Laboratory for Policies and Practices of Social Development in Higher Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Laboratory for Policies and Practices of Social Development in 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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Inclusion – equity; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Context-background:
The financial and economic crisis is currently directly or indirectly affecting the middle and lower classes, with controversial policies
for reducing the fiscal deficit, which have meant, for example, a rise in the cost of access to higher levels of training, creating in some
European countries, newly excluded groups from Higher Education (HE). Inequalities in training for reasons of geographic, ethnic or social origin, and in job opportunities, salaries and incomes are critical dimensions of social. The development of policies, including
those concerning education, that extend access to opportunities, is essential in order to combat the permanent nature of the exclusion.

Objectives:
In this sense, within the framework of the Bologna process and considering the Prague communiqué of 2001, which emphasised the
need to work towards the inclusion of students and the need to promote the possibilities of mobility for all, and the successive declarations and communiqués which insist on the need to promote the social dimension in constructing and consolidating the
EHEA, the aim of our proposal is to promote the educational and social inclusion of underrepresented groups as well as of nontraditional learners, thereby broadly satisfying one of the main priorities being called for (i.e. the improvement of the capacities of organisations active in the fields of education, training and youth, notably in the areas of strategic development, quality of learning provision, equity and inclusion, qualitative and targeted activities for specific groups) and addressing clearly one of the important features of the Erasmus+ programme: “promoting equity and inclusion by facilitating the access to learners with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities compared to their peers” (p.13, Erasmus+ programme guide). This main aim is specified in 4 specific objectives: (1)to establish a map with the institutional policies for attending to vulnerable groups in relation to academic access and success; (2)to establish a plan for the higher education organisations with initiatives aimed at promoting the access and successful development of students who are under-represented in university centres; (3)to develop solutions for the phases embracing the access, permanence (and success) of vulnerable students and non-traditional learners in the institutions of higher education; (4)to create a laboratory for reflection on and the promotion of the social commitment of Higher Education institutions in relation with the most vulnerable student groups.

N° and profile of the participants:
The consortium is made up of six partners from six different countries. It comprises six HEIs with extensive experience and running international projects. ACCESS4ALL is also endorsed by several stakeholders in each partner country. The managing partner, the UAB, has staff with experience of successfully developing national and international projects in relation to Higher Education institutions, tutoring, student dropout, access by vulnerable groups and non-traditional learners to university, among others (for more information: http:// edo.uab.cat).
The partners have been carefully selected because of their previous experience, their University curriculums and their links. All of
the partners in the consortium have broad and complementary experience, as well as operational and managerial competences in
the areas of project management and quality assurance. The current configuration of the consortium ensures not only that skills are
complementary in the areas involved in the project, but in addition fully embraces the diversity of the situations in Europe since it
includes countries from southern Europe, severely affected by the current financial crisis (Italy, Portugal and Spain), countries in northern Europe (Finland and UK) and in eastern Europe (Romania).

Description of the undertaking main activities:
The work packages (WPs) are the basic coordination units for this project. Each WP consists of four levels: 1) the WP leader, his/her main role is that of ‘process owner’ and therefore must plan and control the activities, outputs and resources allocated, 2) the core team, made up of the local research team, 3) a representative of each partners, to ensure maximum coherence and coordination between phases and tasks, 4) a representative of P1, as coordinating university, to ensure compliance with the program and an
overview report on the project. The core project activities are grouped within five WP:

1) WP1: management activities (leading P1).
2) WP2: context diagnosis (leading P3 & P6 ): O1 & O2.
3) WP3: Strategic plan development model for ACCESS4ALL (leading P1 & P5): O3 & O4.
4) WP4: Implementation of the strategic plan (leading P4 & P2): O5 & O6.
5) WP5: Lab of Social Development in Higher Education (leading P1 & P6): O7.

Methodology, short description of results, impact and long-term benefits:
Carrying out a deep analysis of the d

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 229234 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DE LEIRIA
• UNIVERSITATEA DIN BUCURESTI
• JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO
• UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
• UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI BERGAMO