InComm: Feel at Home Erasmus Project

Project Title

InComm: Feel at Home

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Currently, our universities often get the following questions from newcomers from abroad: “Can I find other student groups from my country?” Our answer should be: “It doesn’t matter.” Project InComm wants to create truly international universities, where students and staff from all backgrounds feel welcome in an inclusive multicultural and international environment.

Project InComm is proposing the following actions to integrate incoming students at all levels into one university community:
• Defining a welcoming process for full degree seeking masters and PhD students that begins during the application phase (approximately 3 months before arrival) and ends with the onboarding phase (approximately the first 3 months after arrival).
• Uniting the many stakeholders with various backgrounds involved in the welcoming and onboarding phases at our campuses.
• Uniting and involving the target groups (Masters and PhDs) in all our discussions via sounding bodies and working groups.
• Taking into account diversity in all aspects of the project to safeguard inclusion and to avoid gender, race, class, ethnicity, religious orientation, sexual orientation or disabilities biases.
• Identifying key performance indicators to measure how well our communities are integrated and to continuously monitor the status.
• Identifying, developing and implementing best practices in all phases of the welcoming process and also including the curriculum and innovative doctoral programs.

InComm has the following outputs:
• The welcoming process developed into a ‘customer journey’ for both masters and phd students and transferable to universities across Europe.
• The InComm+ Tool for administrative staff, that provides a quick insight of the status of the feeling of belonging for newcomers. The tool gives an insight on the strong and weak points of the institutions welcome process, and links directly to projects that can strengthen the customer journey.
• Training programs focussing on improving integration at home, accessible to universities worldwide, also tackling inclusion and social differences
• United stakeholders per target group, with clearly specified tasks and responsibilities, at all our universities.
• Sounding boards, consisting of a diverse cross-section per target group, in place at all our universities.
• Repository of best practices, including projects developed within the project, directly linked to the InComm+ Tool.
• Statistics about our actual status and progress.

Income has the following outcomes:
• A customer journey process for receiving new people, implemented at the partner’s institutions.
• Raised awareness for the international identity of our universities, including the benefits of multicultural and international collaboration skills for students and staff and awareness for (the benefits of) diversity at our campuses.
• An improved integrated International Classroom
• More integrated and inclusive communities (students and staff) with no difference between local and international members
• Best practices decribed, implemented and used at European and non-European universities
• Foster a maximum of interactions between as big a range of diverse populations as possible: make the local and international population open to interactions; create opportunities for interactions; raise awareness on the benefits of the interactions.
• A toolkit of best-value-for-money feel-at-home solutions that will be described in a user-friendly and visible manner, disseminated during the life of the project and available for a wider academic community and any other interested people after the end of the EU funding (via ERASMUS+ platform, project website, regular and associate partners’ websites, project publications, etc)

The main expected impact on the project partners HEI’s is the development of an efficient and strructured system that will assure a functional and organic integration of the international communities in the HEI’s activities, but also in the surrounding community.

From the receptors point of view, InComm is aiming to enable and facilitate each international individual integration. Everyone entering our institutes should feel welcome in one international identity, regardless of different cultures, gender, race, ethnicity, religious orientation, sexual orientation or disabilities.

Full partners are:
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
• Graz University of Technology, Austria
• Institute Superior Tecnico, Portugal
• Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
• Universidad Politecnica di Catalunya, Spain

Furthermore, the CLUSTER Network (www.cluster.org) as a whole will play an essential role by providing inputs from new students and staff members from EU and non-EU countries. Associate partners will be asked to participate in the surveys and in the monitoring actions.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 365726 Eur

Project Coordinator

KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN & Country: SE

Project Partners

• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DARMSTADT
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET GRAZ
• UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA
• UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA