The digitalisation of society and the labour-market has been on a constant rise over the last decades. Although this digitialisation has some advantages, it also results in important challenges for all actors involved, including a rise in the phenomenon of technostress. ‘Technostress’ is defined as the inability to adapt or cope with ICT in a healthy manner and research has shown that it has a direct impact on individuals’ wellbeing, as it leads to increased anxiety and depressive symptoms. The need to adequately equip the workforce of tomorrow with digital skills is thus urgent, even more so because of the COVID-19 crisis. The HE sector is severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and is witnessing a rise in the phenomenon of technostress, since a rapid transition from a predominantly face-to-face teaching model to an online only or heavily blended learning model has caused the learning and teaching process to be increasingly digital. Students in particular face several challenges such as conflicting home demands, family commitments and inappropriate workspaces, which have a direct impact on the level of technostress experienced by students. Additionally, technostress contributes to social exclusion, since vulnerable students (Black and Minority Ethnic groups, low socio-economic groups, care givers, those with additional learning needs and/or other disabilities, and those who have a diagnosed mental health condition) are at greater risk of technostress. The project addresses such need to support students in developing key digital competences, such as techno-resilience. In doing so, the objectives of the project are three-fold: (1) Exchange of best practices among the partners as well as interested stakeholders; (2) Designing adequate tools to equip European students with sufficient and relevant digital skills to respond to the phenomenon of technostress. The acquisition of these skills will (i) improve their learning performance; (ii) improve their mental health through increased self-empowerment and self-esteem; and (iii) enhance their employability and career prospects by aligning the skills and competences they acquire in university with the skills and competences required on the labour market, especially post-COVID-19; and (3) Modernising and internationalising HEIs through the creation of training resources leading to improved quality of these actors’ work and activities in favour of students’ performance, as well as greater responsiveness to social diversity and increased ability to address the needs of the disadvantaged (in particular the groups most vulnerable to technostress). In turn, this will have a direct impact on supporting social inclusion in the European HE sector. STUDENT-WELL will carry out several activities focused on supporting learners in adapting to online/distance learning and on promoting safer use of ICTs. The activities lead to the creation of digital tools and methods to deliver quality and inclusive education through online/virtual means, including blended learning and training, notably training resources in the form of toolkits and webinars for students, HE staff and HEIs. By contributing to capacity building by supporting the development and acquisition of digital competences, the project will provide the impetus for the change needed in HE education practices, so as to adequately equip the workforce of tomorrow with the digital skills to cope and completely navigate the European labour-market. The Partnership will work towards supporting disadvantaged learners, including those from marginalised communities or low-opportunity backgrounds. In doing so, the project will help these disadvantaged learners with the transition from education to the workplace. In doing so, the project attunes curricula to current and emerging labour market needs and equip young people with transversal skills by developing active cooperation between HEIs and outside partners, such as local bodies. The STUDENT-WELL Partnership is composed of a mix of five complementary participating organisations such as universities and public bodies working in the field of HE. They are a mix of EU and non-EU Member States and the involved HEIs exhibit very different HE systems and varied socio-economic factors. The consortium promotes a better use of ICTs in learning, teaching and training at HE first but eventually, at all levels, as well as an enhancement of digital integration at various levels. In supporting the development of common digital competences throughout Europe, it helps in developing a common European area of skills and qualifications. This means improving the mutual recognition of skill and qualifications across Europe. It advocates for the embedment of digital competences in HE curricula, thereby putting more emphasis on concrete learning and competence outcomes in education and promoting the acquisition of soft skills such as techno resilience, which match the requirements of the workplace.

