LAPASSION is a resubmission of a well classified proposal of the previous Capacity Building call (classified in Group II). LAPASSION was reformulated in order to attend the valuable comments and suggestions from the evaluators. LAPASSION project envisages transferring a good practice developed in EU to the geographical space of Latin-America (LA). The identified good practice is the development of innovation projects by higher education students involving all the following characteristics in projects:- presented by enterprises and other organizations or resulting from innovative ideas to create new prototypes/products/services- developed by multidisciplinary groups of students, involving at least 3 different knowledge domains - developed by groups of students from different countries - oriented for developing soft skills- for which students demonstrate passion, Passion Based Learning.LAPASSION will allow conditions for a platform oriented to co-creation, co-development and acceleration of innovative ideas, integrated in the educative project of institutions. This kind of environment has been developed on the last years by institutions from the Design Factory Network , from Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences, and application-oriented Universities from Spain. Nine academic institutions of LA will be involved (Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile), together with 4 from EU (Portugal, Spain, and Finland). One LA Council of Rectors (CONIF) and one EU Association of Enterprises (AEP) are partners, and other Councils of Rectors and Associations of Enterprises from LA are associated partners.Besides projects, we will have traning sessions for the supervisors of students’ groups, meetings for the LAPASSION Management, and meetings for monitoring and quality control of LAPASSION. LAPASSION methodology and practice will be disseminated to other institutions including this experience in a challenging educative project for the students , with impact on employability.
LAPASSION (Latin-America Practices and Soft Skills for an Innovation Oriented Network) is a project from the program Erasmus+ within the line KA2 – Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education (reference 585687-EPP-1-2017-1-PT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). It involved partners from Portugal, Finland, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. LAPASSION consortium had as motivation to create a unique solution to address different problems affecting youth in HEI, helping students to obtain a better training in terms of innovation, soft skills, and internationalization. This solution was achieved by means of LAPASSION MP/I (Multidisciplinary Projects/Internships) for students’ teams to help them to co-create, and co-develop projects proposed by enterprises and other organizations, or to accelerate innovative ideas in an international context involving students from several countries.The aim of LAPASSION was to increase the innovation culture of HEI and the connection with Enterprises/Organizations (E/O) with impact in Employability, and Internationalization. This aim is pursued by implementing MP/I for co-creation, co-development and acceleration of innovative ideas, integrated in the educative project of the involved institutions. MP/I was implemented by means of students' teams involving students with different backgrounds, different graduation levels, and from different countries, and solving challenges posed by E/O. The sustainability of the project is currently ensured in Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, and can be extended to other Latin-America countries, like Colombia.LAPASSION is a consortium with 15 partners, including 13 Higher Education Institutions (4 from Europe and 9 from Latin America), 1 Association of Enterprises from Portugal, and 1 Council of the Federal Institutes from Brazil. The list of the partners is the following:Polytechnic of Porto (IPP, Portugal, coordinator)Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK, Finland)University of Vigo (UVIGO, Spain)University of Salamanca (USAL, Spain)Federal Institute Riograndense (IFSUL, Brazil)Federal Institute of Triângulo Mineiro (IFTM, Brazil)Federal Institute of Goiás (IFG, Brazil)Federal Institute of Maranhão (IFMA, Brazil)Federal Institute of Amazonas (IFAM, Brazil)University of the Republic of Uruguay (UDELAR, Uruguay)Technological University of Uruguay (UTEC, Uruguay)Foundation of Professional Institute (DUOC, Chile)Catholic University of Chile (PUC, Chile)Association of Enterprises of Portugal, Commerce and Industry Chamber (AEP, Portugal)Council of Federal Institutes of Brazil (CONIF, Brazil)LAPASSION involved 7 editions (sets) of multidisciplinary projects for students plus several other additional editions not supported by LAPASSION budget (3 in Porto, 4 in Uruguay, 1 in Brazil, and 3 in Chile), in a total of 18 sets of projects.The challenges selected by the 7 original editions of LAPASSION were the following:-Santiago/Chile (2018): How to improve conditions for Senior Populations?-Uruguay (2019): How to improve conditions for children?-Uberaba/Brazil (2019): Food for the Future-São Luís/Brazil (2019): How to improve the Human Development Index of the State of Maranhão?-Manaus/Brazil (2020): Socio-Environmental Technologies for the Sustainability of the Amazon-Goiania/Brazil (2020): How to contribute to an Inclusive and Sustainable Society?-Pelotas/Brazil (2021): Accessibility and Assistive TechnologiesA total of 192 staff members have been trained by LAPASSION, and 226 students were directly involved and funded by LAPASSION for the 10-weeks experiences of multidisciplinary projects (185 from Latin America). More 211 students were trained with LAPASSION-base practices and without funding from the project during the last years.