<< Objectives >>The objectives of this project are: Situational analysis regarding teaching and learning practices about circular economy on University level; Establishing linkages and enhancing the cooperation between the academia and industry; Creating a digital repository of knowledge, tools and activities for circular economy; Enrichment of the knowledge and skills of the University staff; Empowering them to implement concepts of circular economy in their future jobs.<< Implementation >>The project will include a baseline study regarding teaching and learning practices related to circular economy on University level in SouthEast Europe. Diverse set of activities will be deployed including: workshops with professors for development of digital OER materials and curricular interventions, bootcamps and virtual/hybrid exchanges for students and broad dissemination of the activities.<< Results >>The project will produce a White Paper with situational mapping and recommendations for enhancing the teaching and learning about circular economy. It will also develop a digital repository of OER materials related to circular economy as core outcome for future use and development, enhance academia-industry linkages and University linkages (MoU) in the region and organize activities with students to develop circular economy mindset.

Work-based learning is a substantial part of professional education. For a vast majority of study programmes in Professional Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs), internship is mandatory for the programme accomplishment, with defined learning outcomes and ECTS-expressed workload. The internship concept is based on a planned period of experience in the workplace aimed at helping students develop particular skills, knowledge or understanding. Limited opportunities for students to physically approach the workplace have strongly affected and delayed the accomplishment of their studies.A clear need for the development of an internship model that will rely on the virtual/remote format in response to the pandemic has been recognized. In addition, digital internship is a powerful tool for the inclusion of students who cannot participate in traditional internships due to financial, geographical reasons, or disabilities etc. The assignment of work-based tasks that can be performed digitally and remotely, with the development of adequate monitoring of student progress, can significantly facilitate student learning outcome achievement. The goal of this project is to introduce the specific virtual internship model and methodology for VIs with practical workflows and guidelines, which enable quality design of customized and flexible internship programs. In order to enable functioning of VIs, a specialized web software solution will be designed and developed. It will be based on the proposed VI lifecycle model and methodology, and it will connect all parties (students, schools, and companies) within a secure and collaborative web platform. The goal is to provide a more flexible, efficient, personalized, low-cost, and adapted solution for VIs.The achievement of the project goal is envisioned through the orchestrated work of experts who have experience in organizing internship systems between PHEIs and companies and a group of experts who have experience in developing web-based platforms. The testing of the online platform for digital internship will be performed by piloting the internship in each country, as well as by virtual student exchanges between partners with complementary programs.The expected results of the project include:•Developed model for digital internship in professional higher education, including learning outcomes and methodology for its implementation;•Created online platform for the organization and management of virtual internships;•Created toolkit/guide for the implementation of virtual internships •raised capacities of PHEI teachers/trainers/mentors for organizing virtual internships;•improved professional and digital skills of students; •improved capacities of business enterprises to carry out digital internships;•created network of educational institutions and business partners involved in conducting virtual internships;•representatives of the education and business sectors informed on the possibilities for carrying out virtual internships and benefits from them.The model will support the needs of the internship triangle: student-PHEI-world of work. It will allow students to select and approach the digital internship position in the workplace; PHEIs to perform monitoring and validation of student progress, assessment of achieved learning outcomes, knowledge, skills and competences during a digital internship, support to companies in term of training the internship mentors; and for the companies, it will facilitate the internship implementation, which includes designing of a complete or partial digital internship position, selection and delegation of particular tasks to students, monitoring of student progress and program accomplishment. The development of a digital internship model, envisioned in this project, targets the PHEIs in emergency situations, but it also increases the responsiveness of PHEIs to the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that blurred the boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. Accordingly, it targets students, providing them with more efficient work-based learning. In particular, it will widen the spectrum of internships that will be accessible for the students with difficulties. The digital internship model also targets the world of work, perceived opportunities and challenges of representatives of key stakeholders in the development of digital internships. All partners will benefit from networking by sharing good practices and widening their teaching capacities via the online internship applications. It will strengthen the cooperation within institutions becoming more open for mobility and successful acquisition of innovative projects under the EU schemes in the field of professional education development.Contributing to the supply of digital education opportunities, the project will impact digital education readiness of project partners, but it is readily transferable to other professional higher education.

