<< Background >>Student dropout & lack of timely completion caused by difficulties experienced in their transition to higher education (HE) in is a well-known problem, but higher education institutions (HEIs) have not been able to resolve it so far. Students (SS) who gain access to HE but are not prepared enough & do not receive the necessary support from Academics (AA) who teach first-year courses are, so to speak, let down by the system. Unsupported SS (a) accumulate courses they will need to retake, which results in 3-year degrees completed in 4 or more years & in lower quality educational experience; (b) have to transfer to a different HE (after losing a year in time & much more in self-esteem) or (c) withdraw from HE completely. _This has serious societal & financial costs. In monetary terms, the costs are so high that governments in many countries decide that taxpayers can no longer bear such losses & introduce performance based funding – HEIs are only funded for SS who graduate & on time. Societal costs are those of exclusion. SS are excluded because the system does not support them in their transition to HE & lets them down, or SS are excluded because HEIs decide to accept only those SS who have proven to be able to succeed without any support (& who do not dropout & do not cause financial losses to HEIs). Diverse SS – first-generation, international or older SS, as well as any SS coming from underrepresented socio-economic groups or accessing HE through non-traditional paths – are the first to suffer such exclusion. _In numerical terms, OECD Education at a glance 2019 report included HE completion rates-related indicators for the first time, followed by many other national institutions. As a result, we can see that: - in the Netherlands 12% dropout within Year 1 and only 28% complete on time; - in Spain approx. one out of 5 students dropout, with highest dropout rates in public HEIs for engineering & science, & the cost of 1st-year drop-outs come to 395 million euros; - in Slovenia 20% of students are not enrolled in tertiary education by the beginning of the Year 2; in France 59% fails to complete Bachelors programme, with the highest dropout rates in Year 1; & in Ireland, 63% complete degrees within their theoretical duration, but in computing and engineering courses dropout is between 60 & 80%. _Research shows that what HEIs can do to reverse situation is to make inclusive excellence their goal – aiming not only to admit diverse SS, but to equip those who teach first-year SS with competences required from AA to promote student retention & to set ALL SS for success, especially less prepared SS who need support to succeed in their transition to HE [Crosling et al, 2008; Dynarski et al, 2008; Vogel et al, 2018; Alhadabi & Karpinski, 2020; Islam & Stamp, 2020; Murugan & Badawi, 2020; Olaya et al, 2020]. _START addresses several interconnected needs:- we need inclusive HE – HE that will no longer let diverse SS down & thus effectively excluding them through lack of support; - ALL SS need those who teach first-year courses to be aware of how & why transition to HE is different & to learn how to promote student retention & set ALL SS for success; - all those working at HEIs need to be equipped with competences to be able to support diverse SS through transition to HE; AA who teach 1st-year courses have the biggest (positive or negative) impact on SS’ chances to succeed or dropout, & AA need to accept supporting SS through transition to HE as part of their role; - AA need support – professional development – to learn how to support SS in their transition to HE – how to promote student retention & set ALL SS for success; - AA need HEIs to support them in their efforts; - HEIs need to put together their know-how & make the necessary professional development tools & materials available as OER; - actors of pre-university HE need to be informed of how to best prepare SS who want to access HE for this next life & learning phase<< Objectives >>START will work to promote inclusive excellence in HE teaching. Inclusive excellence can only be achieved if Academics who work with 1st-year students are capable and willing to support ALL students through their transition to HE. Especially 'non-traditional students': first-generation, international or older students, as well as students coming from less represented socio-economic backgrounds and reaching HE through non-traditional routes. START wants to produce Professional Development tools, resources & activities that can support Academics in this task of promoting student retention and setting all students for success. Especially Academics who work with students in Engineering & Sciences, but also more broadly - Students in programmes with highest dropout rates in partner HEIs. Academics who have been able to promote retention will engage in peer learning with those who are still struggling with making inclusive excellence reality. __ START wants to achieve the situation where supporting students through their transition to HE is no longer 'outsourced' to special services, while Academics focus on 'their subjects/courses'. START wants every Academic to see supporting Students in transition to HE as part of what working with 1st-year students and teaching 1st-year courses is about. __ START also wants to promote recognition of inclusive excellence in HE teaching & contribute to bridging communication gap between HE and pre-university education - all with the aim of making a decisive contribution to tackling the long-known & well-documented but till now unresolved issue of excessive drop-out, huge delays in completion or damaging transfers in the first year of undergraduate programmes. ____ START 4 objectives are as follows: ___ Objective 1: Make those teaching 1st-year courses aware of the difficulties students face when entering HE, on the one hand, & of the special role those teaching 1st-year students have in making HE inclusive, accessible & engaging, on the other.___ Objective 2: Introduce HE academics to tools & activities they can use in order to set ALL students for success through (1) helping students learn how to learn in HE & (2) revising assessment, learning & teaching activities to help students successfully adapt to learning in this new environment. Key here is to find the most effective combination of diagnostic, formative & summative assessments.___ Objective 3: Agree on indicators of excellence and create tools that can guide professional development efforts & recognition for those who teach 1st-year students and are keen to promote inclusive excellence (student retention & success) through core curriculum activities.___ Objective 4: Facilitate dialogue with key actors of pre-university education sector, so as to increase the number of diverse students who access HE better PREPARED to learn & succeed in HE environment.