<< Background >>The modernisation and digitization of education across Europe, in particular because of the current health crisis due to COVID, are an opportunity to strengthen the HEI of a common european educational area, to integrate an awareness of interculturality in professional training thanks to a broadening to other know-hows and thus an increase in the attractiveness of this training for employers. We believe that collaboration and intercultural experiences of students and educators, based on digital competences and innovative methods for fine-grained internationalisation, are one of the essential components of this common european educational space. The proposed project will share, exchange and experiment with methods and tools for improving digital skills and intercultural experience for tertiary education. Work will be carried out as part of a real-life demonstrator among the four initial universities. The results will be used to establish best practice guidelines for relying on digital technology to internationalise university teaching in Europe. Definitely thought for the students in the fields of engineering, computer sciences, robotics and civil genius, regardless of their social, physical or geographical situation, SEEDS aims to allow these future workers and citizens to gain intercultural and professional skills with a european dimension. Completely connected to the industrial world, this project gives the students the possibility to share an amazing experience with european peers while being graduated. The project will involve a minimum of 200 students directly out of all the students of the consortium universities and their immediate partner universities. The community of teachers directly involved is around 40. The number of teachers immediately accessible, i.e. teaching staff of consortium members and european partner universities exceeds 2000. Through the dissemination and communication activities, an even larger number of teachers, as well as educational policy makers will be addressed. Moreover, the SEEDS project foresees strong liaising with industry and commerce through project-based activities. Led by a steering committee and managed by Université Toulouse III (France), this project involves 3 other partners in the fields of robotics, computer sciences, civil engineering, electronics and applied sciences. SEEDS will organize a sequence of shared distributed Courses with lectures, virtual labs, projects and visits, summer schools for industrial collaborations, a webinar for sharing teaching methods and other dissemination and communication activities. The intellectual outputs will comprise fine-grain elements for shared remote courses, methodological guidance and best practice examples for teachers in tertiary education. The needs are: - to give an equal access to all the students to high level courses, remote or in-person, while increasing their employability, - to prepare the teachers and the university community to address the challenge of the complementarity between remote and in-person courses, - to work closely with industrial companies in order to make them be partners both for their own advantages and for those of the students.<< Objectives >>The SEEDS objective is establishing a community of best practice for distributed courses between partner universities among european tertiary level teachers. The experience shall help to improve cohesion among european universities, going beyond narrow activities like, for example, the French-Geman University (Université Franco-Allemande/Deutsch-Französische Hochschule - UFA/DFH). The SEEDS proposal is triggered by the previous activities of the partners that helped to identify current conditions that limit internationalization in general whatever the reason can be. We believe that limitations can be overcome by modernizing and transforming current methods and procedures for international educational collaboration by adopting an integrated digital approach. During the project we will identify suitable digital tools, develop necessary enhancements and interfaces to form a consistent tool chain for distributed online and blended teaching and learning. We will also establish pedagogical methods and administrative procedures to form an innovative ecosystem for a low-threshold fine-grained educational collaboration across Europe. By involving students, educators and administrative staff, digital competencies of all aspects of university education will be developed. The consortium is carefully chosen with university partners with educational obligations, who at the same time have a scientific background in digital technologies, e.g. in the field of human- computer interaction and pedagogy. To complement existing tools and methods, the project will pay special attention to the following issues: 1) pedagogical approaches for distributed shared lectures, 2) methods and tools for laboratory exercises that require remote interaction with machines and other physical devices (‘e-lab’), 3) tools and methods for distributed, remote assessment (‘e-exam’) 4) administrative procedures and tools to account for a large number of (small) lectures and labs and many participants from several universities and 5) interfacing with established tools.<< Implementation >>The project will prepare a catalog of resources for shared distributed courses, consisting of lecturing units, remote labs, virtual visits and student projects. For agile development and evaluation of the development a series of four shared distributed courses for academic education and two summers schools with industrial stakeholders will be carried out. A goal of the teaching activities is to allow students to get intercultural skills by collaboration with foreign students. Moreover, an overview of methods and tools for digital education and of best practice exercises will be prepared. This material will be used during webinars and multiplier events as part of dissemination and communication activities. The project will be covered by a communication plan, with the following main elements:- Website of the project, to present the project and distribute project results,- Social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter to widen the community,- Seminar and actions aimed at the business world.<< Results >>The main project results will be:- Documentation and best-practice examples of a technical infrastructure framework based on of-the-shelf components for remote shared education. - Sample syllabus and fine grain lecturing material for four shared distributed lectures on engineering subjects. Before finalization the material will be validated by being used as part of regular courses of at least two partners.- Remote labs setup documentation and best-practice examples to be an optional part of shared education activities, allowing access to physical assets remotely.- Virtual visits setup documentation and best-practice examples to be an optional part of shared education activities, allowing to gain virtual 360° insight into the application domain of the teaching subjects.- Shared student projects setup documentation and best practice examples to be an optional part of shared education activities, allowing to carry out practically relevant projects in distributed student teams.- Remote shared teaching methodology and guidance document, covering team-building activities for distributed student groups to foster remote interaction, remote assessment methodologies and didactic methods for distributed distance teaching.The results will be developed jointly and evaluated and finalized by practical application. Results will be disseminated and communicated. For future reference the results will be catalogued.

