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

2023-1-NL01-KA131-HED-0001210662023Mobility of higher education students and stafffinalized
Countries: NL · Grant: €1,532,904

Objectives

The University of Groningen's (UG) strategy for 2021-2026 includes the aim to provide every UG graduate the opportunity to have an international learning experience. This can be achieved through physical semester mobility for studies, a traineeship, attending guest lectures, participating in virtual exchange or a blended course, or a combination of those. The Erasmus+ programme has lowered the barriers for an international experience by setting the minimum duration for study mobility at 2 months, by introducing short-term mobilities as part of a blended module or a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), and by offering an inclusion top-up for students with fewer opportunities. The objectives of UG's Erasmus+ KA131 project are to establish reliable partnerships with European institutions in order to: - Secure high-quality and captivating study abroad opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines. - Attract talented non-degree students to the University of Groningen to enhance diversity as a valuable asset in the international classroom. - Create appealing opportunities for teaching staff to teach abroad at partner universities or invite international staff to Groningen, thereby strengthening existing partnerships. - Enhance the visibility and reputation of UG in Europe as an institution offering high-quality education and services to students worldwide. - Be a dependable partner in cooperation and mobility projects and provide a reliable hosting experience for incoming participants. - Fulfil UG's ambition of providing all students the possibility of gaining an international learning experience. For the project period from 1 June 2023 to 31 July 2025, UG has registered a total of 806 student and 50 staff mobilities in the Beneficiary Module (BM). The large budget allocation allowed UG to register more mobilities in the BM than were awarded (870 awarded, 896 reported mobilities). The number of study mobilities was lower than expected, the number of traineeships – in this project period - exceeded the expectations. The number of implemented staff teaching mobilities was 36, and the number of staff trainings grew considerably to 56. In addition to the bilateral Inter-Institutional Agreements (IIAs) that UG signed with its partners, we have also participated in a multilateral agreement (MLA) with a total of 22 universities from the Coimbra Group network, known as our Coimbra group Student Exchange Network. This agreement provides additional opportunities for students and is particularly beneficial for smaller faculties that may struggle to secure an adequate number of IIAs to accommodate the preferences of outgoing students while keeping all agreements active. Besides, a multilateral agreement was signed with our nine partners in the university alliance ENLIGHT. This MLA has been and will be used mainly for short-term (student and staff) mobilities implemented in the frame of BIPs. Some of the partners use the MLA for semester mobilities as well, depending on the internal organisation of Erasmus+ the use of an MLA can be easy and have an added value (centralised organisation). For others, however, the use of an MLA requires additional effort and can be time consuming. The implementation of the Erasmus+ programme at UG is decentralised, meaning that UG's faculties have the autonomy to decide on their exchange partners. As a result, it is possible to have multiple agreements with the same partner university. Throughout this project, there were not many changes in the number of cooperation agreements. The faculties regularly monitor their exchange agreements. Decisions whether to continue or terminate certain partnerships are based on past performance and on whether there is a balance in the number of incoming and outgoing students. For capacity reasons, faculties tend to be cautious when requested to enter into new agreements. Only when they expect to have a shortage of places for outgoing mobility (for instance in programmes with a mandatory study abroad period) they will set up new exchange agreements. Another option frequently used is to increase the number of spots in already existing agreements. This is preferred for partners with whom a fruitful and trustworthy partnership has been developed.

Project partners (1)