Creation of a EUropean e-platform of MENTORing and coaching for promoting migrant women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Erasmus Project

Project Title

Creation of a EUropean e-platform of MENTORing and coaching for promoting migrant women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

EUMentorSTEM was designed to address three critical phenomena in Europe: the increasing influx of migrants; the gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) sectors; and the disadvantage faced by highly-skilled migrant women in the labor market stemming from the intersection of gender, age and ethnicity. The project aimed to support the labour market participation (as paid employees or as entrepreneurs) of migrant women with a STEM background by: a) enhancing migrant women’s soft skills to increase their chances to succeed in the labor market; b) implementing the competences in mentoring and coaching (M&C) of the professionals (job counsellors, career advisers, educators, social workers, HR staff, etc.) who can intercept this highly specific category of beneficiaries. The project initial phase, consisting of the KoM and elaboration of strategic project documents (Project Management Framework, QuEP, Dissemination Plan) aimed to provide a solid background to start. Afterwards, the outputs implementation started:
1) collaborative assessment phase, aimed at increasing the understanding of the training needs of the project beneficiaries (IO1 Collaborative Diagnostic Assessment, led by UNIBO);
2) production phase, concerning the development and testing of training kits for migrant women and professionals (IO2 EUmentorSTEM Trainer’s kit and IO3 EUMentorSTEM Learner’s kit, led by Inova);
4) virtual engagement phase, regarding the creation of an online open hub to make available the training materials across Europe (IO4 EUMentorSTEM Virtual Hub for Learning and Community, led by EDEM).
In the collaborative assessment phase (IO1), the Consortium reconstructed the training needs of the project beneficiaries through an exploratory research that reached – in the 5 partner countries – 57 migrant women (including refugees and asylum seekers), 25 professionals and about 270 stakeholder organizations; 97 more professionals participated in the online survey delivered by UNIBO. The comparative report (available on EPALE, on the E+ project results platforms and on the project website) – including the 5 national reports compiled by partners – and the Final Report on Quantitative Needs assessment allowed identifying common beneficiaries’ needs across the Consortium. Those documents informed the subsequent production phase (IO2 and IO3), which consisted of the elaboration of a Trainer’s and a Learner’s kit based on the project beneficiaries’ needs and moving from the existing Mentoring Circles methodologyTM developed in 2001 by Inova. In M8, 11 partners were coached by Inova in the training methodology during the Training of Trainers (ToT, C1). The kits were tested through pilot training (EUMentoring) targeting the project beneficiaries. The pilots’ implementation (2-rounds pilot with two different groups of migrant women; 1 pilot with professionals in each partner country) were carried out between M12 and M17. Overall, 60 migrant women and 56 professionals participated in EUMentoring. The implementation of pilots allowed the Consortium revising and finalizing the Trainer’s and the Learner’s kit (available in 5 languages). Two comparative reports on process, contents and lessons learnt from IO2 and IO3 EUmentoring pilots’ implementation are available on EPALE, on the E+ project results platforms and on the project website together with the 2 Kits. The Virtual Hub (IO4) aimed at disseminating the tested 2 toolkits to a broader, international community. A Moodle E-learning platform was set up and all partners – drawing on the results of EUMentoring pilots’ implementation – adapted the vis-à-vis training and the toolkits (Trainer’s and Learner’s kits) to their on-line shape. The two courses (available in 5 languages) for migrant women and professionals include an interactive booklet version of the kits, with additional free resources that aim at offering a more complete learning experience and a printable version of the training contents and tools. Users can also interact among them using the forums. The Hub, which is accessible from the project website, was finalized at the beginning of M21 and promoted by the Consortium through different channels (project and stakeholder organizations’ websites, press releases, social media, personal emails); by the end of the project, 5587 users acceeded the Hub, 83 enrolled.The hub will be available after the end of the project, allowing the project sustainability in the future and a longer-term impact of its outputs. In order to disseminate the project activities and results, the Consortium organized 5 national Multiplier Events between M7 and M20 (178 participants) and an International Final Conference in Bologna in M23 (67 participants). These and further dissemination activities allowed EUMentorSTEM reaching an impact at the local, regional, national and international level on about 8000 persons.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 283529 Eur

Project Coordinator

ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• OBUDAI EGYETEM
• Greek Women’s Engineering Association
• WITEC SWEDEN
• INOVA CONSULTANCY LTD