1. Individual improvement of the professional and personal competences of each individual The aim of the mobilities was to improve the performance of each individual employee in order to also benefit from the expansion of competences as the city. In addition to the expansion of professional knowledge and intercultural competences and the improvement of foreign language skills, the focus for trainers was on the exchange of training methods and the promotion of the willingness to supervise our trainees. 2 Increasing internationalisation of the city administration as an organisation The growing internationalisation demands increasing international competences from the employees. There is a need to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of internationalisation. In addition, international topics should be increasingly included into training through mobilities of training staff. 3. strategic international knowledge transfer and implementation in the departments Especially in the course of the follow-up of the mobility, the acquired knowledge should be made available to as many colleagues as possible through strategic exchange formats and publication of the results in order to share the experiences of the partner municipalities.
As the second largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state capital Düsseldorf is characterised by a high degree of internationality. In addition to representing the city's interests at European level, the focus is on professional exchange and the development of joint projects - also within the framework of our city partnerships. Migration movements are constantly internationalising the city's citizenship and creating an increasingly changed profile of requirements for the administration. Our tasks increasingly require more international and intercultural competence and knowledge of European affairs. In all areas of direct service, a wide range of foreign language skills and intercultural competences are required to optimise quality. In order to face these growing and currently very relevant challenges in the best possible way, we have decided to implement the project within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme in 2019. Furthermore, the competition for qualified personnel in the course of demographic change was another motivation for applying for the programme. The aim was to increase the attractiveness of the city of Düsseldorf as an employer, especially for future trainees, but also for employees.