<< Background >>The UCOILD project; “Unfolding Collaborative Online International Learning Didactics”, addresses a current global paradox related to maintaining international openness and exchange within HEI in accordance with the Bologna process. Covid-19, carbon footprint initiatives and challenges towards a more inclusive approach to internationalisation, has limited the use of student mobility as a key instrument of internationalisation and of achieving intercultural competences. At the same time these challenges have forced HEI’s to focus on implementation and further investigation of virtual international learning to sustain internationalisation in times of crisis and beyond, working towards resetting education and training for a more sustainable, inclusive and digital age as prioritized within the European Education Area. Various forms of virtual international exchange have been identified as promising instruments containing an intersection between internationalisation and digital technology, thereby providing HEI’s with possibilities for supporting intercultural and digital competences simultaneously. One such instrument is Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), a form of virtual exchange that is intended to be integrated into curriculum, while also developing digital and intercultural competences and therefore requires lecturers to possess strong didactical tools if the multiple learning ambitions are to be facilitated simultaneously. But there is scant evidence of this intersection being fully exploited as intercultural and digital competences are often left unattended due to lack of knowledge/experience/focus on how to didactically unfold international virtual learning environments and hence the potential is lost. This is also the case within the Early Childhood and Care Education field prioritised within the European Education Area and represented in this UCOILD project by cooperation partners from Spain, Denmark, Netherlands and Norway. ICT and new technologies are currently permeating these professional fields that are also characterized with complex intercultural diversity, but within the HEI’s that train future professionals, systematic didactical solutions on how to support the development of digital and intercultural competences are in demand. The UCOILD project intends to support the HEI facilitation of such global capabilities by focusing on unfolding the full learning potential of Collaborative Online International Learning projects by producing a didactical toolkit for lecturers that will support their engagement in unfolding future quality collaborative online international learning environments, thereby promoting stronger digital and intercultural competences for Early Childhood and Care students and sustaining HEI interconnectedness.<< Objectives >>The overall objective of the UCOILD project is to meet the need for strong intercultural and digital competences within the Early Childhood and Care professions by developing an innovative didactical COIL toolkit for HEI lecturers. The toolkit will help lecturers to realise and facilitate COIL projects in ways that are student-centred, experiential, inclusive and reflective, thereby providing the best possible virtual learning environment for supporting intercultural and digital competences. Doing so, the UCOILD project complements large scale projects addressing structural challenges within HEIs towards development and implementation of virtual exchange and COIL projects - by focusing on the next step of this important journey: Investigating further the didactical challenges and possibilities related to COIL once implemented in order to unfold anticipated learning potentials. By developing and implementing strong COIL didactical tools and approaches, the UCOILD project wants to support current internationalisation at home and virtual exchange initiatives within the cooperation partnership and reach out to meet the demands for intercultural and digital competences within the Early Childhood and Educational professional field by providing the 3 primary target groups within the UCOILD project - the HEI lectures, HEI students and HEI educational managers and developers - with the competences and instruments needed: The first target group; HEI lecturers, are crucial for unfolding a curriculum that can both meet intercultural, digital and subject specific learning goals, but need profound new knowledge and repertoires of didactical practice and tools if they are to facilitate complex competences within virtual international learning environments - which the development of a COIL didactical toolkit will provide for. The second target group; HEI students and in particular early childhood and care students are heading towards a field of profession and require specific training to handle the complex intercultural diversity and ICT and new technologies that are permeating the professional field - which the realisation of COIL projects will provide for, if facilitated correctly, as they provide learning labs and training possibilities for students engaging with interculturally and internationally mixed student groups through digital platforms and media. The third target group; HEI educational developers and educational managers are responsible for providing structural support for implementation of COIL projects - and the UCOILD project will support their work by producing a COIL curriculum design, hereby pointing towards possible ways of integrating COIL projects and didactics into existing curricula.