<< Background >>The Covid-19 pandemic sparked the uptake of digitally enhanced learning and teaching environments, providing an urgent reason for acceleration. According to the DigiHE report published in January 2021, most European institutions were able to respond rather rapidly by extending already existing strategies and policies for online and blended learning. Similarly, the E+ EVOLVE project reported that the Covid-19 pandemic made reinforcing the need for implementing Virtual Exchanges due mainly to the drastic drop in physical international mobility. The INVITE project aims to develop teaching and learning competencies for designing and implementing new virtual and blended modalities of international collaboration in European Higher Education Institutions, an objective aligned with several ambitions of the European Commission agenda for Higher Education, especially with the directions indicated by the recent Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 aiming at enabling digital skills of educators to improve the quality of digital practices in education, the new Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programs priorities, the green agenda for internationalization among others. INVITE complements other Erasmus + program funded projects addressing virtual exchanges and digital competencies in higher education, with its innovative perspectives not covered by other projects so far:It builds bridges among digital ecosystems and international and cross-border collaborations to enhance the teaching and learning process. It creates a strong educational basis for organizing high-quality and meaningful international virtual and blended academic programs and modules. It considers the “student-centered” and active-learning approaches as the basis of teaching and learning to propose solutions to global challenges.It extends the participation of disciplines not usually concerned by intercultural exchanges such as engineering, agriculture, health, and others, increasing the possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration. It gives teachers and students the needed skills to develop creative international blended and virtual programs, adding value to their careers. It will identify approaches to bridge bottom-up innovation with institutional strategies exploring ways to create opportunities for strategy development.It will have a considerable impact on cross-border teacher collaborations and the involvement of institutional staff to support such innovations.<< Objectives >>The INVITE project aims to develop teaching and learning competencies for designing and implementing virtual and blended modalities of international collaboration in European Higher Education Institutions. To this aim the project will pursue five specific objectives:Map the current institutional and educational approaches to the different cross-border and international collaboration in virtual and blended learning environments adopted by Higher Education Institutions in Europe underlying the practices that make a meaningful and sustainable contribution to teaching and learning processes. Develop an active-learning design framework applicable for different international virtual and blended modalities that enrich the teaching and learning process with proposed pedagogies, didactics, and toolkits. Design and implement an action-training online program targeting interdisciplinary teachers and institutional staff from HEI institutions to build capacities to design, implement and sustain innovative international virtual and blended programs/initiatives.Develop an open interactive digital ecosystem that will host the action-training program and also support the organization of international competition hackathons bringing together institutions and teachers in the design of innovative international virtual and blended collaborations addressing urgent problems aligned to the SDGs and the Green agenda. Identify Higher Education policies and strategies for innovation in teaching and learning aiming to establish and sustain cross-border virtual and blended programs.<< Implementation >>The INVITE will develop several activities to achieve the proposed goals:Map the current institutional and educational approaches to the different cross-border and international collaboration in virtual and blended learning environments adopted by Higher Education Institutions in Europe. Selection of good practices and case studies explored in depth through interviews, underlying the factors that make a meaningful and sustainable contribution to teaching and learning processes.Engaging HE academic staff with expertise in innovative educational methodologies (e.g. problem-based learning, adaptive teaching, and assessment, computer-supported collaborative learning, learning-by-doing, problem-solving, etc.) in the systematization of international virtual and blended initiatives in order to support their pedagogical value. This framework will encourage creativity, skill development, and knowledge dissemination among learning designers in a pedagogically sound way.Guidelines on innovative methodologies adaptable for virtual and blended modalities. From R1 and R2A1, it will be identified, classified, and published a menu of active methodologies and didactics suggested to be applied in different kinds of international virtual and blended modalities, such as Collaborative Online International Learning projects, Project Oriented Learning Environments, Co-design virtual exchanges, Blended Intensive Programs, etc. Design