As of November 2019, 3,2 mln of young Europeans were still unemployed. Yet, 40% of EU employers report that they have difficulties in finding people with the skills they need to grow and innovate, stressing that applicants often lack transversal skills. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have a long experience in preparing at best their students on vertical knowledge, though they still need to improve their offer and find new ways to provide students with transversal skills for employability, success in social and civic life as well as innovation, competitiveness and social fairness. Music is a universal language that can help foster the development of key competences and interpersonal, communication, cognitive and personal skills. Music is also part of the European cultural heritage EU key stakeholders want to preserve, while promoting EU cultural diversity. In addition, culture and music can have a pivotal role to bridge the cultural and socio-economic gaps and contribute to a more inclusive society. Some HEIs do propose non-formal and informal activities in the music field with their orchestras and choirs. Some of these actually make the link between these activities and the development of transversal skills. Some others do not. However, there is no standard practice to make use of music to foster key competences and transversal skills of HE students. That said, the MEETS project has its primary objective to contribute to the development of key competences and transversal skills of HE students, eventually fostering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Specific objectives include: 1. Promote the role music can have in developing HE students’ key competences and transversal skills 2. Enhance the employability of HE students 3. Contribute to the evidence-base of how music non-formal and informal activities in HEIs can contribute to the development and validation of transversal skills 4. Encourage HE students to identify, document and assess the transversal skills acquired through music, as a lifelong practice 5. Preserve and promote EU musical diverse heritage 6. Support the development of EU identity and culture by promoting the development of new music 7. Promote quality cultural activities for the society at large The main result of the project is the development of the MEETS method to use music-based activities in university and college orchestras and choirs to develop HE students’ transversal skills. The methodology and activities envisaged to achieve it include: • IO 1, the mapping report of HE initiatives using orchestras and choirs as non-formal and informal activities to build transversal skills, highlighting good practices and lessons learned that will serve as a basis for developing the MEETS method in the most effective and relevant way. • IO 2, the online validation tool to assess transversal skills acquired in musical activities, will support students in the validation process of skills they have been developing and acquiring while performing music-based activities in orchestras or choirs and will represent the starting point for implementing the MEETS method. • IO 3, the MEETS training platform, will provide an innovative and more attractive methodology to develop transversal skills, providing HEIs as well as university and college orchestras and choirs with ready-to-use training material for the enhancement of key competence through the use of music. The project foresees a number of activities to reach the expected results. The MEETS method will be implemented in 4 different countries, namely Italy, Spain, Sweden and Estonia, engaging at least 100 members of the orchestras and the choir of partner organizations. Rehearsals, concerts open to the public, mentoring and peer-to-peer activities will constitute the activities undertaken to test the MEETS method. Students and conductors will be involved in mobility activities, visiting partner orchestras and the choir in a view to exchange approaches and methods of participating in music-based non-formal and informal activities on campus, enriching the final MEETS method. A contest for young EU conductors will be also launched with the two-fold objective of promoting EU culture and engage student members of orchestras and choirs with new repertoire. The project will have an impact on HE students, as they will be able to develop their transversal skills while performing music-based non-formal and informal activities on campus. HEIs will enrich and complement their educational offer, closing the existing skills gap between what formal learning gives (mainly field-specific knowledge) and what labour market is increasingly demanding (transversal skills and adaptability). Citizens will benefit from the project by enjoying the concerts promoted, while society will become more inclusive thanks to the competences acquired by HE students involved in university and college orchestras and choirs.
The main objective of the project was to develop a method that could enhance the development of TS of university students through their engagement in music-based activities, more precisely through their participation in university choirs and orchestras. In so doing, students would acquire essential skills to enhance their employability and acquire a lifelong practice of assessing their progress in different fields of life. Moreover, the MEETS project had the objective to raise the awareness of other HE organisations with music ensembles on the potential that music has to build the TS of their students, thus promoting cultural life on campus and recognise music as a key extra-curricular activity. Another objective pursued was that of preserving and promoting European cultural heritage, specifically of symphonic, chamber and choir music, from the past, the present and the future, across different EU regions. Finally, the project intended to raise the awareness of the public at large on the importance that music can play in one's life, especially in preparing the youth in facing the socio-economic challenges ahead of them, by equipping them with the right skills to be prepared and, hopefully, successful.
The MEETS project intended to tackle skills mismatch and give HE students the opportunity to build soft skills that would enhance their chance to get a job and succeed in their life, beyond their technical expertise. Partner organisations were all aware of the potential of music, performed on campus outside formal curricular activities, yet they never had the chance to either prove it though research or standardise a method that, by building on musical activities, could actually increase the transversal skills (TS) of their students. With this leverage, partners aimed also at reinforcing and advocating for the importance of having musical activities on campus. Finally, partners felt the need to have a transnational partnership to broaden their views and knowledge on two aspects: on one side, they were willing to discover and learn new approaches to music in non-professional, university-based music ensembles, how other similar organisations worked with students and kept them engaged. On the other side, partners felt that, by engaging in such a project, they could provide opportunities to their students to discover the European cultural heritage and increase their openness to other views and ways of working together.