IncluSTEM’s context has emerged throughout the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015 with many migrants coming to Europe striving for a future. Higher education institutions across Europe have been and still are overwhelmed by the many migrants with previous higher education or the determination to make a career in Europe and - in spite of the Lisbon Recognition Convention (LRC) which encourages a flexible approach to the recognition of qualifications held by refugees, displaced persons and persons in a refugee-like situation across Europe - ignored the necessity to adapt to this new (prospective) student group. This eventuates in the over-qualification of many migrants since they are forced to find employment irrespective of their previous education or qualification. The successful inclusion into European society and the labour market is, hence, hindered and the migrants potential left untapped. At the same time, the European labour market is facing a major change: the Digital Era which confronts a big share of the working population with the need to acquire new (digital) skills. Many companies across Europe have been looking desperately for professionals in the STEM and IT sector to be able to cope with the challenges ahead. The core partners of IncluSTEM therefore join forces to create a “Hub of Expertise” to tackle both of these challenges together. By collaborating on these issues, KTH Stockholm, TU Berlin and UP Madrid managed to create an all-encompassing “A Handbook of Best Practices for Inclusive Higher Education”. Every partner brings different strengths and areas of expertise into this Strategic Partnership in order to follow their objectives of:Developing a model to build inclusive higher education institutions for students with a migration backgroundRaising awareness for both the students with a migration background’s needs as well as the needs and challenges of the university staff working with them on an institutional-level as well as on a European Higher Education Area-levelDeveloping innovative and flexible teaching and learning methods tailored to the target group’s needsStrengthening a European identity of every actor involvedThe three project partners, however, know that their motivation and expertise is not enough to create sustainable and effective change for students with a migration background. Without the cooperation and consent of policy-makers, public institutions like employment offices or NGOs and the civil society, inclusion and most-importantly the recognition and validation of these students’ skills is not feasible. Therefore, IncluSTEM aims at: Implementing a Quadruple Helix Model to include agents from all levels and backgrounds in order to create and implement a realistic and functional action planThe participants of IncluSTEM are people with a migration background who are interested in studying within the field of STEM, preferably with previous experience in this field. Furthermore, teaching and administrative staff in the institutions will be able to follow training sessions that will prepare them for the special demands and challenges that working with this target group entails. The number of participants therefore depends on the demand and resources available at each of the partners institutions. However, as many of the intellectual outputs will be made available via an online-learning platform, the number of participants can be big for most of the deliverables.The activities carried out by IncluSTEM reach from:- Developing an “Onboarding Handbook” which provides a number of best practices for advising students with a migration background in preparation for taking up a study programme as well as throughout their entire study cycle;- Implementing STEM study-specific language courses in English, German, Spanish and Swedish online and offline which is particularly important as the field of STEM tends to become more and more international and therefore demands more than one working language;- Create structure, content and teaching methods for “Training for employability” which will boost the students’ chances of finding employment after finishing their studies; - Developing an action plan to set up job-matching schemes across all partner universities to help all participants of IncluSTEM to access the relevant job market- Receiving constant feedback and self-assessment of both students and staff to improve and consolidate course contents, teaching methods and measures for inclusionAll the outputs created throughout this Strategic Partnership will be developed in close cooperation and ongoing exchange with partners from different institutional backgrounds of the Quadruple Helix Model to ensure a solid and sustainable delivery of IncluSTEM’s project goals.The desirable results and long-term impact of IncluSTEM are the restructuring and optimisation of recognition procedures of students with a migration background.

"The project mainly consisted of four thematically different training, teaching and learning activities: Online Tools in Science Communication and Citizens Science, Science Communication and Citizen Science, Arts & Science - Art in Science Communication and Citizen Science and Explorative Learning - an approach to Citizen Science and Science Communication. Due to force majeure caused by the Corona Pandemic, the LTTA ""Exploratory Learning - an approach to Citizen Science and Science Communication"" could not be held as planned. Instead, the contents were worked on in 3 online workshops. The project served to build a strategic partnership and exchange of good practice on the basis of the four topics mentioned above."

