#DemocracyinAction studies arts- and culture-based grassroots organizations in physical spaces and their social media and metaverse dimensions, to understand their critical potential in fostering democracy. #DemocracyinAction identifies solutions for increasing meaningful political expression and participation in four key areas of grassroots social transformation of untapped potential: 1) nightivism (urban nighttime cultural life for political engagement); 2) women’s rights mobilization; 3) racial and ethnic civic participation through cultural expression; 4) youth activism and civic education. The project’s research strategy aligns with the EU’s enshrined principle of subsidiarity, to deliver new insights on how bottom-up arts and culture can channel inclusive political expression and advance societal well-being at a time when democracy faces unprecedented challenges. Pilots cover all EU regions, together with cases in the Americas, Africa, Middle East and Asia, in democratic and non-democratic contexts. It considers online and offline realities as inextricably intertwined, with smartphones forever within reach. Our comparative, transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approach is founded on creative, participatory methodologies. Collaboration with community centres, theatres, exhibition halls, among other spaces, brings tested creative tools to mobilize people into civic participation and mitigate polarization. Working with digital designers and developers, #DemocracyinAction tests the unknown potential of virtual immersive spaces, including novel trends of virtual nightclubs, to deliver cutting-edge policy recommendations for a democratic and safe use and design of social media and metaverse environments. These tools and recommendations will offer forward-looking pathways to scale up grassroots' potential and enhance positive political participation at local, national and EU levels.

"Study programmes following blended-learning or even pure online approaches are becoming increasingly popular in higher education. Two main drivers for this development are increasing international cooperations among universities and with industry partners and the special requirements of students in continuing education programmes. But even regular courses use online platforms to establish a permanent point of exchange beyond the weekly course meetings. Yet in a time, where the use of eLearning platforms, Google Drive and Skype feels commonplace, the abundance of available tools conceals the scarcity of processual knowledge to use them, especially compared to the richness of methods we use to apply in physical teaching and collaboration.The OnCreate partnership is about the exchange, implementation and evaluation of processual and contextual knowledge of online collaborative courses with focus on creation and innovation. By the term “Creative Online Collaboration Processes” we refer to all such activities which aim to solve in a group problems that do not have standard solutions, mediated through web-based tools. Typically, such problems require interdisciplinary, lateral thinking, social empathy and extensive ideation with the aim of mutual inspiration. The processes applied are often nonlinear and rely on multimodal means of synchronous and asynchronous communication, with a special focus on visual tools. The project was organized around the four main objectives:RESEARCH - about the state-of-art of creative online collaboration inside and outside the consortiumCREATE - and implement transnational online coursesEVALUATE - online and blended courses for their affordance and support for creative collaborationGENERALIZE - our insights to make them accessible to the publicThe consortium created twenty courses addressing different creative challenges from design to TV development to innovation management. Most of which are suitable to be re-implemented based on the course blueprints available on the project website. Furthermore, the project created a set of seven evaluation packages to enable teachers to evaluate their courses and online course environments with regard to how much they afford creative collaboration. Along came a number of useful teaching methods to structure synchronous and asynchronous activities online. Finally, we gave general recommendations for running online courses on social media platforms, project management apps and learning management systems.The project has attracted four university partners outside the consortium and three industry partners, who have been collaborating actively at least in one course or research activity. Two multiplier Events at Magdeburg, Germany and Lincoln, UK disseminated the project results to a wider audience of practitioners and academics in the fields of media design and digital journalism.Six partners from among the consortium and associated partners are already committed to run at least one common course annually based on the blueprint of the most successful courses. At the same time, the project sparked the idea of a ""blended student exchange"", which comprises online collaborative courses with the partner university the semester before students actually go abroad. This will be the focus of further Erasmus+ activities within the consortium."

"The first SignTeach project (2014-2017) developed, implemented and evaluated Open Educational Resources (OER) for sign language teachers and their trainers in Europe. The OER included information for new and experienced sign language teachers about a.o. didactics, class management, the CEFR for sign languages, meta-linguistics, ICT and entrepreneurial skills. The output of the project consisted of over 250 short videos in International Sign and several national sign languages: short videos of sign language teachers at work, videos with comments, interviews with experts, results of a Survey and more. The project's website has since then been visited over 18.000 times by 13.880 individual users from 158 different countries. It is used by individual teachers for independent learning as well as by trainers of sign language teachers. The project was considered a 'good practice' example and made the shortlist for the European Language Label in 2019.Since the online teaching of sign languages was not considered relevant at that time, little or no information was included in the OER about teaching sign languages, online. The Covid-19 pandemic however has dramatically changed the need for this kind of information. On the one hand, interest in learning a sign language has increased as a result of the visibility of sign language interpreters in Corona bulletins on TV, and because people realise that lipreading - difficult at all times - is now impossible because of the protective mouth masks people have to wear. On the other hand, sign language teachers were unable to continue their traditional on-site teaching practices as a result of the pandemic. A consortium of 7 partners from 7 different countries, representing Universities, Deaf Organisations and SME's aims to fill the gaps in the SignTeach OER that have now become apparent. Together, we aim to develop new online open learning resources that sign language teachers and their trainers can use to improve their digital pedagogical competences and that will enable them to deliver high quality inclusive digital, online education, nationally and transnationally. Together with associated partners, we will produce: IO1: New ""Good Example"" videos with Intros and Comments, showing sign language teachers teaching online; IO2: New podcasts: short instructional videos in International Sign and/or national sign languages of the presenters, on various topics related to the online teaching of sign languages. Didactics, technology, testing, safety and security, and more. The podcasts will be produced by partners in the consortium, but also by associated partners, invited experts, learners. In this way, the SignTeach project will provide sign language teachers, their trainers, other stakeholders in this field with a platform to disseminate and exchange their ideas, opinions and expertise. IO3: A pilot study of teaching a foreign sign language online, transnationally. The online teaching of sign languages poses new challenges, but also offers new opportunities. It enables sign language teachers to teach their national sign language to learners in other countries; it enables Deaf children to learn a foreign sign language as a second language, and it enables Deaf learners to learn the sign language of a foreign country before they travel there for work, study or as a tourist. To find out what is or is not possible and effective, we will develop, deliver and evaluate a 'taster' course in British Sign Language and will teach it to partners in the consortium. Sign language teachers teaching other sign language teachers a foreign sign language! We expect lively and informative discussions, resulting in reports and recommendations that we will publish on the project's website.  IO4: A Report on the 'State of the Art' in the online teaching of sign languages (nationally and transnationally), with the results of an online Survey and interviews with experts, teachers, learners.All output will be developed by Deaf sign language users for Deaf sign language users and will take their needs and preferences into account from day 1. In 2017, the first SignTeach project was judged to be ‘an excellent project’ by the evaluators and was judged to be a 'good practice'. As to the relevance of the project, the evaluators wrote: 'The outcomes adequately and fully meet the originally intended ambitions and address the needs of the participating organisations and target audiences of sign language teachers and their trainers. (..) This output is assessed as very positive and relevant. (..) The SignTeach project delivered an impressive number of good examples and podcasts (..). The project succeeded in generating wide interest for its approach and products and long-lasting effects can already be seen and are further expected.'We expect that the output of the follow-up project, SignTeach Online, will be as good and relevant and will have as large an impact as the first SignTeach project."