LAPASSION (Latin-America Practices and Soft Skills for an Innovation Oriented Network) is a project from the program Erasmus+ within the line KA2 – Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education (reference 585687-EPP-1-2017-1-PT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). It involved partners from Portugal, Finland, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. LAPASSION consortium had as motivation to create a unique solution to address different problems affecting youth in HEI, helping students to obtain a better training in terms of innovation, soft skills, and internationalization. This solution was achieved by means of LAPASSION MP/I (Multidisciplinary Projects/Internships) for students’ teams to help them to co-create, and co-develop projects proposed by enterprises and other organizations, or to accelerate innovative ideas in an international context involving students from several countries.The aim of LAPASSION was to increase the innovation culture of HEI and the connection with Enterprises/Organizations (E/O) with impact in Employability, and Internationalization. This aim is pursued by implementing MP/I for co-creation, co-development and acceleration of innovative ideas, integrated in the educative project of the involved institutions. MP/I was implemented by means of students' teams involving students with different backgrounds, different graduation levels, and from different countries, and solving challenges posed by E/O. The sustainability of the project is currently ensured in Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, and can be extended to other Latin-America countries, like Colombia.LAPASSION is a consortium with 15 partners, including 13 Higher Education Institutions (4 from Europe and 9 from Latin America), 1 Association of Enterprises from Portugal, and 1 Council of the Federal Institutes from Brazil. The list of the partners is the following:Polytechnic of Porto (IPP, Portugal, coordinator)Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK, Finland)University of Vigo (UVIGO, Spain)University of Salamanca (USAL, Spain)Federal Institute Riograndense (IFSUL, Brazil)Federal Institute of Triângulo Mineiro (IFTM, Brazil)Federal Institute of Goiás (IFG, Brazil)Federal Institute of Maranhão (IFMA, Brazil)Federal Institute of Amazonas (IFAM, Brazil)University of the Republic of Uruguay (UDELAR, Uruguay)Technological University of Uruguay (UTEC, Uruguay)Foundation of Professional Institute (DUOC, Chile)Catholic University of Chile (PUC, Chile)Association of Enterprises of Portugal, Commerce and Industry Chamber (AEP, Portugal)Council of Federal Institutes of Brazil (CONIF, Brazil)LAPASSION involved 7 editions (sets) of multidisciplinary projects for students plus several other additional editions not supported by LAPASSION budget (3 in Porto, 4 in Uruguay, 1 in Brazil, and 3 in Chile), in a total of 18 sets of projects.The challenges selected by the 7 original editions of LAPASSION were the following:-Santiago/Chile (2018): How to improve conditions for Senior Populations?-Uruguay (2019): How to improve conditions for children?-Uberaba/Brazil (2019): Food for the Future-São Luís/Brazil (2019): How to improve the Human Development Index of the State of Maranhão?-Manaus/Brazil (2020): Socio-Environmental Technologies for the Sustainability of the Amazon-Goiania/Brazil (2020): How to contribute to an Inclusive and Sustainable Society?-Pelotas/Brazil (2021): Accessibility and Assistive TechnologiesA total of 192 staff members have been trained by LAPASSION, and 226 students were directly involved and funded by LAPASSION for the 10-weeks experiences of multidisciplinary projects (185 from Latin America). More 211 students were trained with LAPASSION-base practices and without funding from the project during the last years.

Les populations rurales d'Amazonie vivent de profondes transformations de leur environnement et leurs modes de vie, leurs cultures et savoirs sont menacés. L’organisation collective des producteurs, le maintien et le développement de systèmes de production fondés sur un usage durable des ressources naturelles sont essentiels pour l'avenir de ces populations et passent par de nouvelles formes de formation académique, qui combinent la valorisation des savoirs empiriques avec la maîtrise de nouvelles technologies. ICOOPEB renforcera la formation de 3150 étudiants, dispensée par 37 enseignants, sur les enjeux du développement territorial durable dans les universités d’Amazonie et améliorera leur maîtrise des nouvelles technologies de l’information. Il s’appuiera sur le développement et l’apprentissage d’outils numériques servant à communiquer sur les besoins des communautés rurales et à construire des solutions adaptées en rapprochant les étudiants des entreprises coopératives. Le projet consistera en 4 séminaires intégrant enseignants, étudiants, professionnels de l’économie sociale et solidaire, producteurs ruraux et communautés amérindiennes ou traditionnelles, dans la réalisation de 6 ressources audiovisuelles sur des expériences innovantes; la réalisation d’une plateforme d’échanges de savoirs et d’une carte participative avec traduction ; des formations sur les thèmes du projet et sur les outils numériques pour des communautés rurales (300 personnes formées) ; la diffusion des résultats et des outils aux autres établissements, aux coopératives et organisations amérindiennes de la région et un site Internet donnant accès aux outils numériques. ICOOPEB impliquera les enseignants et étudiants de 2 établissements équatoriens (UNIANDES et UCE) et de 3 établissements brésiliens (IFPA-Castanhal, UNIFAP et UFRA), 8 partenaires associés, ainsi que des communautés rurales des Provinces de Pastaza et de Napo (Equateur), de l’Etat de l’Amapá et de l'État du Pará (Brésil).

