"The project established a virtual campus of three HEIs from Macedonia, Slovenia and Turkey that developed and implemented a joint Online Program for Professional Development in Innovative Management, Leadership and Strategic Communication - e-PROFMAN. Within the one-year extra-curricula programme, 100 young practitioners and bachelor students mastered leadership, business and communication skills for a competitive transnational environment.ContextThe European Communication Monitor 2014 reports that one of the most significant challenges for communication management is the merging of communication and business strategies in order to become a valuable part of the decision-making process of an organization. Interviewed professionals said that most important factors for career development are further education and networking among peers and colleagues. Furthermore, ""Opening up Education"" (2013) stimulates developing new business and educational models of curriculum development.Objectives1. Equipping the Programme`s participants with appropriate skills and abilities in achieving competitive advantage and effective leadership behavior in a transnational corporate environment;2. Providing interactive and flexible opportunities for students that exceed geographical, social and financial barriers by utilizing virtual classrooms and cutting-edge ICTs; 3. Providing newfound solutions and strategies through project-based and real-client courses and mentoring that students will apply in their workplaces and during organized internship in business and public sector; 4. Developing free online resources and learning materials relevant to the specific areas; 5. Acquiring international and intercultural experience via virtual mobility and establishing interaction and networking among peers from other European countries;6. Sharing of know-how between HEIs in online learning;Project partners- School of Journalism and Public Relations (Macedonia) (project leader) - a non-profit HEI with a mission to enhance the quality of education in the field of communication, PR, media and journalism, and promote regional cooperation among students and scholars. At the undergraduate level, the SJPR offers professional education in (i) Journalism and (ii) Corporate Communications and Public Relations, providing modernized and applied study programmes.- DOBA Faculty for Applied Business and Social Studies (Slovenia) - online business school dedicated to the development of innovative individuals and eLearning. It offers BA and MA programmes in the areas of Business & Management, Marketing, Social Services and Lifelong Learning. With an annual intake of about 1500 students DOBA is the largest online distance education provider in SEE.- Istanbul University’s Faculty of Communication (Turkey) - the oldest and longest established communication faculty in Turkey. Offering a theoretical and applied education, the faculty currently gives BA, MA and PhD education in three departments - Journalism, Public Relations, and Advertising and Radio/Television/Film. Having a dual education program, the faculty has also been providing distance education.Activities- Transnational Desk Research - provided initial understanding of the educational environment and policies, and market competition in Macedonia, Slovenia and Turkey, and collected and analyzed all the existing information about the educational programs in the fields of management and communication studies.- Joint Staff Training was organised for 34 HEIs representatives and mutual database for providing a coherent professional program was developed.- Curriculum, including syllabuses, learning materials and OER, was developed and 8 online courses were provided by the mixed teams of lecturers from different countries. Two blended learning events - Students Camp and Final Seminar, and traineeships for 5 students were organized.- The Learning Management System facilitated the management of the virtual classroom by tracking the students' progress.- The Regional Conference “e-PROFMAN Talks”, organised in Skopje in May 2018, discussed new content and media that path a way for effective communication in a VUCA world. Project`s results were presented in front of 100 participants.- The Evaluation Report presents the findings of internal and external evaluation of project implementation, and provides detail information about results and impact that were achieved. The report was included as a part of the international monograph ""Linking Business and Communications: From a Sparkle to a Flame"", published by the DOBA Business School (Slovenia).Impact and longer term benefits-Strengthening the skills of students for a transnational competitive environment;-Networking among professionals from different European countries;-Strengthening the capacities of the partner HEIs;-Raising awareness of young people on the importance of lifelong learning and new ICT for their career growth."