EMBRACE HE, is a project specially designed to help address problems of mental health and lack of wellbeing in students in higher education. The mental health and wellbeing of youth in Europe is a high concern and this group includes students, who similar to other young people, often suffer anxiety, depression, attempted suicide and serious mental health problems. If not addressed, many of these problems can continue onto later life, in employment, family life and society and can also negatively effect day to day activities of study, progression and achievement in study, participation in social life and activities, networking and developing interpersonal skills. EMBRACE HE mobilises partners from across Europe to focus upon this ongoing problem for all HE settings, to create tools to help staff better address mental health and wellbeing issues in student populations. The EMBRACE HE consortium team is comprise of: Birmingham City University, UK; Universidad de Navarra, Spain; Panepistimio Kristi, Greece; Vilinius University, Lithuania and educational NGO, the Western Balkans Institute from Serbia. These partners represent a strong geographical reach and engagement in networks across Europe and also are from countries that experience different types of mental health and wellbeing issues with HE student populations.EMBRACE HE brings together models of innovative best practice and embedded curricular, extra-curricular, pedagogical, pastoral and collaborative activities (with Students’ Unions, external stakeholder etc.), to address student mental illness and wellbeing, with a unique open access toolkit training model. The aim for EMBRACE HE is to enhance innovation in HE response to student mental wellbeing by enabling learning, implementation of projects and practice to address mental wellbeing issues in HE and with this, to increase the evidence base with the highest quality information and materials to allow HEIs to make informed choices about methods to respond to student wellbeing issues. Finally EMBRACE HE aims to help educators and associated professionals in HEs, as our key target group, to enhance student wellbeing, to tackle lower grades, drop out and poor life chances post-graduation, higher rates of suicide and para-suicide, substance misuse, self-harm, use of health services for mental health issues or hospitalisation and social exclusion/lack of participation in HE and society. The target groups of EMBRACE HE, are all teaching, learning, support, administrative, managerial/executive and information staff working in HEI's, HE policy makers & student representative organisations. The beneficiary group will be students across Europe, in every type of HEI context, studying from foundation level to doctoral studies.EMBRACE HE will: - design and create a programme of activities that will bring together best practices in an easily implemented format to support HEI's in supporting student mental wellbeing. - provide training, tools and resources for academics and academic-related staff in HE, who support students, - create policy resources for HE wide implementation and action planning, structured activities at the institutional, systems and class room levels, to support good student wellbeing, - share and disseminate the above and have impact in Europe and beyond, in enhancing the capacity of HE to support student wellbeing needs.EMBRACE HE has been developed to bring together, through an innovative open learning toolkit approach, the good, exciting and effective practice that is already visible but poorly consolidated across Europe. It then provides the knowledge & skills for HEIs to implement innovations in their organisations.The partners will each lead a work package or programme of activities to develop toolkits on specific issues of contemporary importance for student mental health and wellbeing. This methodology will also allow each partner to input information into each work package too, to bring together innovation and best practice from a wide range of sources. The results of the project will be a positive enhancement of practice in working with student mental health and wellbeing in 25% of higher education providers in Europe, with 30,000 downloads of the toolkits and other resources from the website, multiplication events & webinars will lead to over 50,000 participants using EMBRACE HE resources over the project lifetime. The project will have high impact because it's free and open resources and networking opportunities on the EMBRACE HE website will facilitate and encourage more innovative responses to mental health and wellbeing across the HE sector and support further future positive change. The longer term benefits will be that HE will become more responsive with increased student mental health and wellbeing initiatives and that other projects can build on this foundation, leading to high standards of mental health and support for students across the EU and beyond.

<< Objectives >>The GO of the project is the training and capacity-building on ES&GE for kindergarten teachers. There are three main sub-objectives under this: 1) to cultivate an understanding of ES, while fostering the development of young environmentally-conscious citizens; 2) to foster the democratisation of climate action by including (DHH) children in the process; 3) to take ES&GE education a step further, by approaching kindergartens as enterprises with a CSR rather than merely educational institutions.<< Implementation >>WP2 collects & identifies educational gaps, best practices & theoretical info to produce a Virtual Learning Lab (VLL) with modules, interactive multimedia resources and micro-challenges on ES, GE & Experiential Methods that are inclusive to DHH. WP3 uses the VLL to train the teachers, produces & provides them with a pedagogical framework. WP4 engages children (esp. DHH) in opportunities to learn & link ES&GE to competencies related to establishing green enterprises that promote green behaviours.<< Results >>10 interviews with stakeholders & collection of 60 resources on preschool ES&GE for curricula in different countries culminating in 5 research reports identifying gaps & best practices (R2.1&2.2). Dev. & testing of a VLL (R2.3-2.6; R3.5) for min. 12 teachers’ training. Provision of OERs with 15 Ped. Sequences & 15 Gamified Activities for teachers to adapt in their classes (R3.1-3.3). (DHH) children engagement (R4.1) & feedback gathering in the form of an Audiovisual Implementation Report (R4.3).

