The COVID19 outbreak is an unprecedented situation, at least in modern times. For this reason, the project concept itself takes its premises in an innovative attempt to react to a novel situation. RIPEC project wants to valorize, empower and facilitate not only Erasmus students but also International Relation / Erasmus staff that usually are charged with all kinds of mobility procedures and high responsibility to carry them out successfully. RIPEC partnership believes that it is important to tackle the issues at the core of the project because Erasmus mobility is an integral part of the higher education process and thus the staff who makes this mobility possible as equally important as the academic teaching staff. RIPEC project wants to gather the experiences of these two communities with the purpose of sharing and recognizing the main challenges faced by both of them, identifying innovative solutions for Erasmus mobility in case of emergency and validate the most effective ones through quantitative and qualitative research. A uniform and shared innovative procedure for information flow management will then be shared among partners and all relevant stakeholders, to be used in the future in any case of emergency (natural distasters, terrorist attacks, etc). RIPEC partnership includes 2 Italian, 1 Spanish, 1 Greek, 1 Polish and 1 Czech Universities, in order to reflect geographical and organizational diversity within the Erasmus community and the target groups. The project will benefit from the active involvement of more than 30 staff from the partner Universities and the support of the Erasmus students' community (in some cases also in the form of associations) of at least 10 Universities (including partner ones and other within their network). The specific objectives of the project are: - To empower HEIs IR/E offices, on the one hand, and Erasmus students in mobility, on the other, by an innovative study and analysis to offer tools for effective decision-making and information-sharing: - To improve the connection between HEIs IR/E offices and incoming / outbound students in case of emergency according to the Erasmus+ Students Charter and national / EU emergency regulations; - To enrich the staff knowledge and provide them with new data and ICT tools for emergency management - To modernize the mobility management process introducing innovative methods as ICT and audio-visual. In order to achieve these objectives, the partnership will perform several activities, leading to the following outputs: 1. Surveys to students and to staff with regard to their experience during COVID19 outbreak impacting on mobility management, their need and expectations and the most innovative and effective solutions suggested thereof; 2. E-platform gathering and rationalizing official documents, University’s internal protocols, good practices among partner Universities, media contributions, Embassies and National Agencies communications, on the project topic, easily accessible and browsable according to a set of keywords and filters; 3. Web forum for public discussion, moderated by the partners and open to all interested stakeholders; 4. Videointerviews / testimonals to University managers, teachers, students and staff; 5. Blueprint on Erasmus innovative mobility management in case of emergency for students and staff At the project’s completion, the Erasmus community will benefit from two main results: 1) a shared discussion of needs, expectations and objectives from the two target groups with the aim of reconciling trust and increasing connection between the two Erasmus mobility protagonists; 2) wide number of experiences and of most effective practices for mobility management in case of emergency, should the need for such measures arise in the future; 3) an innovative procedure and related supporting tools for managing Erasmus mobility in case of emergency, dedicated to Erasmus students in mobility and staff.
The main goal of RIPEC project was to identify common issues and solutions through research, and to implement creative methods and tools for handling emergency management of Erasmus mobility. In order to develop a new management protocol for emergency situations affecting Erasmus mobility, two elements were always present, i.e., the importance of listening to the experiences of those who dealt with emergency situations on a daily basis, giving them visibility, and the use of innovative IT tools that could be used easily in a period where everything was constantly changing. The specific objectives that the project wanted to achieve were the following: - Provide HEIs' IROs departments, as well as E+ students in mobility, with the tools and processes necessary for efficient decision-making and information-sharing during emergencies; - Enriching staff expertise and giving them new data and ICT tools for emergency management; - Improving the communication between HEIs IR/E offices and incoming/outgoing students in case of emergency in accordance with the Erasmus+ Students Charter and national/EU emergency rules. - To update the mobility management procedure by incorporating cutting-edge techniques like ICT and audio-visual.
At the time of the RIPEC project submission the COVID19 pandemic was at its peak, an unprecedented event that posed a real risk to the continuation of Erasmus-related activities, both for students and for International Relation Officers (IROs). On a boarder spectrum it was a matter of relevance for all the Institutions that relied and still relies on international relations to foster the improvement of higher education. In this context the RIPEC project wanted to propose innovative solutions for Erasmus mobility in case of emergency. The needs the project addressed were multiple: the uncertainty of the students and staffers involved towards the then current situation, which were addressed with scientific data and research carried out with questionnaires and real statistics, the feeling of no longer having a safe place to confront and ask questions, which the project responded to with a platform with a public virtual forum and an integrated chatbot for use by both students and IROs. Finally, the need to restart and have concrete examples of best practices to follow, gathered in the video interviews and blue print, produced in the second part of the project, coinciding with the resumption of normal activities.