Integrating climate resilience in EU higher education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Integrating climate resilience in EU higher education

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

By focusing on urban resilience, InCLIMATE addresses one of the new priorities of the Erasmus Programme and one of the most urgent topics in the EU, where most countries are dealing with climate risk management issues, but lack a holistic and common approach to resilience. HEIs have an important responsibility in delivering this common approach. However, they are often too sectoral, slow to respond to changing needs, and do not provide future urban planners, geographers, architects, environmental experts, policy makers and officers with adequate, integrated knowledge on climate resilience, preventing them to become active leaders in the strengthening of territorial responsiveness to climate change impacts.
International cooperation seems the best-fit environment to develop joint learning tools, undertake in-depth research and support policy makers. An urban resilience framework calls for a process that brings together diverse disciplines and sectors to identify appropriate measures, responses and recovery. It needs transversal competences, e-skills, creativity and flexibility.
The project aims to take on the challenge by increasing HEI staff’s and students’ interdisciplinary skills through the development of innovative educational approaches to planning and allied disciplines to rise to the challenge posed by Climate Change. Furthermore, it aims to bring the challenge within the core of urban governance, by directly and indirectly training professionals and officers to shape resilient policies.
To attain these goals, the project proposes an alternation of desk activities and workshops targeting both teaching staff and students, aimed at the collective production, development, sharing, testing and dissemination of Open Educational Resources (OERs), based on the use of collaborative Concept Maps.
More specifically, the project foresees:
– Training of 11 lecturers/trainers/researchers on project topics, methodology and tools, during a workshop promoting a holistic approach to climate resilience (taking into consideration spatial, environmental and technological aspects), the use of OERs as part of the regular teaching and training practice, and the use of concept mapping as an effective method to transfer meaningful, interdisciplinary knowledge on climate resilience topics.
– Testing of the project methodology at partner level, with the involvement of around 400 students in partner universities and 10 Maltese public officers, who will be trained by partners on the use of concept maps for climate resilience planning and policy design.
– Involvement of 40 students of different academic backgrounds in an intensive course/workshop based on concept mapping and interdisciplinary group work, where students are encouraged to break the barriers of their disciplines and learn to build a shared knowledge and cooperate for the sake of climate adaptation. The Intensive course intends to represent a model of collaborative educational experience – a laboratory for interdisciplinary and cross-fertilizing collaboration among lecturers and students that can be replicated in other courses, faculties and HEIs in partner countries and beyond.
– Production of OERs on climate resilience based on concept mapping, organized in modular courses and made freely available on the project e-learning platform, where they are expected to empower HEIs courses and provide targeted training for professionals, public officers, and policy makers.
Project outputs will challenge the complex and interconnecting issues related to urban resilience, and contribute to transfer resilience concepts into operational capacities in local government, civil society and professional communities.
The project is expected to primarily benefit HE students, who – within a stimulating learning environment – will acquire interdisciplinary knowledge and skills in the fields of climate resilience, which in the medium-to-long term could result in more opportunities for research or employment and better professional placement in the public and private sectors. HE lecturers will benefit from networking opportunities at national and international level, useful for the development of future research and cooperation projects, while public officers trained during the project will acquire additional knowledge and soft skills that will support them in their ordinary activities related to urban and regional planning, policy-making, etc. All target groups (academic and non-academic, within and outside the consortium) will gain access to a wide range of open access materials and OERs on climate resilience, which can be freely exploited and customized for research and professional activities, skills upgrading, professional refreshment or training, far beyond the end of the project.
Finally, the project will establish a network among involved EU countries and beyond, crucial to transfer results and findings to an operational policy perspective at different territorial levels.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 282224 Eur

Project Coordinator

ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS & Country: EL

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITATEA DE ARCHITECTURA SI URBANISM ION MINCU DIN BUCURESTI
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE
• OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY
• MALTA INTELLIGENT ENERGY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
• UNIVERSIDAD PABLO DE OLAVIDE