<< Background >>Over the course of the past decades as noted in vast research literature, the role of HE has undergone through changes that increasingly led to its becoming much more viewed as industry or even commodity, with accentuated purpose to create human capital in possession of the right mix of skills aligned to specific labour market needs. The HEIs market rules led behavior in this sense significantly resembles the comportment of companies – strategizing and competing for its share on the market place and financial liability. At the same time, social role of the HE (introducing/delivering/promoting core democratic values of equity, equality, socio-economic integration, access to rights and services, etc. which make HEIs more inclusive and connected to respective societies) is noticeably undervalued. Due to specific social setting and historical development of south and east Europe in these regions as suggested in the ET 2020 targets larger rates of HE ESL are noticeably compared to the rest of Europe. Enhancing social dimension of HE is an important pillar of the Bologna Process, as reconfirmed in 2018 Paris Communiqué. Furthermore, the STATUS project takes up on the Council of Europe recommendations in the field, stipulating that higher education institutions, while exercising their autonomy, should be enabled to meet society’s multiple expectations and fulfil their various and equally important objectives to knowledge provision, which inter-alia include: preparation for life as active citizens in democratic societies and personal development for all. Even though inclusion in HE is a top priority in European countries, there are no national strategies and comprehensive approaches with long-term commitments on social inclusion in HE in the partnership countries as not much has been done in the field. In societies which suffer from continuous and severe brain drain issues subordinated to economic development and with high aspirations of creating competitive knowledge-based economies, the issue becomes ever more prominent for their educational systems since underrepresented students in HE are more likely to lack basic skills (literacy, numeracy and digital competence), experience of independent learning, and a clear idea of what HE entails. Also, citizens from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and those with migrant backgrounds remain far less likely to enter and complete higher education. Today around 10 and 12 million Roma live in Europe, comprising the continent's largest ethnic minority. However, only 1% participate in higher education. While measures to ensure educational support to migrants after in-flows from 2015 in the partner countries took place in pre-university level education, at HEIs these had been limited with lack of information on the exact data in this regard. Another vastly present vulnerable students (around 70% of HEIs dropouts) come from either poor families and/or have some mental health issues and motivational problems to be tackled. Previous schooling is highly correlated to dropout rates. Students with disabilities are particularly vulnerable group in every partner country. Even though their number in HEIs grow, the students face discrimination and hardship during their studies and more often than not leave tertiary education before completion. Collection of key data on the number of entrants and students, study progression, dropouts, of students, gender, ethnic background, social status, and other criteria are important in defining disadvantaged students and adapting decisions and interventions regarding widening access, retention and study success. Of migrants, returnees, Roma, ethnic minorities, socially deprived students, etc. and increase the overall population and diversity of students and graduates.<< Objectives >>STATUS projects reflects on a variety of causes underneath the small percentages of underreresented students enrollment in HE and their achievement in terciary education. The project addresses both sides of the equation - HEIs institutions inability to fully attend to their role with all the students and on the other side, the students’ not taking advantage of the opportunities that HEI is offering as a societal institution.Project specific objectives include:1.To increasing the access of Roma and other underrepresented students in European HEIsStudents who belong to disadvantaged social groups are similarly defined in the partner countries. Looking and both national contexts and institutional measures and policies with this regard, financial assistance is the most common way of assisting the education of (vulnerable) students – provided either in the form of loans or scholarships. Other specific support measures are not easily detected across the regional HEIs and will particularly be enabled in the scope of the STATUS project, e.g. academic guidance, relations between secondary and school and HEIs, psychological counselling, etc. 2.To increase academic achievement success rate and prevent ESL in HEIsSupportive services within HEIs, students and staff who work and employ specific mechanisms in delivery of asssistance, teaching, training, and peer support, in accordance with the local needs and specifics of target groups to better serve the needs of the most vulnerable students is created under this specific objective.