European Cooperation for Social Responsibility – SHOUTOUT4SDGs Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Cooperation for Social Responsibility – SHOUTOUT4SDGs

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

European Cooperation for Social Responsibility: SHOUTOUT4SDGs:
Start Date: 01-09-2018 End Date: 31-12-2020
A partnership of higher education institutes and non-governmental organisations from the UK, Hungary, Portugal and Italy. The project has successfully delivered its objectives in the context of the impacts of the Covid19 pandemic.
The aim of this project – SHOUTOUT4SDGs – was to mainstream the SDGs as a framework for action, recognised through personal learning using enriched video content and e-badging. We aimed to provide our target audience – teaching staff and students in HEIs & NGOs – with a greater awareness of, and ability to explicitly link to, activities that relate to selected SDGs.
The project objectives were to:
1. Deliver physical (and virtual) mobilities within blended-learning training programmes to test innovative learning materials that explicitly signpost the UN SDGs
2. Research, produce, test, evaluate and re-test an Open Educational Resource (OER), containing innovative enriched video learning content and e-badging for a new SDG awareness and linkage toolkit
3. Use ECVET principles aligned with innovative e-badging of achievement to recognise the learning outcomes achieved by staff & students during mobilities
4. Train staff & students from project Partners in the use of the new SDG awareness and linkage toolkit
5. Initiate & facilitate a 100,000+ discussion network of educators, students, NGOs, business, government, media, the public & others on issues related to the SDGs

The project has:
Developed and delivered an Open Educational Resource (Moodle platform) containing a rich diversity of knowledge and practically based learning materials linking SDGs to academic learning and the world of work.
Delivered a Joint Staff Training programme for 13 staff and a physical Intensive Study Programmes (ISP) for 18 Mobility Students + 4 Home Students.
The foundations for 4 dissemination videos in English, Hungarian, Portuguese and Italian.
Eight Multiplier Events, 6 hosted in Hungary (physical and virtual) and 2 in UK (virtual) in 2020.

The project engaged with 55 students (18 Mobility Students + 4 Home students during the September 2019 ISP + 33 students during 6-9 July 2020 virtual meetings) during the co-production and testing of online learning materials. Nine e-badged courses exploring linkages to SDGs are now available via the project website. An SDG awareness and linkage toolkit (a method of mapping University modules to the SDGs) has been produced and is now available via the project website. Details of the project are estimated to have reached over 100,000 people via social media.

The Joint Staff Training (JST) took place in the UK in May 2019. 13 staff were selected by the sending institutions with reference to the likely impact on their continuing professional development. This training explored and shared experiences around good practice in student learning content, methods and structures for online learning, practical examples of sustainable development from the world of work and how the SDGs might be mapped across University learning modules (the SDGs linkage toolkit).

The first ISP for Students was successfully completed in Portugal in September 2019. Participants were selected through an open, documented process with specific reference to equal opportunities and the ‘widening participation’ (WP) agenda. WP categories include first generation of family into Higher Education, over 21yrs on entry to University, Ethnic minority, from low income area and diagnoses relating to mental health. WP information was deleted from selection panel information. Results show 78% (14 of 18) of participants came from a WP background with the majority (56%) were first generation into University.

This ISP brought together 18 mobility students with 4 host-country students to study and co-create learning content for the project. The results had a direct impact on the project by informing the next phase of the development of the learning content.

Plans for a second ISP and a Multiplier Event in 2020 were abruptly curtailed in response to the impact of Covid19. The project team moved swiftly to produce distance learning online content ready for a new series of virtual mobility engagements, taking the opportunity to change the original single Multiplier Event into a series of events, physically and at social distance in Hungary and virtually from the UK. These events engaged a total of 292 student participants, a 200%+ increase on the original target number (144).

The long term benefits of the project are many including direct impacts on organisational and individual approaches to, and engagement with, the UN SDGs in the world of Higher Education and non-governmental organisations. The direct engagement with both a student and staff audience the project leaves a legacy of learning content which will, no doubt, be visited, linked to and remembered well into the future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 172268,06 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ambios Ltd & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Ambios Portugal – Associação Científica para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável e a Conservação da Biodiversidade
• UNIVERSIDADE DE EVORA
• Gyöngybagolyvédelmi Alapítvány
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA