The main objective of the PONCHO project is to encourage the process of internationalization of Latin American Universities partners in the project, with special focus on the Universities of peripheral areas of the region, whose geographical position or the volume of students have been unable to develop their internationalization in the same way as capital universities or major universities in the region. The PONCHO consortium is then composed mainly with universities having no experience in project of capacity building (former Alfa) and only 4 Latin American institutions have experience: Asuncion, Goias, San Simon and Nacional del Sur. Hence the exchange of good practices from the more experienced partners to the not so experienced partners is highly valued in order to increase, not only EU-Third country cooperation, but also Third country-Third country cooperation.To develop its objectives, PONCHO will work at three levels: at technical level: through the training of the IROs staff; at academic and students level: through the organization of Info days and Students Camp where academics and students will receive training and awareness session to approach them to internationalization, intercultural and integration using non-formal training tools; and finally at institutional level: through an online platform and the organisation of International Fair where the institution will be able to develop on one side their support process for a good internationalization and on the other side, through international marketing and network, to increase their international presence. The focus of active participation and collaborative decision making of the project will be implemented in the preparation, management, dissemination and optimization and quality control and through the PONCHO platform the consortium will not only be able to work together but also to develop new collaborations with other universities of the region.

The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and specifically Internet of Things (IoT) in Argentina and Uruguay is growing at a relatively slow pace and we found the main reasons being: the lack of cooperation, the scarceness of human resources in the area of interest, and the heterogeneous thus ineffective educational methodology and offer in a state of the art topic. The aim of the project NEON is therefore to modernize the higher education system, to improve and diversify the training of human resources, both in the academic field (students, professors,) and in the industrial sphere (technical staff) and to motivate a broader spectrum of people towards IoT, which nowadays is one of the most innovative and most impactful technology in the ICT field, as it can influence and improve several aspects and processes of our lives. The main goal of the institutions that take part in the project will be the creation of a Network of Competence in IoT. This network of competence will serve as a hub and common knowledge base for both academia and industry in order to foster an improved technological advancement through exchange of knowledge and needs. Specifically, the network of competence will connect universities in Argentina and Uruguay with local industry (and with EU universities) in order to address their needs, offer teaching and training opportunities to both teachers, staff and students, improve the infrastructure through the creation of joint university-academia laboratories and offer internships. All these activities will be related to modernizing the curricula by including the IoT topic, developing new hands-on based education, acquiring digital skills and learning methods to strengthen the relation between HEIs and the wider economic and social environment fostering capacity building, innovation, creativity and employability so that to contribute to local economy growth.

By initiating a Latin American-European cooperation on innovation and entrepreneurship, the LISTO project adresses the LA universities' need to keep developing their capacities in connecting with the wider economic and social environment. The project has identified three target areas. 1.) University-industry relations; 2.) Teachings entrepreneurship skills; 3.) entrepreneurial universities. LISTO will establish an exchange of methods for matching researchers with industry R&D staff (AIMday), develop an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship skills module and train teachers in delivering an international classroom, and work on strategies for fostering an entrepreneurial spirit and innovation governance. There will be an open access ebook (in English, Spanish and Portuguese) summarizing the results and the teaching methods.

The aim of RecoLATIN project is to favour and to increase the quality of vertical and horizontal student mobility within Latin America and European higher education systems. Partners intend to improve competencies and skills of credential evaluators by defining common practices and realising common tools among European and Latin America national bodies and HE institutions, starting from the experience of European HE institutions in relation with the Bologna Process and practices adopted by NARIC centres. Recognition procedures and practices are not only related to technical issues, but are influenced by the structure of each HE system and their cultural approach. The theme of recognition takes into account all the aspects of a HE system (i.e. QA; accreditation/recognition of institutions and programmes; access to courses; etc.): in order to evaluate a foreign qualification we need to know different elements and to consider the purpose of this evaluation procedure (i.e. academic or professional recognition). The activities of the project are placed both at national (official bodies) and institutional level (HEIs). The Latin America countries signed the UNESCO Recognition Convention in 1974 and their recognition practices are based on previous concepts not influenced by the Lisbon Recognition Convention criteria. For that reason we intend to create operational national recognition centres and to provide training activities on recognition practices for their staff. We will draft National Reports of each partner country involved in the project in order to present their HE systems in the view of recognition purposes. We will focus our attention on controversial recognition cases and sectors as TNE and international institutions, distant learning qualifications and non-traditional degrees. Each result of the project will be disseminated through two final seminars organised in the two respective areas as an impulse for both other countries and their HE institutions.