The project developed and implemented two international online Micro Masters, which provided by a virtual campus of four HEIs – Istanbul University (Turkey), Institute of Communication Studies (Macedonia), DOBA Faculty of Applied Business and Social Studies (Slovenia), and the Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania). The 6-month specializations provided deep learning in the specific career fields of (1) Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and Innovation Strategy, and (2) Digital Communications and Marketing. A total of 271 students from the two programs, 81 from the “Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and Innovation Strategy” program and 190 from the “Digital Communications and Marketing” program, provided with knowledge and competences relevant for the international labor market and gain a competitive advantage for professional success and personal development. Virtual mobility and collaborative online learning enriched the international experience and intercultural understanding of students from different European countries. Game-based learning had been used as an innovative teaching method capable of offering students key skills and information regarding different subject matters, while incorporating collaborative learned. The Micro Master credentials was recognized with a formal degree within the study programs of the four partners HEIs.ContextThe project enabled internationalisation at home (IaH) of the curriculum and learning process that is now becoming mainstreamed at the national and institutional level in most European countries and received a central place in the European policies for internationalisation of higher education. IaH has been seen as an effective strategy for integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments. Thus the non-mobile majority students will have benefit from this project. The Micro Masters had been designed for those who need to complete a specialisation to enhance entrepreneurship, management and/or marketing competences, advance their education and/or career, find a (better) job, or launch own business. Objectives1. The project had improved the quality of education through pursuing internationalized teaching and learning in a virtual environment and to enhance individual’s potentials to effectively enter an inter-connected, cross-cultural market and to take part in the public life.2. Curriculum for both programs was designed to provide participants with entrepreneurial, innovation and digital marketing skills applicable in a transnational corporate environment. Curriculums was designed as 6 course syllabuses and 2 project syllubuses.3. A learning management system had developed that would facilitate virtual mobility, students´ engagement and learning, and collaboration with foreign peers and lectures. 4. Acquiring international and intercultural experience via virtual mobility and establishing interaction and networking among peers from other European countries had been achieved.5. An innovative learning game as a platform for game-based learning had been developed.6. Free online educational resources (OER) relevant to specific areas har been developed.7. App for mobile learning had been developed in order to deliver videos and interactive course materials on demand.Participants:-Istanbul University’s Faculty of Communication (Turkey) (Project leader) - the oldest and longest established communication faculty in Turkey. Offering a theoretical and applied education, the faculty currently gives BA, MA and PhD education in three departments - Journalism, Public Relations, and Advertising and Radio/Television/Film. Having a dual education program, the faculty has also been providing distance education.-The Institute of Communication Studies (ICS) (www.iks.edu.mk) is a non-profit scientific-research institution that administers one-year and two-year Masters Programmes for (1) Management of Strategic Communications and (2) Media Management and Multimedia. Since 2013, the MA studies are accredited by the Board for Accreditation and Evaluation of Higher Education of the Republic of Macedonia.-DOBA Faculty for Applied Business and Social Studies (Slovenia) - online business school dedicated to the development of innovative individuals and eLearning. It offers BA and MA programmes in the areas of Business & Management, Marketing, Social Services and Lifelong Learning. With an annual intake of about 1500 students DOBA is the largest online distance education provider in SEE.-Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) is the public institution implementing liberal arts study policy based on the Harvard study model, and relevant research activities aimed at contribution to the society, as well as global community. In 2015, VMU has implemented more than 94 study programmes for almost 8000 students at bachelor, master and doctoral level. Studies at VMU are organized by 9 faculties and the Music Academy. Activities:•Transnational Survey Research (to experts): 376 experts in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, digital communication and digital marketing in Turkey, Macedonia, Slovenia and Lithuania, to identify the deficiencies in the fields to be trained, to offer suggestions for the creation of the courses to be given within the scope of the program, to conduct an international survey. In order to provide a perspective, a survey study was applied. Survey results were presented to educators prior to curriculum discussions at Joint Staff Traning.•Transnational Desk Research: All the consortium board members from the four partner countries were asked to make a list of the best schools in two major topics: Communication with a focus on digital communication and Entrepreneurship with a focus on Innovativeness. For the next step, the list of schools was analyzed according to three main questions ((1)What are the keywords that come up on the explanation of the programme? What are the main focuses of the programme? (2)What are the key topics that come up in the curriculum? (3)What are the most innovative and up-to-date courses?). Using the technique of retrospective web analysis, web pages of the schools were studied in detail. An information from the desk research provided initial understanding of the educational environment and policies and •Joint Staff Training was organised for 24 HEIs representatives and mutual database for providing a coherent professional program was developed.•Curriculum, including syllabuses, learning materials and OER was developed, and 3 online courses and 1 Capstone Project were provided for each traning program by the mixed teams of lecturers from different countries. (total 6 courses, each course consists of 4 weeks and 2 Capstone Project each consist of 8 weeks)•The Learning Management System facilitated the management of the virtual classroom by tracking the students' progress.•Innovative learning game developed as a platform for game-based learning for support to learning process.•The good practices from the project MASTER@HOME presented on a one-day public discussion about the trends of internationalisation strategies in higher education both at home and abroad. Public Debate, which was held online due to the pandemic, registered 200 people as listeners.•Two academic papers and two posters was prepared at the end of the project on the basis of the evaluation of the MicroMasters and the project`s results overall. Papers and posters were presented at four different conferences.•The meeting budget, which could not be realized due to the pandemic, was used for the development of intellectual outputs and as part of the dissemination activities, for a monograph. Online and print monograph of articles from mixed teams of lecturers from all partner HEIs was published by Pearson. Impact and long-term benefits•Improving the entrepreneurial and innovation capacity of students.•To enable students to adapt to the digital environment in marketing.•Strengthening the skills of students for a transnational competitive environment.•Networking among students and professionals from different European countries.•Strengthening the cooperation of HEIs.•Developing learning game to support to educational process.

