EMBRACE - the new era of digital higher education cooperation project responds to the Latin American partners' needs to develop and implement institutional reforms by offering a strong input in higher education modernization. Education is seen as means to respond to both regional and global challenges.The projects main objectives are to•Develop HEI teachers’ digital and pedagogical competence to plan, implement and assess student-centred and competence-based online education•Support educational management in managing impactful pedagogical change and organisation of the innovative learning ecosystem with all the relevant stakeholders. •Build innovative collaboration between HEIs and work life/society partners resulting in stronger learning ecosystem and more robust economic and social development.Project supports teachers’ (25) professional development by organizing joint online learning modules, badge-driven competence development process, MOOC (300 teachers), open access learning materials and guidelines. Educational managers (15) define guidelines for teachers’ digital and pedagogical competence development and assess sustaining educational change and project goal achievement in the learning ecosystem of HEIs and their industry partners. Project creates, in co-creation with different stakeholders (students, teachers, managers, minimum of 10 industry and society partners), transferable models for innovative education-industry collaboration. Over 250 students in 5 Latin American HEIs will participate in new pedagogical practises during the project timeline gaining relevant competences and concrete experience with the world of work. The EMBRACE project result is modern and resilient HEIs in Latin America with capacity to utilize digitalization for creating inclusive and student-centered learning experiences. New co-creation models involve variety of different stakeholders and contribute towards robust and sustainable learning ecosystem.

ALPRODE is aimed at promoting sustainable economic growth in Ecuador and Colombia through academic training and the improvement of employability in the field of sustainable productive development and international cooperation, within the framework of multi-stakeholder partnership schemes. The main axes of the Project are: 1.To develop an innovative training offer on sustainable development, climate change and international cooperation, consisting of courses focused on green, blue and orange economies, on responding to climate change with entrepreneurship and social responsibility actions, and on favouring international cooperation, for which there is a growing demand in Colombia and Ecuador.2.Create an Internship Programme linked to the educational offer, composed of actions that will effectively link the participating universities in Colombia and Ecuador and their students with the private, public and social sectors. This will increase the degree of employability of the students of the new courses offered. 3.Development of multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development and international cooperation, involving the business world, the public and social sectors of Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Portugal and the EU. This will improve the internationalisation and innovation processes of the participating universities and chambers of commerce.4.Creation of a virtual platform that will include the Virtual Forum for Employment (Marketplace) and the Birregional Alumni Network on sustainable development and international cooperation, which will favour the internationalisation of universities and students from Colombia and Ecuador, as well as the use of new technologies.The Consortium is made up of 11 partners from Spain, Portugal, Colombia and Ecuador, with diverse and complementary profiles, including universities, chambers of commerce and one NGO.

LASIN aims to effectively support and promote social innovation as a means to achieve sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth, social cohesion and equity in Latin America, through intercultural, curricular and extracurricular activities. It will achieve this by establishing Social Innovation Support Units (SISU) within the Partner Countries to promote and support University-social enterprise cooperation, social entrepreneurship and graduate employability with a particular emphasis on social innovation projects, incubation and training. A range of learning and teaching tools will be developed, at a formal level through the development of a doctoral programme and more informally through CPD training of stakeholders in social innovation as well as through books and reports and a social innovation platform – a virtual space for sharing social innovation practices and learning outcomes. The project will establish international cooperation and internationalisation through a network of SISUs across the region introducing a training, mentoring and transfer scheme to ensure that there is an effective roll-out of the scheme beyond the original partnership. In addition, the project will specifically aim to involve local communities and in particular disadvantaged groups to give them access to University facilities and strengthen the ties between HEIs and their local social environment. There are at least two HEI partners representing each Partner country, one of which has experience at delivering social innovation training and other initiatives within their country and beyond. The EU Partners have a wide experience of delivering international innovation projects and embedding social innovative initiatives within their own institutions.

EQUaM LA, which targets universities and quality assurance agencies in Colombia, Argentina, Nicaragua and Panama, aims to support internal university procedures for quality management, and link them to enhanced processes for the recognition of foreign degrees and credits. This will be done via the collaboration of universities and national regulatory bodies, which are shaping quality assurance and accreditation systems. The project targets both quality assurance units and international cooperation staff in partner universities, as well as national agencies for quality assurance. One of its main outcomes is a jointly-developed ‘QA Tool-kit’ for universities. Through its activities (training events, development of the Tool-Kit and testing of the Tool-Kit in university partners), it will enhance internal QA structures and link them to international cooperation structures. This will simultaneously improve internal QA management and also help to increase international recognition of degrees and credits across borders in LA. The fact that the project includes four different LA countries in Central and South America attests to its regional dimension and ambition to support objectives of the Latin American Higher Education Space (ENLACES) in which QA and recognition are fundamentals.