to implement a staff training at University of Alcalá in November 2018 and another one in Eötvös Loránd, Budapest, which will take place in May 2019. The project is also being disseminated through the Utrecht Network and there will be a seminar in April 2019 in University of Latvia, after the end of the project. Longer-term benefits: The community of HE staff will benefit from a platform containing courses that can be further developed for their future use. This community-driven content ensures that courses will remain up to date as new developments in the field occur over time. It will also hopefully engage the community actively, increasing international cooperation between university staff members. The development of this new blended format for professional development will not only boost their everyday motivation and involvement in the international community but also have a positive effect on the quality of work, which will impact thousands of international students. This project can complement other projects for staff training, such as the REALISE https://realise-erasmusplus.fr/ and further contribute to raising institutional awareness of the added value of staff mobility and its contribution to HEI’s internationalization strategies.
Context: Administrative staff exchange has been established as a welcomed procedure in European universities. It provides staff with motivation and practical skills, at the time that is seen as a way to develop institutional partnerships helping universities to “internationalise”. However, it is not easy for staff to get away from their duties and engage in a staff training for their usual time of duration of a week. Staff members also report to miss more content-based course activities that could help them improve their competences during their trainings. Objectives: The BEST+ projects innovates the way university staff members working in international relations engage in staff trainings and develop their competences. To achieve this goal, a cost and time efficient new approach called blended staff mobility has been piloted, combining traditional on-site staff mobility with online activities. Number and profile of participating organisations A total of seven institutions have participated in the project BEST+. Four public universities: University of Alcalá, ES (with the role of coordinating institution), University of Eastern Finland (FI), University of Latvia (LV) and University of Lodz (PL) together with the Erasmus Student Network (BE), the European University Foundation (LU) and NUVOLE (IT), as the software developer. Description of undertaken main activities An online platform has been developed by NUVOLE to serve as a learning platform for staff trainings that can be shared by all university staff members working in international relations: http://blendedmobility.eu/ BEST+ partners have created three courses on relevant topics oriented to develop staff competences and enhance the quality of staff mobility, tackling the following issues: Intercultural competences, international attractiveness of universities and international student experience. The courses can be can further developed and the content re-used for future staff trainings. Additionally, the project has devised guidelines for blended staff mobility, which describe the different methodologies that can be used to efficiently run blended staff mobility courses and to implement them in the online platform. The project has the ambition to have a significant impact on EU policies, being part of an important policy shift towards a more digital Higher Education that is globally competitive. Digital professional development and strong international relations are two important pillars to achieve this goal. Concrete policy recommendations have been brought forward and discussed at different forums, such as the final conference in the European Social and Economic Committee (24.10.2018) or EAIE Conference 2017, with the aims to impact the follow up programme of Erasmus+ and to create a mind shift within university leaderships on how they train their staff members. Results and impact: The consortium has tested the three courses developed in three different staff trainings. The course "Intercultural competences" has been led by University of Eastern Finland (FI) and tested at University of Latvia (LV), "International attractiveness of universities" has been led by University of Alcala and was tested at University of Eastern Finland (FI) and last, "International student experience" has been led by ESN and University of Lodz (PL) and tested at University of Lodz (PL). EUF has been very active supporting all the activities and organising the three courses and the final conference, which served well the purpose to disseminate the final project results to a target audience of experts at EESC, Brussels, such as T. Babrauskiené, (Member of the European Economic and Social Committee), J. Gehringer (Unit Higher Education, European Commission), K. Goeman (KU-Leuven) and Piet Henderikx (EADTU). The online-platform has been implemented by Nuvole and is and will be hosted by EUF. Around 100 staff members in international relations have been involved in the three courses for the piloting phase but the impact has extended further to their colleagues and contacts and to the contacts reached by the consortium partners and their networks. As an example, the learning platform has been used after the BEST+ project has finished to implement a staff training at University of Alcalá in November 2018. Longer-term benefits: The community of HE staff will benefit from a platform containing courses that can be further developed for their future use. This community-driven content ensures that courses will remain up to date as new developments in the field occur over time. It will also hopefully engage the community actively, increasing international cooperation between university staff members. The development of this new blended format for professional development will not only boost their everyday motivation and involvement in the international community but also have a positive effect on the quality of work, which will impact thousands of international students