<< Background >>The OECD published recently “Higher Education to 2030”, two volumes focusing the future challenges for higher education: demographics and globalization, both related to the potential of digital transformation and the urgent need to implement innovative learning and teaching practices. Higher Education to 2030 discusses trends and prospects regarding changes in the population of students (demographics, inclusion of people with disabilities, migration and gender equality), academic teaching staff and graduates in higher education in OECD countries, particularly the link between these demographic changes and higher education policy, and on the academic teaching profession. OECD reassures that higher education institutions need to create synergic consortiums to better face the new reality and reduce inequalities in access and participation, the diversity of paths, provision and institutions in higher education, the possible social marginalisation of those persons least educated, building inclusive higher education systems, but also consider the need to rethink the role of the academic profession, stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices.Higher education drives and is driven by globalisation. It trains the future talents, with the young generation of graduates, but also the highly skilled workers (LLL)and contributes to the research base and capacity for innovation that determine competitiveness in the knowledge-based global society. Knowledge has no borders, and higher education plays a central role in facilitating international collaboration and cross-cultural exchange. Cross-border flows of ideas, students, teachers, researchers and external stakeholders, coupled with developments in information and communication technology, are changing the environment where higher education institutions function. Co-operation and competition are intensifying simultaneously under the growing influence of market forces and the emergence of new players, HEIs and teachers need to be prepared to continue leading this path. Digitalization and innovative learning and teaching practices, as well as inclusive higher education systems need to be reinforced ensuring HEIs ability to answer the society needs and challenges.The OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) has been focusing the “openness” movement on higher education. Globally HEIs are confronted with the increase in open forms of educational delivery, as IT and the availability of educational tools and offers via the Internet are changing the meaning and the method of knowledge distribution and how and where learning happens. Open higher education includes various phenomena: open educational resources, open access and enrolments, open universities, open degrees, open data, open science, etc. The concept of openness thus is expanding from content-oriented resources to cover the entire educational and learning process.The impact of these new innovative practices in education and learning on higher education institutions might be very significant, if not only the tool is changed, but also the concept, methodology and objective of teacher practice. Innovative learning and teaching practices and the open higher education approach it definitely will be a game changer in higher education. Innovative learning and teaching practices should address societal challenges, offering a support for an approach focusing learning outcomes and student-centred courses and curriculum, better answering the needs of students and reducing skills mismatches between HEIs, students, graduated and the market. In such a way HEI will assume relevance for the community, regional economy and global market. Several international policy makers have already stressed the need for HEIs to develop, test and implement flexible learning pathways.<< Objectives >>This project will develop a digital future challenge-based learning joint programme designed within an innovative and flexible academic structure and framework: multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral and future skills-oriented modules (micro credentials), new curricula and learning pathways, that include digital literacy and prior knowledge recognition models.<< Implementation >>Innovative projects will be developed and implemented, together with stakeholders (in a total of 180 engagements), to address local and global societal challenges. The approach will strengthen interaction and engagement among education, research and innovation, with a positive effect on communities, ultimately leading to sustainable economic growth in the post pandemic reality.Transnational, collective learning and research are the pillars of the innovative pedagogy for the multidisciplinary cocreation knowledge-creating teams where participants acquire the future skills for and produce innovation, societal impact and valorisation, with methodologies from the Educational Design Research and Design Thinking, adapted to the digital learning. The learning programmes and individual learning trajectories will have four layers: Expert knowledge; Expert course modules (flexible learning paths: prior knowledge recognition and micro-credentials); One Joint course (flexible learning paths; 150 students); Collective learning and research (Knowledge co-creation teams; 150 people involved). The project does not use one solution fits all approach, instead guides de learner in defining their own path, in this sense is open to engage all types of learners from 18 to 81: students, citizens, researchers, employees, civil servants, as long as driven in developing their digital, 21st skills and transformational competences. Each learner will have the opportunity to select the modules (micro-credentials) more adapted to their learning objectives. Prior (formal or informal) knowledge and skills will be recognized and certified by the consortium HEI’s and knowledge gaps filled in with flexible modules, that will lead to micro credentials. The partner HEIs already have some previous test beds with learning contexts that bring together learners with different profiles, and the results are exciting. DIFUCH will expand these experiences to an international, digital context.The curriculum will consist of flexible modules, based on transnational, cross and multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches, integrating innovative digital adapted pedagogies. Each module may award the learner with micro-credential.Students will be able to customize their choice of where and what to study within the confines of pedagogically sound and logically structured programmes.Digital learning spaces will be created, integrated in a common virtual, inclusive, open, social, fluid and agile campus, that is not segregated from the internet, other virtual platforms, social media and streaming channels used by students, but instead enables easy communication with those. Embracing technology as a variety of tools to build the innovative virtual campus is essential to guarantee they are updated and attractive to younger generations, with the ultimate goal of creating unique learning experiences. The virtual Campus will facilitate learning, implementing new models for engaged, collaborative learning in an inspiring and gamified 3D online campus (1000 users and 200 Students actively participating in training).<< Results >>This partnership will achieve as expected results: 1. promote cooperation between regional authorities and contribute to the European value creation addressing the grand societal challenges (180 stakeholder engagements (E1 and E2)).; 2. establish a digital and inclusive campus where students, teachers, researchers, and staff collaborate virtually, to co-create relevant innovative solutions; 3. Design a curriculum for digital learning that foregrounds innovation, builds a strong sense of European identity, and stimulates civic engagement (150 students); 4. Design, test and implement a framework of new educational methods for digital future challenge learning, in a co-creation setting (150 students); 5. Promote virtual mobility of students (n=600) and staff (n=30), building a pan-European learning community; 6. Integrate multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches in the educational and research systems aiming to establish engaged inter-university knowledge creation teams working together on societal problems; 7. Engage HEIs in the regional and European transition processes to the future-ready economy, building an inter-regional innovation academy to identify, analyse, and address existing and emerging challenges.The partnership expects longer term benefits, either with sustainable long lasting joint digital and blended study programme to be implemented with the digital future challenge learning methodology; increased mobility within partner institutions in particular virtual mobility as a future driven, ecological way of being mobile. The long-term sustainability is guaranteed by the materials, toolbar and platforms developed being available after the end of the project, and in the DIFUCH virtual collaborative campus as main repository and information sharing, which will grow continuously and collaboratively.

