Due to the growing demand of energy in the South-Mediterranean region, a shift towards renewable energies and notably solar energy is being promoted by the governments and the energy industry. One of the main obstacles for this development is the lack of qualified staff. The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the region have launched training programmes in the field, but two main aspects still need to be addressed: improving a multidisciplinarity approach and links to businesses and applied research. Resources and international collaboration are needed in order to improve the quality of the training programmes and to ensure that they are linked to the latest research findings and requirements of the industry.In the larger context of modernisation, accessibility and internationalization of HEI systems in the Partner Countries, the MEDSOL project aims at enhancing the capacity of HEIs in Morocco and Egypt to deliver master-level programmes in solar energy. More specifically, it seeks to improve the quality of the currently existing training programmes, teaching methods and laboratory equipment for practice-based research. The work is conducted through close cooperation, sharing know-how and good practices between Programme and Partner Country HEIs as well as partners from business and applied research sectors. The proposed key activities are: 1. Improving existing curricula at the partnering HEIs in Morocco and Egypt; 2. Capacity building of HEI staff in Morocco and Egypt via a mobility scheme; 3. Updating training facilities at HEIs in Morocco and Egypt; 4. Providing opportunities for mobility for students in form of study/traineeship periods at the partnering institutions in the EU, Morocco and Egypt; 5. Disseminating project results and best practices in form of workshops and publications; 6. Promoting continued long-term collaboration, e.g. developing Double Master Degrees between the partners.

This project aims to create a comprehensive digital imaging database in which the scanned skeletal material of South African individuals will be curated. The server for the database of non-living individuals will be stored at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa), while for living individuals in the respective hospital archival systems. Standard operating procedures and quality assurance guidelines will be created in order to manage access and ethical use of the digital database. The applicable data will be uploaded online for dissemination not only to partner Universities but also other national and international research groups following adequate ethical approval of research and author permission. Mobilities between South Africa and Europe and interdisciplinary research are envisaged to enhance research expertise and improve outcomes as well as expand material for more representative research findings.A digital collection of images is vital for improving education and expanding research in skeletal anatomy and human variation. The research will aid in medico-legal investigations for deceased individuals and medical research, either by creating new methodologies, or validating those already in use. Research will also be done by postgraduate students, and thereby increase the capacity of universities to train professionals. In some cases, scans will be used in undergraduate teaching, in order to create learning environments that are true to real life scenarios. The availability of skeletal collections of modern individuals, representative of the heterogeneous South African population, along with the advanced technology to create and curate 3D digital scans on skeletal material as well as on living persons, puts South Africa in the ideal position to successfully implement this project. The resulting database will be beneficial to training and research in higher education in South Africa and will establish partnerships with European countries.

Digital technology is fast transforming the way we study, teach and communicate. At best, it is integrated into thematic courses, employing innovative teaching techniques and allowing the acquisition of transversal skills. Such training is quickly becoming a necessity, as students have grown to rely on digital resources, while ICT know-how is becoming quintessential for the job-market. However, there is a dearth of training opportunities to initiate advanced students into Information and Communication Technologies. Digital Editing of Medieval Manuscripts (DEMM) is a joint training programme between Charles Uni. in Prague, Queen Mary Uni. of London, the Centre National de la recherche scientifique (Lyon), the Uni. of Siena, the Klosterneuburg monastic library and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. It equipped advanced MA and PhD students in medieval studies with the necessary skills to work in a digital environment, through a year-long programme on editing medieval manuscripts and their online publication. A rigorous introduction to medieval manuscripts and their analysis was accompanied by formal training in ICT and introduction to project management. The end of each one-year programme (run thrice, on three consecutive years) saw the students initiated into practical work-experience alongside developers, as they worked on their own digital editions, leading to its online publication. This enhanced the students’ skill-set and the employability opportunities which ensue from it. At the core of the project was an initiation to advanced manuscript studies and ICT. The provision of formal training in this practical field was complemented by work on a year-long project - an edition of an unpublished medieval text which was edited critically, and then prepared for digital publication. In each university a team of several participants, supported by a Local Coordinator, worked together to prepare the editions. This took place over a highly structured year: at the beginning of the year all participants met for training in medieval manuscripts and their editing (palaeography, philology, book history, practical editing, etc.). This was followed by a term of work in each university, supported by cross-institutional collaboration using virtual collaboration spaces. During that time students prepared their own edition, identified problems and potential solutions. At the beginning of the second term the teams met again, this time for relevant training in ICT (HTML, XML, TEI, etc.). The following term was then devoted to subjecting the edition to scrutiny, tagging and preparing it for publication. At the end of the year, both terms came together to supply the basis for concerted work with developers. A week-long Hackathon enabled students to liaise with developers on the creation of their digital edition, based on their previous training and the work carried in the course of the terms. During that time, hands-on experience was