European partnership for innovation in distant internships Erasmus Project

Project Title

European partnership for innovation in distant internships

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cooperation between educational institutions and business; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project’s main focus is distant internships at university, the aim is to identify best practices and to develop e-learning modules on how to realise this specific internship format with success, for students, teachers / tutors, employers and university administrative staff. We define a distant internship as an internship that takes place entirely outside of the physical workplace of the employer’s facility.

The lock-down of most countries in the spring of 2020, due to Covid-19, forced some students to shift from the traditional internship to a distant internship (when it was not cancelled). This sudden shift was unexpected for most participants, and thus left them unprepared. Moreover, there are no existing guidelines as this internship format is currently emerging .There are many issues to be considered in this internship format: doing it from home, with virtual tools and no informal interactions in the work place, specific ways of working, cooperating with the working team, reporting to the boss, being mentored, etc. as well as specific legal and administrative requirements, need for IT material, tools and skills, etc.

But it turned out to be more successful than expected. This crisis represents also a unique opportunity to develop the distant internship, which could open up more internship opportunities to the students as well as for the universities and the employers. We have already seen, since the summer of 2020, some internship offers with the remote option clearly mentioned.

Consequently, the number of distant internships will increase in the next few years, but this specific format needs guidance to be a good experience for all people involved, and no such guidelines exist for the moment.
Therefore AMU (PL), KIT (DE) and UNISTRA (FR) intend to create this guidance.
The partners will produce a Best Practice Guide on “How to realise a successful distant internship”, based upon a Europe-wide survey amongst the four target groups, aiming at identifying persons who have experienced this format. They will then be interviewed to collect tips and tricks, identify the common barriers and challenges they met, and the solutions which were implemented.
These best practices will then be integrated into online learning modules, targeting the four aforementioned categories, produced by the three partners.

Both outcomes will be produced both in English and in the three national languages, in order to make them available for the most people. They will be disseminated at European level (through the European Universities network and the various European networks and associations), national and local level (through the involvement of local stakeholders into the project), and embedded into the partner procedures and learning offer.
The three partners are members of the EPICUR Alliance, one of the first European Universities, and thus the results of the EPIDI project will be implemented within the eight EPICUR members.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 256435 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITE DE STRASBOURG & Country: FR

Project Partners

• UNIWERSYTET IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU
• KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE