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Mobility of higher education students and staff supported by internal policy funds (KA131-HED) - Coordinator: UNIVERZA V MARIBORU

2022-1-SI01-KA131-HED-0000648932022Mobility of higher education students and stafffinalizedGood practice
Countries: SI · Grant: €1,317,853.4

Objectives

In the Erasmus+ Programme, the University of Maribor (UM) recognises a development opportunity for the strengthening of its capacity in all areas of its activities and achieving excellence in the academic and research fields. The Programme enables continuous cooperation with the best European universities and access to top researchers and equipment, increases visibility of the UM in the international higher education area, enriches study programmes and enhances internationalisation on all levels of the UM. Several years of cooperation in Erasmus+ mobility and KA2 projects with six partner universities has led to the creation and successful implementation of the ATHENA European University Network. The Erasmus+ programme is becoming one of the most important means of internationalisation of the UM. The UM Strategy 2021–2030 places Erasmus+ at the heart of the internationalisation and identifies it as a means to achieve the set internationalisation goals. The main target group we have focused on in this project is students. The UM wishes to provide a modern education system, so that the graduates will become competent for employment, professional work and living in a modern global society. Student mobility importantly influences their professional development and development of so-called soft skills, such as inter-cultural awareness, adaptability, innovativeness, work in an inter-cultural society etc., which are expected from them on the labour market. Mobility also importantly influences their employability in Slovenia and beyond its borders. In the area of staff mobility, we want to encourage mobility that will have the greatest possible impact on the individual, the faculty and the university as a whole. In this project, we addressed all four Erasmus+ transversal priorities. Particular attention was paid to promoting the mobility of students with fewer opportunities (more than 80% of all students on mobility were students with fewer opportunities) and to supporting green mobility (around 30% of all students on mobility used green means of transport). Efforts were made to prepare outgoing students for their exchange in a high-quality and systematic way and to integrate incoming students. In the area of promotion and dissemination, we upgraded the Erasmus+ website with dissemination content, developed a promotion strategy and carried out several promotion and dissemination campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. As the proportion of graduates with international study mobility is slowly increasing year by year, the UM is focusing on internationalisation at home, with the aim of involving as many UM students as possible in internationalisation activities, which is why we have created the Erasmus@home project under the Erasmus+ programme. Within the framework of this project, we have carried out a number of activities, such as hosting foreign professors and involving foreign experts into our work, carrying out extracurricular activities (mentoring for foreign students, Erasmus sport, foreign language learning – Poliglot café), and conducting soft skills workshops aimed at empowering students who do not participate in international exchanges with various competences (cultural adaptability in multicultural environments, intercultural communication, networking, teamwork, active citizenship, etc.). Due to the large number of international Erasmus+ students, we are very active also in the field of widening the impact of the Erasmus+ programme on the local environment, and therefore, in the framework of the activity “Meet the Native”, we conduct numerous activities of inclusion of international students in elementary and secondary schools in the wider region, where they represent their country, culture, cultural diversity and/or teach a certain subject. We also include them into the Animal Shelter activity in Maribor, as well as into the charity project. In the same way, in the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme we started an activity of “Erasmus+ trainees in companies”, through which we wish to enable companies in Maribor and the wider environment to win young international students and graduates from our partner institutions for a placement. From year to year, we also increase the number of academic and administrative staff participating in mobility programmes; we especially wish to enhance the mobility of researchers and doctoral students (young researchers) with the intention to increase scientific and research activities and access to top scientific equipment, which results in numerous joint projects, articles, participation at scientific conferences etc. The UM pays great attention to the development of ESN Maribor and supports it financially and technically. ESN Maribor carries out a number of activities to integrate international students and to promote outgoing mobility of domestic students. Their support, suggestions and ideas are a great help in implementing the Erasmus+ programme.

Project partners (1)