Duration: 2019 – 2022
Team Members
Natália Gomes
Elisabete Brito
Institutional and Enterprise Partners
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Funding
Erasmus +
Research line:
Education, Citizenship and Inclusion
The current ERASMUS+ project, Strategic Partnerships in Higher Education (K203), aims to enhance the European Union (EU) by generating a tailored intervention model aligned with the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This model is crafted from a comprehensive perspective on higher education, with a focus on facilitating the reception, support, retention, and academic success of Chinese students in European universities under the premise of social inclusion.
With the development of this project, the expectations are as follows:
- To achieve greater social and academic inclusion of Chinese students;
- Increase awareness among students, teachers, administrative staff, and services personnel;
- Optimize group cohesion among students in multicultural contexts;
- Develop an organizational and didactic methodology based on educational guidance and support;
- Facilitate intercultural communication among the involved stakeholders.
To achieve these objectives and expected outcomes, we start with an understanding of the operating context, including external and internal policies, characterizing Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), and the specificities of each social university. This also involves an understanding of the Chinese education system, Chinese students, and other stakeholders. Additionally, knowledge of best practices, deficiencies, obstacles, and opportunities identified in previous studies related to the project, such as welcoming plans, tutoring actions, administrative and teaching support, etc., is taken into consideration.
During the elaboration of the project, it is proposed to construct a common European theoretical-practical conceptual framework regarding the reception, support, retention, and academic success of students from Chinese-speaking countries studying at European universities. This common reference framework will serve as the foundation for the shared (not unified) conception of a specific guiding model that will include:
- Formulation of objectives,
- Organization of the general lines of action (dimensions),
- General strategies for guidance/tutoring and organization,
- Specific strategies for each University/Faculty/Degree, as applicable,
- Specification of the implementation process,
- Plan for the evaluation process.
For the conceptual model to be implemented, it will be necessary to create a specific action plan for each social university for its execution and evaluation during the project. The evaluation will take into account the effectiveness and suggestions generated during the development, the identification of needs and progress, the implementation of self-observation and review mechanisms, feedback, and self-regulation. Finally, it is expected that the relevance and impact of the project will be verified by conducting an overall review that identifies dysfunctions and seeks alternatives, guiding its continuity and sustainability over time, planning its follow-up to ensure that the improvement is maintained by the people promoting it. Therefore, institutionalizing the model is considered necessary for its incorporation into the culture of social universities.