The Mediterranean basin is famous for its natural diversity, but also an area with pressing environmental problems. Countries on its southern shore are particularly vulnerable to these issues, since their socioeconomic reality is full of difficulties directly connected to their environment: Apart from general issues such as waste management, water and air pollution and their effects on the population’s health, these countries face severe challenges through desertification, deforestation and threats to biodiversity caused directly by environmental change and with severe implications for their economies, especially regarding agriculture and the tourism sector.Consequently, strategic environmental change management will be crucial to seize socioeconomic opportunities linked to environmental change and minimize its risk. Therefore, the wider objective of this project is to enable Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian HEIs to develop and implement a new master’s curriculum in the field of Mediterranean Environmental Change Management. Master Study and Ecosystem Building (MEHMED) aligned with the EU Bologna educational approach (duration of 1,5 year, 90 ECTS).To this end, EU HEIs will transfer their knowledge and experience from related degrees to the Partner Country HEIs and participate in the joint development of a new curriculum in accordance with EU and international standards and labour-market requirements to prepare students to apply their knowledge, skills and competences in the field of environment and sustainable development. The new master will assume an interdisciplinary approach, through the collaboration of various faculties and by involving graduate students from different academic fields. MEHMED will be developed in collaboration with various Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian public and private stakeholders in the environmental sector, and include an internship module thematically linked to the students’ master’s theses to improve alumni’s employability.

European trends towards inscreasing academic and professional mobility and expanding markets have led to the need for European citizens and workers with specialised language skills, i.e. languages for academic or occupational purposes, as opposed to general purpose language skills. Concomittantly to the multiplication of language for specific purpose (LSP) courses, both in tertiary and adult education, the increasing need for LSP teachers should have fostered an increased need for LSP teacher education but the lack of specific training offered to both trainee and practising language teachers is consistently pointed out in published research, with LSP teachers having to learn « on the job ». It therefore seems that policymakers’ assumption is that general language teacher education is enough to equip language teachers with the skills necessary to teach LSP classes in spite of researchers noting, amo,g other things, that the approaches and methodologies are quite different. Still, with the notable exception of Howard & Brown’s 1997 collective volume, LSP teacher education has so far received very little attention in published research in Europe and beyond as well as in previous European projects.In addition, as noted by several researchers (Delcloque 1997, Belcher 2017, Sarré 2021), LSP teaching can greatly benefit from the integration of digital technologies, even more so than general language teaching. This obviously supposes that LSP teachers have been trained in integrating these tools and approaches into their own teaching.The CATAPULT project aims to use innovative methods (in the forms of a MOOC and a Community of Practice Platform) to address this dual need, that is to offer training on both the specific approaches to LSP teaching and the integration of digital technologies in the teaching of LSPs to both practising LSP teachers and language teacher educators. The CATAPULT project targets European language teachers involved in LSP teaching. The project’s target groups are therefore primarily (1) LSP adult educators (freelance language teachers offering training to professionals in the industry) (2) LSP teachers in Higher Education Institutions (as this is also a context where LSPs are commonly taught) (3) language teacher trainers. The outcomes of the project also aim to contribute to the modernizing of language teacher education programmes across Europe, which explains why teacher educators involved in initial language teacher education and continuing professional development (CPD) are one of the project’s target groups.The project has enabled more than 600 European language teachers to develop professionally through the MOOC developed by the consortium, and nearly 250 LSP teachers to join the community of practice gathered on a specifically designed platform in order to pursue their professional development throughout their career. Coordinated by Sorbonne University, the CATAPULT project involved the expertise of five partners in Finland, Germany, Poland, Greece and the Netherlands.The partnership started with analysing both (1) the needs of potential employers of LSP teachers and (2) the training needs of European LSP teachers. On the basis of this inventory, a complementary study of the existing training courses in the partner countries as well as of national competence frameworks, and a meta-study of scientific publications on the teaching and learning of LSPs, the consortium then drew up a common competence framework for the European LSP teacher. In order to help teachers develop some of the identified competences, online training modules were then developed and delivered on a dedicated MOOC. By developing an online environment for a community of practice of European LSP teachers, the consortium wanted to give LSP teachers the opportunity to continue their lifelong learning once they had completed the MOOC. Finally, the quality approach was a concern of the consortium throughout the project by the development of evaluation grids and specific procedures, by the implementation of accreditation procedures for the trained teachers and by a quality audit of all the project outputs.Thanks to an impact study of the tools and materials developed, the consortium was able to produce a number of recommendations for political decision-makers for better recognition of the specificities of LSP teaching and the integration of relevant training. Some of these recommendations have already been put into effect locally, in particular through the integration of LSP training modules in initial teacher education based on the content of the CATAPULT MOOC.In the longer term, it will be LSP learners (adults and students in Higher education in particular) who will benefit from the pedagogical expertise of their LSP teachers who will make the most of a number of digital technologies.