i-MESC is an ambitious, unique and much needed 2-years MSc. program aiming to prepare and guide, in the most complete and efficient manner, the next generation of professionals to the new challenges of the energy field.i-MESC offers a highly interdisciplinary curriculum, covering scientific and technological knowledge about electrochemical energy storage and conversion at multiple scales (from the materials to the devices). The program has a major focus on batteries, and also covers supercaps and fuel cells, from multiple angles, such as materials synthesis, devices manufacturing, advanced characterization, artificial intelligence and digital twins. The program also includes practices in the laboratories and in the pilot lines of the i-MESC consortium. i-MESC curriculum also offers complementary soft skills, such as project management, communication, ethics and integrity, preparation to professional interviews, intellectual property and start-up creation. Innovative pedagogic methods based on Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and the metaverse are implemented and deployed to maximize the engagement and learning efficiency of the students of the complex concepts involved in the electrochemical energy storage and conversion field.i-MESC gathers internationally recognized academic leaders with complementary expertise from four European countries, USA and Australia, all with very strong connections with industry. The consortium will be complemented with invited scholars from other (academic and industrial) institutions who will be delivering lectures and trainings on specific topics.i-MESC will recruit around 36 students and 8 scholars per year from all over the world. The expected results from i-MESC include the successful training of highly qualified individuals with strong interdisciplinary skills needed to raise the production capacity of energy storage and conversion technologies toward the European Energy independence.

The European Master in Advanced Structural Analysis and Design using Composite Materials - FRP++ - is a one-year, full-time intensive academic programme (60 ECTS) leading to the awarding of a double master degree. The FRP++ offers an advanced integrated educational programme covering the key issues of the Composites industry with a particular focus on i) materials and manufacturing processes, ii) mechanics and modelling, iii) analysis and design, iv) inspection, diagnosis, repair and strengthening, and v) sustainability and life cycle analysis.The Master combines the diverse expertise of leading European HEIs in the related fields (Univ. of Minho, Girona, Naples and INSA/UPS) to offer an excellent education proposal oriented to a multidisciplinary understanding of structural Composites through the involvement of specialists from complementary fields (engineers, materials science and others). The six coursework units (1st semester), held on a rotating basis among partners, is concentrated in two countries each year and dissertation work (2nd semester) is divided by all involved institutions. Students carry out the entire coursework in one location and the dissertation in another location. The curriculum is the same, no matter the student mobility track. The programme also includes the Integration Week (November) and the annual FRP++ workshop (May) where all students will meet together in Consortium members that do not host any Coursework in this academic year.Through an excellent education, students will gain cutting-edge knowledge on structural Composites in a research-driven environment, maintaining close collaboration with industry and an important focus on solving practical problems, to compete in a highly demanding market, such as construction, aerospace and aeronautics, automotive, wind energy, among others, where Composites are fundamental. The FRP++ combines the latest research advances with the development of activities related to professional practice.

"MADEEHI project aims to ensure capacities regarding control of energy, water, housing environment and new technologies, in accordance with socio-cultural context, to assure a sustainable and reasoned local development based on entrepreneurial spirit and added value of natural resources of Madagascar. Moreover, this project aims to improve cooperation between universities and companies at regional, national and international levels. MADEEHI consortium is composed of 3 HEIs from three countries Madagascar and (SP, FR, BE) and three HEIs from Madagascar. It is composed on 12 associated partners with complementary interventions, as 3 companies, 2Heis, 3 association/ONG, 4 ministries and 2 public establishments. The project plans to ensure units of learning proposed in Master degrees concerning domains, and to improve competencies of teachers. In this context, exchanges of goods practices, sessions training in EU and Madagascar will be implemented. Workshops, technological showcase and conferences will mobilize stakeholders and establish narrow relations between universities and companies.Equipments as experimental benches and demonstrators will be installed in 3HEIs and ""Green Village"", in order to implement these experimentations."

Lighting is the major consumer of electricity in developing countries consuming up to 86% of total electricity production. In the un-electrified rural villages, traditional biomass and commercial petroleum fuel is used to provide minimal lighting in the homes. Nepal and Bhutan are perfect examples of such developing countries where on one hand large population have to rely on fuel based lighting and on the other hand major portion of electricity is consumed for lighting. Most of the current lighting design, lamps and lighting technologies used in these areas are inefficient. Nepal and Bhutan has large potential of energy saving by applying energy efficient techniques in lighting. There is growing need of technical expertise and experience to convert that potential into reality.The aim of the project was to support Nepali and Bhutani Higher Education Institutions to provide education that promotes sustainable socio-economic development. The specific objectives of the project were: 1. To raise awareness in efficient lighting management and to identify important factors of needs and opportunities in efficient lighting in Nepal and Bhutan2. To develop energy efficient lighting courses and lighting laboratory3. To enhance and upgrade the skills of teaching staffs for improved academic environmentThe direct target groups of the project are 1) undergraduate, graduate and post graduate students at Universities in Nepal and Bhutan 2) Trainers, educators, and teachers in professional academies; 3) Academics in the advanced lighting field. Final beneficiaries of the project are professionals in the building industry chain, lighting industry equipment producers and lighting efficiency service providers, and government officials, energy regulators, NGOs. The project was able to improve the situation and enhance the opportunities of all target groups by providing them with detailed new higher education tools in the field of energy efficient lighting.