<< Implementation >>START will have 3 key types of activities: __ (1) work on the 4 Results the project will produce; __ (2) international learning & teaching activities – 5 in total; __ (3) Multiplier Events – 19 in total.(1) Each Partner will lead/co-lead the work on one of the Results (UPM leading work on Result 1, UP & UL – on Result 2, RUG & UCD – on Result 3, & EDIW – on Result 4). All HEIs – RUG, UPM, UP, UL & UCD – will equally contribute to all the Results. EDIW, an international youth NGO focusing on bridging inter-sectorial communication gap, will focus on Result 4, while also contributing considerably to Results 1 & 3. ___ All project Results will be open access and made available on a variety of platforms by the end of, and well beyond, the project lifetime. ____ (2) International Learning & Teaching Activities (LTTAs) will be held in each of the project HEIs during the project lifetime with a double aim. Firstly, to offer Professional Development activities to Academics working with 1st-year students and to local faculty developers who can later reach more local Academics. Secondly, to pilot project Results, obtain feedback on the materials to be included and collect more elements that can be included into the final products. ___The 5 LTTAs are as follows:__ 1. What does student transition to HE imply and why does it matter?__ 2. Becoming aware of the students YOU have: what do you need to know about your students and how can you get to know this?__ 3. Setting students for success: Making your expectations clear [being clear about your expectations yourself; making sure your students know and understand your expectations; informing pre-HE education actors].__ 4. Ensuring students can succeed: Helping students become the learners YOU want to have & THEY need to be.__ 5. Becoming the HE Teacher who can support student transition [focus on Continuous Professional Development). ____ (3) Multiplier Events will promote dissemination & sustainable exploitation of all the project Results, at local, national & European level. They will be held by each START Partner at the end of each project Year (6 events at the end of project Year 1, 6 at the end of project Year 2, and 6 closer to the end of project Year 3), and jointly by all partners at the end of the project:__ 1. Multiplier Events focusing on Result 1: “Why do those teaching first-year students have a special role to play? What challenges first-year students face in their transition to HE & why it matters.” (end of Year 1; 5 MEs, online, one by each START HEI). _____ 2. Multiplier Events focusing on Results 2 & 3: “Teaching first-year courses? Find out how good you are at supporting student transition to HE & how you can get even better at it.” (end of Year 2; 5 MEs, online, one by each START HEI). _____ 3. Multiplier Events focusing on Result 4: “Bridging the inter-sectoral communication gap to achieve inclusive excellence in Higher Education” (on at the end of each project year, 3 in total, online, by EDIW). _____ 4. Final Multiplier Events (focusing on Results 1-4): “Striving for inclusive excellence in higher education: what can be learnt from the START project” (closer to end of Year 3; 5 MEs, F2F, one by each START HEI) & “Supporting Teachers who Support Student Transition: Why, What, & How. Striving for inclusive excellence in higher education: what can be learnt from the START project” (end of Year 3, online, by all START partners, for HE authorities, representatives of university networks & E+ national agencies). ___ Finally, Transnational Project Meetings (online & F2F) will help to ensure timely and well-coordinated project implementation.<< Results >>START will produce 4 RESULTS: __ (1) “Addressing the Why: Why do those teaching first-year students have a special role to play?” Toolkit for promoting awareness of the special role of those teaching first-year students in making HE inclusive and accessible; __ (2) “How can I help my first-year students engage, persist & succeed?” Handbook featuring a collection of concrete activities and approaches to (i) help first-year students build their learning power (learn to learn in ways required in HE) & (Iii) guide those teaching first-year students in revising their own approaches to assessment, learning & teaching to make these more inclusive and set diverse students for success in HE; __ (3) “How good am I at supporting student transition?” A self-assessment tool based on a competence profile of a HE teacher ready to support diverse students in their transition to HE; __ (4) “Bridging the inter-sectoral communication gap: What is required to succeed in HE & How to let prospective students know?” A message to pre-HE actors on how to better prepare future university students & to HEIs on how best to engage with pre-university education actors to better support university teachers who support student transition. __OTHER PROJECT OUTCOMES INCLUDE: ____ (1) strong institutional and EU-level communities of HE professionals engaged in promoting inclusive excellence in HE teaching & equipped to do so successfully [these will have grown from the 24 persons involved in the proposal development to include 450+ new members: 250+ completely new members reached through START professional development activities, 25 new persons engaged in supporting Academics in their professional development & further 175+ reached through Multiplier Events]; ____ (2) motivation to continue building inclusive HE & striving for excellence in HE teaching increased, created & sustained thanks to building institutional and transnational communities of practitioners; ____ (3) making isolated best practices in supporting teachers who support student transition known at international level through interinstitutional peer-learning; ____ (4) giving institutional, national & international visibility to champions of promoting inclusive excellence in HE teaching through supporting diverse students & through supporting Academics working with 1st-year students; ____ (5) diverse students [1st-generation students, international students, older students, as well as other students coming from less/under-represented socio-economic groups & joining universities through non-traditional routes] being better supported in their transition(s) to HE & set for success (negative dropout & other threats to students success are addressed/prevented); ____ (6) the 5 START HEIs becoming more inclusive & making a significant step towards installing an institution-wide culture of recognising, rewarding & consistently & competently promoting inclusive excellence in HE teaching; ____ (7) EDIW becoming a champion of inter-sectoral communication crucial for supporting SS of increasingly diverse backgrounds in accessing HE & succeeding in such personal development paths.