Context: The Covid pandemic has prevented the normal flow of student mobility in many areas, including VET and Vocational teacher education (VTE). It has also forced digitalisation further up the agenda of all schools, universities and other educational institutions.Background:A recent systematic review of research on international mobility (Roy et al 2019) concluded that, although the evidence base was relatively weak, there were demonstrable benefits for students from short-term international mobility. These included increases in cultural awareness, cultural intelligence, global mindedness, cultural sensitivity and empathy, adaptability, language and communication skills, and intercultural competence. There were also personal gains such as increased confidence, self-awareness, perceived employability and career development. From a societal perspective, the students' future mobility and earning power were likely to be enhanced.The DIVE project will take a positive approach to these developments. Whereas student and teacher mobility, in a physical sense, is necessarily selective, digital mobility can be inclusive, providing opportunities for all. However, this requires careful thought about the educational benefits of international and intercultural exchange. Can these be replicated through online exchanges or other forms of activity, at home or in the classroom? Vocational education has particular requirements for internationalisation, specifically the provision of work placements in occupational specialities. VET teacher students are involved in a combination of pedagogical studies and occupation-specific learning, whether in construction, healthcare or any other area. It is difficult to recreate the experience of an actual workplace online, but in DIVE, we will implement novel forms of peer-to-peer interaction based on available technology, such as Go-Pro cameras and live streaming to simulate authentic work environments. This provides an opportunity for innovation, since it is not always possible to arrange the right placement for every student. Collaborative techniques, including digital story telling, will allow peer-to-peer interaction to substitute for the physical presence of visiting students. DIVE Objectives:1) Develop a framework for internationalisation-at-home via online and local interaction (measurable by timely achievement of Intellectual output 1)2) Incorporate this framework in VET programmes at local level, in the areas of sustainable development, values in education and citizenship & democracy (measurable by reporting of partners on incorporation and interaction of outputs 2,3,4,).3) Promote the use of the framework and programmes to other actors in vocational education and beyond (measurable by indicators of impact and dissemination - see respective sections) Participants: We will work with VET teacher students and VET teacher educators. We expect initial participation of around 120 persons across the four partners, with a cumulative total of 250 direct and 800 indirect participants by the end of the project.The concrete activities of DIVE will comprise:1) Preparation by all partners, led by NTNU, of a framework for development of three online programmes for vocational teacher education, each based on one of the themes sustainable development, values in education and citizenship & democracy, in the overall context of internationalisation at home..2) Parallel development of the three programmes by the respective partners in conjunction with local and international online colloquia3) Implementation of the programmes as a background for local and international colloquia to be held within the partner institutions.4) Iterative development cycles, incorporating feedback from participating teacher students and teacher educatorsMethodologyOur theoretical framework will use concepts of proximity, mobility and possession, which we see as three essential dimensions of any given space. This in turn enables us to compare digital, national and international activities along these dimensions, and adjust some of the conditions within any space to recreate the benefits of moving across spaces. A central idea in DIVE is that staying at home, in a general sense, should become more desirable and less isolating than currently experienced by many people.Results and impactOur impact will be to make the benefits of international mobility available to a much wider range of participants in and outside VET. We will work with vocational teacher students as they will have future influence on young people and will be able to bring the benefits of DIVE programmes to a wide audience. However, the underlying principles of DIVE are transferable to any educational setting where mobility is desirable. Indeed, it will make it possible to bring international mobility to group who would otherwise be unable to engage in mobility, such as younger age groups or adults with families.

Motivated by the needs of today's globalized European environment, the main objective of this project was to improve and enhance the learning process on sustainable engineering in university education through mobility and cross-border cooperation. The project consortium of the four engineering departments located at TU Berlin, PoliMI, NTNU and WUT, worked tagether on solutions aiming for sustainable innovations. ln doing so, two multidisciplinary, intercultural teams of a total 37 master's students and 9 researchers, formed the so-called European Engineering Team (EET). The partner universities acted collectively to enhance and introduce innovations to the teaching and learning processes. Three main objectives have been pursued: •To influence the career of students in their early phase by dealing with the challenge of sustainability in engineering processes •To foster sustainable entrepreneurship and start-ups established by students •To prepare students to thrive in and contribute to an increasingly demanding work-life in Europe •by promoting the key skills required in the EU labour marketThe partner universities developed and implemented a new course curriculum (lntellectual Output 1) for the EET, based on innovative teaching and learning approaches. An MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) about Sustainable Engineering (lntellectual Output 2) is an essential supplement to the EET by supporting the development of the required methodical- and professional-competencies of the master's students. ln order to effectively disseminate the results of the project to internal and external stakeholders, a guideline for planning and implementing interdisciplinary and transnational teaching and learning activities (lntellectual Output 3) was also developed, including the necessary collaboration infrastructure.The impact of the project starts at the local partner universities, through their master's students, who are better prepared for the competitive European labour market and who aquire substantial knowledge about sustainable engineering and entrepreneurship. Regarding the long-term impact, the project strengthens the international profile of the partner universities. lt increases the interdisciplinary orientation of the European strategic partnerships of these universities by adding a new European joint study course to the curriculum. On the national and European Ievel, the developed course curriculum will increase the quality of teaching and learning in higher education by being disseminated to third-party universities, research institutes and companies. They can start to apply their own transnational project-oriented teaching activities. This will Iead to a competitive advantage of these European organizations in terms of attracting new students and creating more qualified future employees.