DISTENDER will provide integrated strategies by building a methodological framework that guide the integration of climate change (CC) adaptation and mitigation strategies through participatory approaches in ways that respond to the impacts and risks of climate change (CC), supported by quantitative and qualitative analysis that facilitates the understanding of interactions, synergies and trade-offs. Holistic approaches to mitigation and adaptation must be tailored to the context-specific situation and this requires a flexible and participatory planning process to ensure legitimate and salient action, carried out by all important stakeholders. DISTENDER will develop a set of multi-driver qualitative and quantitative socio-economic-climate scenarios through a facilitated participatory process that integrates bottom-up knowledge and locally-relevant drivers with top-down information from the global European Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and downscaled Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) from IPCC. A cross-sectorial and multi-scale impact assessment modelling toolkit will be developed to analyse the complex interactions over multiple sectors, including an economic evaluation framework. The economic impact of the different efforts will be analyse, including damage claim settlement and how do sectoral activity patterns change under various scenarios considering indirect and cascading effects. It is an innovative project combining three key concepts: cross-scale, integration/harmonization and robustness checking. DISTENDER will follow a pragmatic approach applying methodologies and toolkits across a range of European case studies (six core case studies and five followers) that reflect a cross-section of the challenges posed by CC adaptation and mitigation. The knowledge generated by DISTENDER will be offered by a Decision Support System (DSS) which will include guidelines, manuals, easy-to-use tools and experiences from the application of the cases studies.

In this project, existing innovative partnerships and organizational and financing models for housing for middle incomes are inventoried and new ideas for coalitions and models, including a step-by-step plan for applying these models. It will also be further investigated what bottlenecks middle-incomes experience who want to realize their own housing.

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De wereldwijde COVID-19 crisis heeft de dagelijkse werkzaamheden in het onderwijs en onderzoek ernstig verstoord. De kennisgemeenschap ontmoet elkaar digitaal, onderzoeksprojecten worden uitgesteld, stilgelegd. Aan de andere kant komt de urgentie van verschillende domeinen volop in beeld met een hele duidelijke impact van ‘applied sciences’ op de maatschappij. De effecten van de crisis geven extra uitdagingen om door te bouwen aan praktijkgericht onderzoek en de daarbij benodigde infrastructuur. Hiermee wordt de regionale impact versterkt en worden de verschillende maatschappelijke transities versneld. De beschikbare middelen € 475.000,= worden ten behoeve van de doorontwikkeling van praktijkgericht onderzoek als volgt, drieledig, geïnvesteerd: 1. het op peil houden van de beschikbaarheid van onderzoekspersoneel 2. professionalisering van datamanagement. Het betreft ondersteuning met het accent op het uitbouwen van de digitale voorzieningen. 3. strategische positionering en profilering van praktijkgericht onderzoek: communicatie en profilering, netwerkvorming, het onderhouden van partnerschappen