The tonal quality of the excellent violins was until recently a mystery. Although many secrets are already known, there are still unanswered questions. Violin makers try to recreate these tonal qualities choosing the materials, creating shapes and taking wood off in order to optimize the sound. The balance between the thicknesses of the soundboard and the back is still an unresolved issue. The technological progress nowadays offer accessible tools that were previously very restricted. In this context we have carried out this project to try to resolve this issue combining research and educational.Our students have taken part in the complexities of a scientific investigation, controlling each and every one of the variables, and seeing the different approach one has to take when making a violin departing from the traditional methods. We have had the opportunity to work with innovative measurement methods applied to violin making. The acquisition of these skills and those that will acquire the future students are a solid base of employability. The teaching staff, witness and participant, also widens their knowledge and experience on the subject, with the consequent effect on the abilities of the students. Another of the achieved objectives is an updated Curriculum in contents and competences, which is already put into practice at school. Although it is very soon some interesting conclusions are being drawn on the question.The overall experience has been very positive for the students and teaching staff of both BELE, the violin making school and the Bilbao Conservatory, which has taken an active part in the Psychoacoustic and Free Categorization tests. This experience also extends to the University of the Sorbonne with the LAM laboratory to which Claudia Fritz belongs, an expert worldwide in perceptual evaluation protocols. She will have the oportunity to use the intellectual products generated on these tests in future projects. In the same way, the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge will make good use of the conclusions that are being obtained, and although Jim Woodhouse has just retired, his experience and knowledge will continue to add academic value to doctoral students related to musical instrument acoustics.In this sense, George Stoppani and Jim Woodhouse complement a good team to carry out an investigation, Stoppani with his experience in innovative methods of measurement and capacity of analysis and synthesis with Woodhouse´s experience in the scientific method related to the acoustics of musical instruments. Finally, we highlight the Bilbao Conservatory of Music, a place where education, research and innovation converge for this project, always seeking to improve the quality of education that increases training and as a result the employability of students.The main activity has been the construction and assembly of 6 violins, combining different soundboards and backs, performing modal analysis in each phase, and controlling each variable. In parallel it has been monitored, the making, by other European luthiers of other seven violins, following the same external shape used for the project. The perceptual evaluation, through Psychoacoustic and Free Categorization tests of these 13 violins was, along with an exhibition, another important activity carried out in Bilbao. The students participated in the creation of everything necessary to carry out these activities.The obvious achievement is the building under controled parameters of 6 violins, which are available to anyone who wants to evaluate them. But the greatest achievement is the experience acquired by the participants in each of the processes: the learning of new methods of measurement, understanding the building of the violin in a novel way, experience of teamwork in usually individual processes, having the experience in the programming and carrying out of an event and an exhibition, etc. Protocols have been created to perform psychoacoustic and Free Categorization tests along with the design of reference data tables. In the need of more perceptual assessments, some basic conclusions have already been obtained on this Psychoacoustic field.Another significant result is the adaptation of our curriculum. The impact is not immediate, even though has changed some of the working ways, but we believe that it will be seen in a few years when the participating students leave for their professional life. The conclusions are helping and in the future will help violin makers to improve their products and will also help to similar violin making schools interested in the scientific method.Widening the skills training is the great benefit of this project. The increase in the quality and control of the sound of the instruments leads to the greater satisfaction of the whole sector. We also value the creation of a culture shared research and science to understand and improve our work.