<< Objectives >>The objectives of this project are: Situational analysis regarding teaching and learning practices about circular economy on University level; Establishing linkages and enhancing the cooperation between the academia and industry; Creating a digital repository of knowledge, tools and activities for circular economy; Enrichment of the knowledge and skills of the University staff; Empowering them to implement concepts of circular economy in their future jobs.<< Implementation >>The project will include a baseline study regarding teaching and learning practices related to circular economy on University level in SouthEast Europe. Diverse set of activities will be deployed including: workshops with professors for development of digital OER materials and curricular interventions, bootcamps and virtual/hybrid exchanges for students and broad dissemination of the activities.<< Results >>The project will produce a White Paper with situational mapping and recommendations for enhancing the teaching and learning about circular economy. It will also develop a digital repository of OER materials related to circular economy as core outcome for future use and development, enhance academia-industry linkages and University linkages (MoU) in the region and organize activities with students to develop circular economy mindset.

Ecosys4you designs and implements a cross-country educational programme for young people with passion for entrepreneurship. We mobilise the flow of innovation resources in four dimensions: education, networking, market expansion, and people. Private, public and educational actors of three entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Ruhr (DE), Varna (BG), and Maribor (SI) regions co-create the programme. The activities add value to existing entrepreneurship education of the regional higher education institutions: based on our common competence, we establish and set up high quality cross-ecosystem activities for future entrepreneurs. The main activities are joint classes, mentoring, real-world challenges and internships at start-ups. Experience of founders and established entrepreneurs drive the programme’s design. Their benefit is the opportunity to enter new markets opened up by Ecosys4you. The programme is open to students and young alumni from higher education institutions, professional schools, graduates who wish to found a company, and other young people who want to discover entrepreneurial spirit. We expect to reach 200 young people, among them at least 80 women in 2 cohorts (2024-2025), and stimulate foundation of about 5-10 start-ups and innovations as a major outcome. Due to close collaboration with lecturers as well as organisational and financial measures designed in Ecosys4you, we assure a self-sustaining programme to continue after project finalisation.

<< Objectives >>By implementing this project, VR4Skills partnership aims to achieve multi-level transformation at individual, institutional and sectoral dimensions, leading to improvements and new approaches in higher education institutions. Better skilled non-teaching staff will enrich and support in a more effective way the international and intercultural context of each institution, curriculum, students and lecturers, and thus contribute to building an inclusive and inter-connected academic environment.<< Implementation >>The project intends to firmly anchor development of competences of international non-teaching and support staff in European HEIs supported by the use of VR technology so that they are prepared to provide effective international services in a post-Covid era. For this purpose, thorough skills gap analysis, design of training courses and materials, online modules, VR scenarios and VR learning environment are developed, validated and made publicly available through the various project activities<< Results >>The main outcomes of VRforSkills project will be:1. Skills Gap Analysis that will allow to diagnoze and focus on key staff competences that will be developed.2. Innovative Training Design and Competence Framework enhanced by VR technology that will be piloted by staff of all partner HEIs during online and onsite learning and training activities.3. Comprehensive guidelines on how to apply VR technology and create VR learning environment into effective and powerful non-academic staff training.