<< Implementation >>The project results are attained through the implmnetation of the following core implmnetation over the course of project:Preparatory activitiesPartner kick-off virtual meetingDevelopment of European HEI e-repository of good practices related to socially inclusive learning culture and EWS (Where do we come from and where do we go from here?) TNM 1 – VršacDevelopment of HEI teaching and non-teaching staff training program TNM 2 – PalermoDevelopment of CS-HE cooperation toolkit on increasing access and supporting achievement of underrepresented students in HETraining of HEI teaching and non-teaching staff on increasing access and supporting achievement of underrepresented students in HETNM 3 – MadeiraVirtual training for CSOs and HEIs on CS-HE cooperation in increasing access and supporting achievement of underrepresented studentsDevelopment of Toolkit on peer support and active inclusion of underrepresented studentsSkills workshop for students on peer support and active inclusion of underrepresented studentsTNM 4 – Alba IuliaCreation of European policy brief/recommendations for improving social dimension of teaching and learning in European HEIsME 1 – 5 organized in Alba Iulia, Palermo, Madeira and BelgradeDistribution and promotion of policy brief through social networks<< Results >>In the scope of the project the following core results are developed:Result 1: European HEI e-repository of good practices related to socially inclusive learning culture and EWS (Where do we come from and where do we go from here?) Result 2: HEI teaching and non-teaching staff training manual and program Result 3: CS-HE cooperation toolkit on increasing access and supporting achievement of underrepresented students in HE Result 4: Toolkit on peer support and active inclusion of underrepresented students Result 5: European policy brief/recommendations for improving social dimension of teaching and learning in European HEIs

CHECK IT HE aims to enhance HE response to hate and extremism on HEI campuses, by building capacity, knowledge and skills, bringing together innovative projects and practices in the field. CHECKIT HE, will help HE educators, wider HE staff, policy makers and students unions, as our key target groups, to enhance inclusion, challenge hate and extremism and make campuses safer and better places for all. Tertiary education has a vital role to play in supporting tolerant, civically engaged societies. The CHECKIT HE consortium is made up of teams from: Birmingham City University, UK; Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi, Turkey; the Western Balkans Institute, Serbia; Minho University, Portugal: the Centre for Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology, Cyprus and Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland. These partners represent a strong geographical reach and engagement in networks across Europe and also are from countries that experience diverse HE student demographics and campus based hate and extremism. We are a dedicated team who want CHECKIT HE to positively support change in relation to identify, preventing and acting against hate and extremism in all its forms. Studenthood should be a time of academic, personal/skills growth, development and positive change, but, sadly, Student Union Reports across Europe, show that students face increasing hate-based abuse, hate speech, risks from radicalisation and extremism on campuses. Some students are more likely to be targets of hate and extremism than others, such as those from BAME groups (including refugees and migrants), women, LGBT communities, people of various religions and disabled people. Examples of hate on campus, can include hate speech, cyber abuse, physical abuse and violence, gendered abuse, bullying and active exclusion. Extremism can be seen in patterns of formal, organised extremist organisation activity on campuses, radicalisation and violence, especially around right wing hate hate, Islamaphobia and antisemitism. These are challenging issues for higher education and societies. CHECKIT HE responds and innovates by addressing the issues of hate practices/behaviour and extremism within HEI communities and providing tools for HEI staff to identify, challenge and counter these when exhibited on campus. HEIs should be leading the way in addressing these important issues, which impact upon wider societies too. Indeed, some are, but practices and innovations are not being shared effectively. Collated and broadly disseminated innovative mechanisms by which HEIs can counter hate and exclusion, and provision of pan-European easy access training resources, are not currently available. CHECKIT directly addresses this contemporary issue, which is vital for the development, diversity, skills capacity building of all HEIs. HE staff need to be able to understand, identify, check, challenge and take action against hate and exclusions and this is what the outputs, outcomes and impact of the CHECKIT HE project are designed to support. The project outputs build to help HE and other stakeholders to challenge hate and extremism and these include: a report, six up-to-the-minute training toolkits on addressing diverse forms of hate and extremism and an app that can be used to identify and then select strategies and activities to counter these. The outputs are free and open access, enabling a wide variety of groups and individuals outside HEIs, Students organisations and policy makers, to use them to enhance their own work countering hate and extremism (this might include a wide range of NGOs, criminal justice practitioners, public authorities, schools, colleges, other non-degree level educational institutions and the broad-ranging EU youth workforce). CHECKIT HE aims to directly engage 135,000 people, as target groups and stakeholders, across the three years of the project, making a high impact contribution to helping to challenge hate and extremism in HE and beyond.The tolerance of hate and extremism on campus for HEIs can lead to social exclusion, distress and mental health issues, lower attainment in targeted groups, drop out of education and inequality in life chances post-graduation, which is bad for students and for HEIs. However, these negative impacts are also a problem for the health and sustainability of wider society, in preventing the spread of hate and extremism and ensuring public safety. CHECKIT HE will deliver longer term benefits for all, in relation to helping prevent hate, radicalisation and terrorism and by HEIs leading in the positive promotion of societal inclusion and tolerance.