The “One Comprehensive Research European University” (1CORE) project constitutes the consolidation and further expansion of the 4EU+ ambitions as a European University. By bringing its cooperation to the next level, the Alliance aspires to reinforce its position as a centre of knowledge and research, a stronghold of European values, and an active agent of positive change in its ecosystems and in Europe. To this end, 1CORE addresses 6 strategic dimensions laid down in 4EU+ Mission Statement which conform the holistic concept of 4EU+ model. These dimensions are operationalised in 1CORE specific objectives, namely: i) transform an alliance of 6 partners into 1 European university, with the 4EU+ Association e.V. at the centre; ii) boost 4EU+ Flagships to implement our common approach to an excellent education and research while serving the society by addressing global challenges; iii) consolidate a student-centred educational framework answering the needs of students in terms of skills, equipping them for the labour market and as citizens; iv) foster the sense of belonging to the 4EU+ community, which supports the construction of a multicultural and diverse European identity, by promoting seamless mobility; v) empower all learners through lifelong learning and open education & science practices; and, vi) bring together a new generation of Europeans who are able to cooperate and work within different European and global cultures, in different languages, and across borders, sectors and disciplines.To pursue these objectives, we rely on a methodology implemented across our core 5 work packages, supported by a solid project management and an ambitious communication and dissemination strategy. The latter will ensure that our achievements are widely available to fellow European Universities, policymakers, and other stakeholders, serving as role model to further increase the quality, international competitiveness, and attractiveness of the European higher education landscape.

The rapid move to online learning as a response to the Covid crisis in early 2020 underlined both the importance of learning design and the challenge of engaging mainstream teachers in this process. Traditional course redesign methods, while effective, demand too much time and support to be truly scalable. Well before Covid, this contradiction frustrated educational ambition at all policy levels. Recognising the need for a radical rethink, the digital education team at University College London (UCL) developed a high-energy hands-on learning design workshop locally called ABC Learning Design (ABC LD), with a focus on blended (ICT-rich) learning. The key to this approach was pace, engagement and collaboration. In just 90 minutes, using a ‘rapid prototyping’ format, teaching teams work together to create a visual ‘storyboard’ outlining the type and sequence of learning activities (both online and offline) required to meet the course’s learning outcomes. ICTs, assessment methods, cross-program themes and institutional policies can all be integrated into the process. The Erasmus + ABC to VLE project aimed to provide guidance and templates to enable educational institutions across Europe and further afield to localise the method and link to the institutional virtual learning environment (VLE), or Learning Management System (LMS). The thirteen partner institutions involved in the ABC to VLE project were chosen to represent a broad range of contexts, including ten countries (UK, DK, BE, RO, HR, FR, FI, IT, IE, EE), ten languages (EN, NL, IT, HR, FI, RO, ET, DA, FR, SV) and a variety of institutional educational technologies (Moodle, Canvas, Fronter, eDidaktikum, Blackboard). Some had used ABC before and others were completely new to the approach. This ensured the project was able to provide outputs relevant to a range of European universities, and beyond.The primary outcome was the co-development and release of a learning design and staff development online/downloadable ‘Toolkit’ including a resource 'pack', and seven guides for localising, training and cascading the ABC LD method within local communities. The pack was validated in three ways, firstly by co-development by the project team, secondly by case studies by the project partners in their own educational contexts, tracking the intervention on the participant experience and thirdly by a releasing version of the Toolkit in early 2019. This encouraged the establishment of a a transnational community of practitioners, many from beyond the original project group. The inclusion of these multiple perspectives has enabled the resources to be adapted across varied educational contexts and has already ensured widespread impact. The project was able to respond to Covid by adding a section on online ABC for the 2020 version of the Toolkit.