EMBRACE - the new era of digital higher education cooperation project responds to the Latin American partners' needs to develop and implement institutional reforms by offering a strong input in higher education modernization. Education is seen as means to respond to both regional and global challenges.The projects main objectives are to•Develop HEI teachers’ digital and pedagogical competence to plan, implement and assess student-centred and competence-based online education•Support educational management in managing impactful pedagogical change and organisation of the innovative learning ecosystem with all the relevant stakeholders. •Build innovative collaboration between HEIs and work life/society partners resulting in stronger learning ecosystem and more robust economic and social development.Project supports teachers’ (25) professional development by organizing joint online learning modules, badge-driven competence development process, MOOC (300 teachers), open access learning materials and guidelines. Educational managers (15) define guidelines for teachers’ digital and pedagogical competence development and assess sustaining educational change and project goal achievement in the learning ecosystem of HEIs and their industry partners. Project creates, in co-creation with different stakeholders (students, teachers, managers, minimum of 10 industry and society partners), transferable models for innovative education-industry collaboration. Over 250 students in 5 Latin American HEIs will participate in new pedagogical practises during the project timeline gaining relevant competences and concrete experience with the world of work. The EMBRACE project result is modern and resilient HEIs in Latin America with capacity to utilize digitalization for creating inclusive and student-centered learning experiences. New co-creation models involve variety of different stakeholders and contribute towards robust and sustainable learning ecosystem.

The ecosystems of the dry tropics are in flux: the savannas, woodlands and dry forests that together cover a greater area of the globe than rainforests are both a source of carbon emissions due to deforestation and forest degradation, and also a sink due to the enhanced growth of trees. However, both of these processes are poorly understood, in terms of their magnitude and causes, and the net carbon balance and its future remain unclear. This gap in knowledge arises because we do not have a systematic network of observations of vegetation change in the dry tropics, and thus have not, until now, been able to use observations of how things are changing to understand the processes involved and to test key theories. Satellite remote sensing, combined with ground measurements, offers the ideal way to overcome these challenges, as it can provide regular, consistent monitoring at relatively low cost. However, most ecosystems in the dry tropics, especially savannas, comprise a mixture of grass and trees, and many optical remote sensing approaches (akin to enhanced versions of the sensors on digital cameras) struggle to distinguish changes between the two. Long wavelength radar remote sensing avoids this problem as it is insensitive to the presence of leaves or grass, and also is not affected by clouds, smoke or the angle of the sun, all of which complicate optical remote sensing. Radar remote sensing is therefore ideal to monitor tree biomass in the dry tropics. We have successfully demonstrated that such data can be used to accurately map woody biomass change for all 5 million sq km of southern Africa. In SECO we will create a network of over 600 field plots to understand how the vegetation of the dry tropics is changing. and complement this with radar remote sensing to quantify how the carbon cycle of the dry tropics has changed over the last 15 years. This will provide the first estimates of key carbon fluxes across all of the dry tropics, including the amount of carbon being released by forest degradation and deforestation and how much carbon is being taken up by the intact vegetation in the region. By understanding where these processes are happening, we will improve our knowledge of the processes involved. W will use these new data to improve the way we model the carbon cycle of the dry tropics, and test key theories. The improved understanding, formalised into a model, will be used to examine how the dry tropics will respond to climate change, land use change and the effects of increasing atmospheric CO2. We will then be able to understand whether the vegetation of the dry tropics will mitigate or exacerbate climate change, and we will learn what we need to do to maintain the structure of the dry tropics and preserve its biodiversity. Overall, SECO will allow us to understand how the vegetation of the dry tropics is changing, and the implications of this for the global carbon cycle, the ecology of savannas and dry forests, and efforts to reduce climate change. The data we create, and the analyses we conduct will be useful to other researchers developing methods to monitor vegetation from satellites, and also to those who model the response of different ecosystems to climate and other changes. Forest managers, ecologists and development practitioners can use the data to understand which parts of the world's savannas and dry forests are changing most, and how these changes might be managed to avoid negative impacts that threaten biodiversity and the livelihoods of the 1 billion, mostly poor, rural people who live in this region.