supplemented by training in project management from inception to delivery, with specific sessions on time management, practical project management, funding and planning. The outputs of the projects are multifaceted. They include the teaching materials, which were consolidated, trialed and publicized, to support teachers in classes on medieval manuscripts or digitization. The outputs provide a practical guide for digitizing manuscript collections, guides for manuscript studies, for teaching TEI, or in time-management for PhD students and Early Career Researchers. Another key output is a digital library of innovative editions, which was built over the years from students' works. The training of students was one of the programme's key objectives. The programme was unique in combining ICT and practical work, alongside training in medieval studies. This skill-set is invaluable for working in projects both within and without academia, for scholars and entrepreneurs.The training programme ran thrice on three consecutive years. This enabled the consolidation of the programme and the training materials, as well as establishing substantial links between participating institutions. The programme was designed to outlive the length of the funding. A cadre of well-trained and cohesive students from across Europe was established, and given means for future communication, as well as future joint hackathons and hands-on work experience. Materials for all three training sessions were refined during the three years of the programme, to be made into self-standing, freely available web resources. The texts at the core of the programme are one of the more substantial outcomes of the programme. By carefully editing texts and preparing them for digital publication in a highly stable format, these tangible outcomes serve as an important outcome of the programme, not only boosting participants’ experience and CV, but also furthering scholarship.

The Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for Higher Education iTHEPHY has involved universities and research institutes from Italy, Germany, and France, with long-lasting relations that have been reinforced thanks to the project. The Consortium included: Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna (UNIBO) Bologna, Italy; Unversite Clermont Auvergne (UCA), Clermont-Ferrand, Franch; Tecnische Univeristat Dortmund (TUD), Dortmund, Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique and Institute National de physique nucleaire et de physique de particules (CNRS/IN2P3), France; Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron Laboratory (DESY), Hamburg, Germany. A crucial role in supporting the project Summer Schools organization and implementation has been played by the Associated Partner Institut d'Etudes Scientifiques De Cargese (IESC), located in Cargese, Corsica, France. The project aimed at building a strategic partnership to promote an innovative educational environment and exchange of good practices in the field of higher education. The project consists of developing e-learning and blended learning methodologies and tools for teaching particle physics to students attending the second year of the master's degree, making them work together in real research projects supervised by international teachers and researchers belonging to the iTHEPHY Consortium. The innovative educational approach applied promotes internationalization, team-work skills enhancement, and contributes to boosting mobility worldwide. The project outputs can be summarized as follows:IO1. Moodle platform for Physics, based on the open-source Moodle framework and its plugins. It has been designed and successfully implemented to support the DPA- and Project-Based teaching and learning methodologies. The web-based platform has also supported the team during the project integrating a video web-conference plug-in, a chat room, a shared storage area for files, a scheduler/agenda for planning meetings between teachers and students, and a project management tool for an efficient implementation of projects, able to assign sub-tasks and tracking their progress;IO2. A full set of guided exercises with full solutions also available on the e-learning platform; Physics disciplines taught in master courses need intensive practice with exercises and problems (EPs) in order to well internalize the advanced concepts, rather than passively reading, memorizing, or listening lectures. ITHEPHY successfully implemented dynamic guided problems and solutions for a Deep Learning in PhysicsIO3. A Methodology handbook describing the implementation methodology of the project for future replications.Educating-through-research is the core teaching, and learning feature of the iTHEPHY project usually, named by the Consortium the Tandem-Project (TP). This innovative educational methodology was implemented in three academic years, 2018/2019, 2019/2020, and 2020/2021. About 40 students, enrolled in the second year of the master’s degree in physics from the three partner universities were engaged to be part of TPs. They have been combined to form seven cross-national teams (made of two or three students and two or three international supervisors). International research projects based on HEP research have been assigned to each group. Students had the possibilities to present their results during the three editions of the Summer School, in 2018, 2019 held in Cargese, and in 2020 held online due to the COVID emergency. The project-based learning and teaching activities have been supported by the project's outputs, i.e. advanced collaborative tools, integrated into a customized Moodle platform built with open-source software and guided exercises made available on the platform. In conclusion, the iTHEPHY project has implemented and proposes an innovative and unconventional approach to learning and teaching based on educating-through-research activities supported by ICT tools. This approach is complementary to frontal lectures and promotes the internationalization of master's degrees in and outside Europe. It is worth to underline that at least two achievements exceeding the initial expectations were obtained by ITHEPHY. The first consists of the institutionalization of Summer School as an official activity, approved by the Physics Department Committee and by the ViceRector for Teaching and Education of the UNIBO, delivering 6 ECTS credits to all the attendants, for the activities of the tandem-project. Second UNIBO, UCA, and TUD signed an agreement to set up an International Master's degree in Particle Physics (IMAPP). IMAPP is a joint degree program implemented by the 3 HEIs, integrating the tandem-project and Summer School activities (and hence the iTHEPHY's outputs) in the degree program, with 6 compulsory ECTS. iTHEPHY's research institutions will host students for their internship in preparation for the final thesis.