During the COVID-19-induced pandemic, the entire European Community has been facing serious challenges. The COVID-19 has a strong influence on higher education. The European universities switched to distance learning for the safety of students and teaching staff. The shortcomings of the traditional teaching practice to adopt to pandemic conditions have become more explicit. The main challenges have been: 1) Motivating students for active participation; 2) Organizing laboratory exercises; 3) Assessment of students´ competences.Besides challenges imposed by COVID-19 pandemic, there is a strong need for transformation of education: 1) While in the industrial society the main focus of education was to contribute to the development of procedural knowledge, in the information or knowledge society the development of conceptual and metacognitive knowledge is increasingly considered important; 2) According to modern learning theories, knowledge cannot be transmitted, but has to be constructed by each learner in the appropriate social context; 3) Student-active teaching methods with emphasis on student collaboration and reflection on the learning process are shown to be much more appropriate for the new needs. 4) Assessment methods are shown to be the key factor that steers the way students learn. It is therefore of great importance to develop assessment methods that support development of 21st century skills. Constructive alignment of learning goals, teaching methods and assessment practice is therefore a key issue.The project aims to address the needs of adapting teaching and assessment methods to pandemic conditions, but also adapting the education system to the 21st century (or knowledge-society) needs and state-of-the art pedagogical research; This general objective will be achieved by applying the holistic approach through mutual transnational cooperation among four university partners from Poland, Norway, Serbia and Bulgaria, and a number of additional industrial partners. The basic innovation lies in the holistic approach covering the set of the activities: novel teaching methodology, elaboration of new courses programmes, edition of digital materials (manuals, reports, problems, exercises, tests, etc.), writing textbooks and training of academic teachers to involve them in this new teaching way.The specific objectives of the project are as follows:1) To develop a methodology for problem-based teaching and corresponding assessment methods suitable for use in pandemic conditions, and put them into context of modern learning theories;2) To develop methodology for teacher training that facilitates adoption of the new teaching and assessment practice;3) To develop digital teaching and learning materials in the selected areas of ICT based on the above approach.The following results will be achieved:1) The innovative problem-based methodology under pandemic conditions will be developed and will be supported by appropriate digital presentations. 2) Digital resources will be created in educating teachers for acquiring new skills related to the problem-based methodology. Detailed schedules, presentations and recorded movies will be accessed at the project website.3) Digital teaching resources will be created in selected areas of ICT applicable for a group of problem-based courses. At least eight courses will be modernized. The introduction-to-lecture movies, interactive lecture presentations, project statements, lab exercises and online exam tests will be created.4) At least three multimedia books will be prepared with the aim to enable students to follow online lectures and prepare exams under pandemic conditions. A collection of students’ lab projects sharing best practices within partner universities will be edited. The target groups that will be addressed are students, teachers, higher education institutions and industrial companies.The innovative products in the field of education produced during project duration will be available via a website. Results will be presented to the higher education and industrial community through multiplier events, TV and newspapers interviews, as well as on social and professional networks. We will share the results of this project through four conference or journal papers in the field of education. These results will make higher education to be more attractive for nowadays students and will improve its quality. The level of digital competence of teachers and students will be improved. The links among students and companies will be established or enhanced. The universities will attract a larger number of domestic and foreign students. Some of the long-term goals are to continue collaboration among four partner universities through the programme “European universities” and to increase students' employability.