and implementation of open online interactive training modules for the development of digital competencies for educators, with the aim of enabling them to implement effective international virtual and blended learning environments. Specific modules will be dedicated to institutional advisors and educational developers to promote awareness and mechanisms to support, scale up and sustain international blended and virtual mobility initiatives.Organization of the competition days -hackathons- with the participation of an international jury composed of undergraduate & postgraduate students, teaching, learning, and innovation experts as well as guests. The “hackathon” will bring together institutions and teachers internationally in the design of innovative international virtual and blended collaborations addressing urgent problems aligned to the SDGs and the Green agenda. Develop an Open Interactive Digital Ecosystem in the form of a platform that will host the action-training program and facilitate the organization of hackathons. Furthermore, the platform will contain a shared space for teachers to contact peers and design projects. Develop guidelines and technical specification for adapting the open interactive digital ecosystem to training and innovation activities in educationReview of the evidence on institutional policies, instruments, and processes, their impact, including unintended consequences and risks. The evidence will be reviewed, focused on the most relevant European experiences. Four main drivers will be systematically explored: strategy and policies, facilitating structures, support instruments, and the role of international collaboration.Develop policy recommendations based on a deliberative dialogue with institutional stakeholders to validate the evidence collected aiming to identify enablers and drivers for sustainable innovation.<< Results >>Through the INVITE project, we expect to achieve several outcomes and resultsOutcome 1. Understanding the innovative ways for international collaboration in virtual and blended modalities in HEI through developing R. 1.1 An overview of existing and emerging international virtual and blended modalities for teaching and (T&L) identifying its key characteristics, scope, and specific contribution to the improvement of teaching and learning process in HE; and R. 1.2 Selecting good practices and case studies to draw a profile of the most innovative and adaptable methodologies that are currently being used in HE for implementing international collaboration in virtual and blended learning environments. Outcome 2: Designing, implementing, and assessing student-centered international virtual and blended modalities. Through the development of R. 2.1 A learning design framework proposal for student-centered activities in cross-border blended and virtual environments and R. 2.2 Guidelines on innovative methodologies that could be effective for improving T&L in international virtual and blended modalities. Special attention will be given to methodologies such as problem-solving, problem-based teaching, collaborative learning, and others applicable to such environments. Outcome 3: Teachers and Institutional staff equipped with the skills, and resources for designing, implementing, and sustaining international virtual and blended programs. Through R. 3.1 Online interactive training modules and micro-credentials to build teachers’ capacities and institutional staff to implement effective virtual and blended environments for T&L in international settings and R.3.2 Repository of open materials to share tools and guidelines to support the design of international virtual and blended programs.Outcome 4: Mobilize teachers and institutional staff for designing innovative international virtual and blended projects aiming to solve global and societal challenges. Through the development of a digital learning ecosystem (R.4.1.2) that will host training modules and hackathons bringing together teachers to design innovative international collaborations addressing urgent problems such as the SDGs and the Green agenda (R4.1.1&R4.1.3). The whole ecosystem will be offered as OER so other interested parties can adjust it for their own use. Evidence-based guidelines on the design, implementation, and evaluation of such days will support the uptake of such activities by others. Outcome 5: Linking bottom-up initiatives with institutional policies and strategies. Through the development of R.5.1 Evidence-based report on institutional policies and strategies for enhancing teaching and learning innovation for virtual and blended modalities. And R.5.2 Policy recommendations based on a deliberative dialogue with stakeholders on barriers and enablers for virtual and blended modalities. Furthermore, it is important to mention results such as:- Initiating a new form of cooperation between partners by creating joint virtual and blended programs that could benefit from external Erasmus + funding for BIP - Blended Intensive Programs. - Increasing the scale of virtual and blended programs between partner organizations- Creating a digital learning ecosystem across borders and among different HEIs, which is composed of a transnational learning community that collaborates, and that hosts the activities and the shared resources. - Getting to know the national cultures of participants taking part in the project.- Captivating the interest of HEIs from outside the partnership in the field of the project such as those of the European Universities where partners belong to.