<< Implementation >>In order to realise the overall objective of developing an innovative didactical COIL toolkit for HEI lecturers to facilitate intercultural and digital competences, the UCOILD project will implement the following activities: 4 interrelated project results: Project result 1: “Mapping didactical challenges and approaches to COIL” will form the theoretical and methodological foundation for project result 2: “Developing a Didactical Toolkit for COIL” that will provide innovative didactical tools and an online toolkit. Project result 3 focuses on dissemination of the project results through 3 conference papers discussing preliminary project results and through a scientific paper, and project result 4: “COIL curriculum design” focuses on implementation by developing existing curriculum to include COIL didactics within the participating HEI’s. 4 COIL projects In relation to project result 2: The 4 COIL projects will be realised as key activities for experimenting, developing and testing various didactical student-centered, experiential, inclusive and reflective approaches to facilitating virtual international learning environments. 4 Learning/Teaching/Training activities for HEI Early Childhood and Care Education students that focus on extending the online international learning environment to a physical international classroom and make use of students as co-developers of student-centered, experiential, inclusive and reflective didactical tools and approaches. 4 webinars for lecturers realised as a student product in relation to the LTT activities, focusing on disseminating student experiences and insights in relation to COIL participation and co-development processes. Inclusion of 12 local lectures not involved in the UCOILD project from each partner institution (i.e. 48 lectures) to support critical feedback in relation to project results.4 transnational project meetings supporting project progress regarding the activities listed above - alternating with 3 supplementary online transnational Zoom project meetings. 1 Multiplier event to share and promote UCOILD project results realised as a blended event allowing for both physial and online participation of stakeholders, target groups and associated partner members 12 project steering group meetings to monitor and secure realisation of the UCOILD project plan and timeline3 meetings between the project steering group and a follow up group consisting of educational managers and representatives of the international offices at each partner institution in order to ensure quality project realisation and implementation3 meetings with the associated partner ETEN to work towards stronger and wider implementation, dissemination as well as sharing and promotion of UCOILD project results<< Results >>The UCOILD project will have the following project results and outcomes: *Mapping existing knowledge and experiences, hereby producing a framework nationally and transnationally that addresses questions of how COIL projects are produced, of key indicators for learning processes, of key facilitation players and of how lecturers handle challenges related to facilitating virtual international learning environments - thereby providing a baseline for the UCOILD cooperation partners, and for HEI in general before engaging with COIL (project result 1).*Developing an open access didactical toolkit for collaborative online international learning as an integrated element of HEI curriculum that can support digital and intercultural competences within the Early Childhood and Care educations and beyond (project result 2) - which includes the development of 4 COIL projects that will unfold student centered, inclusive, experiential and reflective virtual international learning labs allowing for innovative didactical approaches on how to address specific subject areas and global capabilities of intercultural and digital learning simultaneously. *Realising 4 LTT student blended mobility workshops, each related to one of the four COIL projects, extending virtual learning labs to physical international classrooms to create room for reflection, co-development processes and the production of 4 webinars for lecturers not involved in the UCOILD as the webinars will be realised as a student product where students share COIL experiences together with the UCOILD lecturers (C1-C4). *Gaining knowledge on the use of students as co-developers of didactical tools and co-facilitators of global capabilities in virtual international learning labs by: 1) investigating roles of critical friends and 2) including students in meta reflections during their participation in a COIL project and the subsequent LTT student blended mobility workshop (see project result 2 and C1-4). *Producing an international peer-reviewed scientific paper to be submitted to the Journal of Virtual Exchange and three conference papers disseminating preliminary project results and fostering international dialogue (project result 3). *Developing a COIL curriculum design addressing ways of implementing COIL and COIL didactics into existing curricula (project result 4). *Local dissemination processes for educational managers, and for local lecturers by the use of a snowflake method distributing local ownership of project results - and a global dissemination process with 60+ international partners in collaboration with the UCOILD associated partner: the European Teacher Education Network (ETEN). * Widening participation in international activities among students and lecturers by providing a quality instrument for internationalisation of the curriculum.*Supporting future early childhood and care professionals to be better equipped for understanding and acting within a field permeated with technology and digitalisation and characterised with a variety of intercultural groups of children, parents and colleagues.