<< Background >>According to a recent OECD report, the COVID pandemic has had “a severe impact on higher education as universities closed their premises” and although quick to replace face-to-face lectures with online learning, “to remain relevant, universities will need to reinvent their learning environments so that digitalisation expands and complements student-teacher and other relationships”. This adds to the challenges already affecting teaching and learning as outlined by the Irish Universities' Association Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning project, namely that student numbers are increasing, while the staff/student ratio decreases. The student population is also becoming more diverse demanding more flexibility in when and how learning opportunities are provided. The extensive use of digital devices and applications enable this to happen. Therefore, to respond to the challenges of the transfer towards on-line learning, sped up by the impact of COVID, changes in student population and the increasingly pervasive digital environment, educators must develop their digital skills and adapt to more innovative teaching approaches. This is supported by the voice of the students.While it is important to support HE teachers to develop digital competences; this is not sufficient; they must change their perspective and way of teaching ensure that no student is left behind. Instructional Technology provides an answer to the challenges. It goes beyond digital tools and ensures a more applied systems approach that accommodates these successful learning technologies. In HIIT, Instructional Technology refers to the creation of engaging, effective learning experiences using available technological tools for pedagogical purposes and motivation. It concerns the design, development, use, management, and evaluation of the process of learning mediated by technology applications.We will do this by creating an ontology (to help map tools to requirements), a repository (comprising digital tools, good practice examples and cases) and a curriculum specifically targeted at the needs of HEI STEM teachers. STEM education has a strong practice and lab-based component in the pedagogical approach which creates more challengescompared to more theoretical subjects. Hence the main aim of HIIT is to equip HE STEM teachers with the self-efficacy, competencies and skills needed to understand the principles and constructs of Instructional Technology and rapidly leverage these to mitigate the impact of closure and safeguard the inclusive nature of learning opportunities.The target group is HE STEM teachers who do not know how to take maximum advantage of learning technologies and digital tools in subject-specific teaching and learning as well as their Institutions. The recent sudden shift to online and distance learning requires a different approach to instruction (especially when it comes to practice or lab-based courses). HE STEM teachers must change their perspective to ensure that learners are not left behind. HE teachers are predominantly research focused and specialists in their specific domain. They are currently ill equipped with the skills, competencies and capacity required to absorb the principles of good educational design needed to create bespoke materials in short time frames.HIIT therefore aims to equip HE STEM teachers with the ability to integrate instructional technology into their courses by teaching them how to design, develop, use, manage, and evaluate the process of learning mediated by technology applications. It will also show them how instructional technology can increase the inclusiveness of students with learning barriers.<< Objectives >>The quality of the expected impacts will be directly influenced by the initial inputs (knowledge, expertise, experience and network) we bring in; the project activities (the actions we plan to take) and the results (planned products and experiences). The KPIs we intend to use to measure these impacts are described in the Management section (KPIs to measure achievement during the project lifetime) and below (KPIs to measure impact during and after the project lifetime).The major impact on HE STEM TEACHERS is that they will develop the self-efficacy, competencies and skills needed to understand the principles and constructs of Instructional Technology and rapidly leverage these to mitigate the challenges related to on-line teaching. It will also help to increase the quality of online education and safeguard the inclusive nature of learning opportunities. Increased motivation and engagement in the learning process will have a longer-term positive effect on HEIs. During the project, they are motivated to exchange knowledge and learn from peers, this is expected to last in the long term, not only by increasing teacher´s knowledge base, but by increasing the resilience of the HEI they belong to. HE STUDENTS will benefit from engaging in effective on-line learning experiences in which HE teachers use technology that ensures the realisation of the pedagogical objectives, their motivation and skills attainment. Students that experience learning barriers will experience an increased attention for their context, with inclusive and equal learning opportunities in online settings.