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Mobility of higher education students and staff supported by internal policy funds (KA131-HED) - Coordinator: CEU GMBH

2022-1-AT01-KA131-HED-0000640692022Mobility of higher education students and stafffinalized
Countries: AT|BE|CZ|DK|FI|FR|DE|EL|HU|IE|IT|NL|PL|RO|SI|ES|SE|UK · Grant: €200,417

Objectives

After the successful implementation of our KA131 2021 project as a new private higher education institution in Austria, amid moving the institution and most of its personnel between countries and the effects of the world pandemic, our main goals concerning the current project were to continue to operate the Erasmus+ Program on high standards at our institution, after 19 years of successful implementation. In the meantime, despite the factors mentioned above, that negatively affected the life of the university, the student body has undergone some major changes. We have not only moved from one capital city to another but also opened three new undergraduate programs (BA, BSc). These are among the main reasons behind the changes in the composition, background, ambitions and targets of our student body, which also concerns their mobility needs and interests. Another factor that has contributed to the changes in the implementation of the Erasmus+ Program is the participation in the European University Alliance, CIVICA, which has, during the implementation of the current project, been awarded its second cycle. In the frames of the CIVICA project, we have strengthened the ties and cooperation between partner institutions on various levels and areas, including academic, administrative and exchange activities, among others. New kinds of exchange activities have been introduced between teaching faculty, non-academic staff as well as students of the institutions within the consortium, which have gained priority status in our Erasmus KA131 programs. At the same time, the Erasmus Office made continuous efforts to keep the balance when addressing the new demands, but equally providing high-level opportunities and service to our outgoing and incoming staff and student body outside the CIVICA alliance. Another priority introduced during the current project was the close cooperation with our Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equality in order to reach out to fewer opportunity participants, include them in the program and assist them closely during their participation in mobilities. We have developed new processes between the two offices (Erasmus Office and the Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equality), which already started working successfully and we are able to attract a growing number of fewer opportunities participants. In order to best serve the newly emerged needs and reiterated targets, the Erasmus Office has undergone major changes during the current project phase. We introduced new processes, platforms and started using new software to best organize, coordinate, administrate and manage the Erasmus+ projects. We have created new positions, hired new personnel and re-arranged responsibility levels. We have experienced some fluctuation in the early stages of the reorganizations, which led to unfortunate setbacks and mistakes in the implementation of the program during the first year, but today we have a stable staff who were able to address and correct all the inaccuracies in order to keep the high-quality work standards we have been working with during the past years. In summary, CEU has implemented a successful KA131 project between 2022 and 2024 and has reached most of the quantity and quality goals, even surpassing the estimated numbers in some activity types.

Project partners (1)