"The future challenges and possible environmentally related competitive advantages are linked to the two generic technologies - Biotechnology and ICT. They are reducing and preventing the negative impacts of humans technology on environment and health, and ensure the potential of future sustainable development. In this context discussions about the environmental aspects of biotechnology and ICT and how they are shaped in interaction with HE trends is performed. This is also important as ICT technology is seriously embedded into many new biotechnological processes, products, etc. This outlined the project objectives to develop HE prospects for integrated environmental and innovation training in relation to interaction of biotechnology and digital technology areas. The objectives pursued and the innovative education offered will be focused on target groups in the following directions:- to define the applications of digital technologies in biotechnology- to create, using ICT, a virtual space and educational content, enriched with visual elements and simulations- to apply EQF/NQF/HE principles for qualification development ensuring technical competence and skills of target groups- to show the innovative character of digital technologies and their effect on green industryThe project partnership is created with understanding for the HEs needs to shift educational policy from “knowledge” to “competence” and for introduction of LOs and ECTS within the Biotechnology & ICT education for green technologies development. It unifies EU partners from BG, GR, DE, IT, FR and comprises three HEIs, two SMEs with core activity in fostering quality standards in educational and Biotech management, and two R&D Centers having core expertise in implementation of sustainable scientific, educational and social practices.The project methodology is based on System Development Life Cycle concept, which divides the project lifetime into four Phases and seven Tasks/Activities: Arrangement of project management & administration; Project start up; Methodological framework & work plan; Intellectual Outputs production; Approbation of project deliverables; Performance of Dissemination & Use; Assurance of durable effect of project.During the project life cycle the following results will be developed:I) A comprehensive digital educational platform comprising Intellectual Outputs in the frame of Biotechnology and ICT, designed as LOs:O1: The Drivers of Digital technology and ICT in HE: A Case Study, examining the contribution of contemporary learning technologies to the institutional modernization.O2: Open Content Platform, an innovative tool using blended learning approach for a self-paced, free source of online education in the field of ICT for green Biotechnology.O3: Learning Area & Reference Model which will be focused on the development of the training programme and formulation of LOs/BLPs.O4: Guide ""Teaching and learning in HE"" designed for academic professionals and offering both the essentials of effective HE teaching and guidelines how to use the project web platform.O5: Students Smart Kit elaborated for BSc/MSc students and describing strategies for effective learning and the opportunities in the project.O6: Science for Educational Resources comprising latest innovations in the field of ICT for green Biotechnology and encompassing case studies, presentations, videos, visualizations, 3D-educational images, etc.The programme will be realized through actions assigning the following results:II) Results for project management & administration: derived during project conceptual design; complementing the Intellectual Outputs; processing multiplier events; assisting training programme piloting; related to project D linked with Digit-BioTech sustainability provision.III) Results dedicated on the MEs performance and popularization of all project deliverables.IV) Results related with the organisation of TPMs.The expected impact of Digit-BioTech project is directly connected with the innovative achievements anticipated by it. The generic innovations that outline prospects for durable impact are focused on:- Development of innovative training materials and practical teaching and guidance tools oriented towards project targets- LO-based educational approach - offered in a blended mode and contributing to introduction of a training approach leading towards qualification- Amalgamation of a virtual space and educational content thus implementing digital strategies in HE trainingThe potential of long-term benefits from the Digit-BioTech project is grounded on the envisaged possibilities for:- Implementation of project outputs into national educational systems at formal institutions and in-company training departments- Capacity development of HEIs to support and build up employability- Mobilizing science and technology and foster capacity for innovation- Improving the social, economic, and environmental sustainability."