<< Implementation >>Our planned project activities are as follows: Conduct research; create educational initiatives; develop training; apply innovative approaches to teaching; provide teaching for staff; pilot test training; create an e-learning space based on instructional technology principles; disseminate and exploit the results; management activities; quality activities; team building activities. They will help us to achieve the project objectives, which will target HE teachers and Institutions as follows:- Conduct research: starting in the early stages of the project, this activity will help to identify the real needs of the teachers and ensure that we have validated our objectives and proposed solution.- Create educational initiatives: this activity will equip HE STEM teachers with the self-efficacy, competencies and skills needed to understand the principles and constructs of Instructional Technology to provide an answer to the challenges of on-line teaching and safeguard the inclusive nature of learning opportunities. - Develop training: this will help us to teach Instructional Technology concepts, methods and tools; provide a framework to allow teachers to integrate instructional technology into their courses and enable HE STEM teachers to rapidly pivot to teaching online.- Apply innovative approaches to teaching to identify and use existing education technology tools to ensure our students are supported to learn. - Provide teaching for staff towards the end of the project will help us to generate awareness of the methods, prepare the HE STEM teachers for using instructional technology, increase engagement of the teachers, help to embed the topic in targeted courses and contribute to changing the culture of the institution.- Pilot testing the training with the intended audience will help us to identify if the training is as successful as we hope and how it can be improved.- Creating an e-learning space will help us to provide quick and easy access to the learning content in a user-friendly way and show learners how digital online technology can be used to deliver subject-specific teaching, training and learning.<< Results >>The project will produce interim outcomes, results and formal project results (PRs). PR1 HIIT Instructional Technology Curriculum & Syllabus builds upon the analysis at proposal and preparation stages and based upon a solid methodological approach, will employ focus groups and surveys to refine the learning objectives, methodology, content and skills assessment method. Using PR1, PR2 HIIT Instructional Technology Learning Content & Assessment Method is developed. Based on Instructional Technology concepts, methods and tools, the underlying processes of educational innovation, and the application of the Instructional Technology principles in the design, realisation and evaluation of the taught subject on-line, considering the learning contexts and circumstances. PR1 and PR2 will be accessible through PR3 e-Learning Space, is also based on Instructional Technology principles, and extensively tested by HE STEM teachers in a comprehensive pilot study. The role of the wider HE community in the transfer and application of Instructional Technology is ensured through PR4 Recommendations showing HEI, HE STEM teachers and stakeholders how to use and uptake the PRs in a coherent way. For interim outcomes see “Project Results”.Through a collaboration between HEIs, HE (STEM) teachers, and Instructional Technology experts, HIIT embeds a knowledge sharing and mutual learning process, building synergies and ensuring the quality and adequateness of the proposed outcomes. This leads to an increased understanding of the day-to-day challenges faced by HE teachers and institutions as well as new knowledge arising in the field.

GET-AHED will be digital platform developed in consultation with a number of EU ministries, and will provide HEIs across the EU with a range of accessible, user friendly, online tools to enable them to adapt to the green transition. GET-AHED aims to make available the following tools:HE Green Assessment (online self-assessment tool) whose design will be based on the model and principals of the EU's HEInnovate self-assessment tool. The tool will allow HEIs to assess themselves in terms of the level of integration of sustainability within their organisation across a range of indicators and dimensions. The output of using the tool will assist HEIs in the design and implementation of institution sustainability plans by (i) identifying weaknesses in current plans and activities (ii) directing users towards best practice green transition approaches, systems and training opportunities. HE Green Champions (online training system) will boost the green transition capacity of internal stakeholders by providing learning initiatives for (i) HEI leaders to help them embed sustainability into the operations of a HEI (ii) staff and students to support their involvement in sustainability initiatives both internally and externally. The HE Green Champions training system will promote and embed EU Green Transition and Sustainability priorities through its initiatives. The leader programme will provide training relevant to the sustainability dimensions and indicators of the self-assessment tool. For staff and students, the training system will offer components such as fact sheets, videos, quizzes, and training elements designed to increase awareness and drive change. Entrepreneurial training methods, such as the EU Green Mentor project outputs, will be leveraged in the design of HE Green Champions. HE Green Zero (online energy tool) dedicated to improving sustainable operations in the HEI relevant to energy and energy related systems focussed on the goal of achieving net zero energy.