CONTEXT: Available technologies and online educative environments can effectively support internationalization processes in higher education involving larger groups of students and, potentially, also those students that do ‘not have the means or the inclination to study abroad’. An integrated approach in the use of various digital tools and technologies together with different teaching and learning methodologies can support the development of new strategies in mobility programmes, allowing also those students not inclined to go abroad to take advantage of international universities networks. The idea of the INSYSTED project is to experiment a new, integrated model that sees the blend among serious games, MOOCs and Learning Communities with the objective to offer a tool with a high grade of modularity and integration in pre-existing ecosystems.OBJECTIVES: The INSYSTED project addresses the needs of various target groups on multiple levels. It aims to enhance the quality of education and teaching in the Management/Industrial Engineering Area in a European context through the creation of an innovative, integrated and replicable learning digital and non-digital environment; enhance the skills and competences of professors and students in the usage of complex digital learning tools and their ability to interact digitally with peers and professionals in the learning community; support the development of a skills set able to respond to the needs of graduates that prepare for an integrated, increasingly complex European labour market. The cooperation with industry partners that accompany the development of the integrated digital learning model will ensure that the learning outcomes and acquired skills fit the needs of the industry. The project also foresees a deeper cooperation at European level in the co-creation of high quality digital contents and tools through a better synergy among academic staff, e-learning services and International Relations Offices.PARTICIPANTS: The project partners represent some of the most important Universities of Technology in Europe within the framework of the strategic partner network Alliance4Tech. INSYSTED will involve stakeholders at the partner universities relevant in the field of industrial engineering, digitalization and e-learning. They will be included in a reflection of the European and national debates and research regarding e-learning possibilities with special attention to European industrial engineering. To support the development and dissemination of the outputs altogether five associate partners from industry and university networks will be involved. The partnership is planning two sets of staff and student mobilities where trainings of integrated framework and the e-learning platform will take place. This will provide the opportunity of involving teachers and students not only on a ‘representative’ scale but in larger numbers, and in their original role. As for each training every partner university will delegate three staff members and ten students as participants.RESULTS: The partnership expects results at multiple levels. Teaching staff in the four partner institutions will be provided a “ready-to-use” toolbox, including the 3-pillar integrated pedagogical framework, its e-learning tools and a complete training material, supported by trainings and webinars, for implementing an innovative pedagogical approach in the industrial engineering curriculum. Students can choose from different kinds of content formats and modalities and mix them in the best way that fits their own learning style. They will see a development of different competences, some specifically linked to interaction with peers and faculty, communication, collaboration, conflict management or interculturality; others linked to the experience as a whole, such as self-organization, entrepreneurship, digital literacy, creativity, flexibility or technological abilities necessary to use tools and devices as well as navigate online environments.IMPACT: The framework and e-learning tools will be firstly implemented at the Industrial Engineering departments of partner institutions, which will apply the integrated model in their didactics. The innovative pedagogical approach that combines digitalization and internationalization and involves industry partners will prepare graduates better for the European labour market and will make the industrial engineering curriculum more attractive. Due to the high potential for transferability and the envisaged widespread dissemination activities the outputs will be later used at other universities and will be easily integrable in existing structures supporting future sustainability and transferability to other disciplines. Ideally, this will lead to the „Integrated System for European Digital Learning“ being used in several disciplines in a growing number of universities in Europe and beyond.