Nursing Leadership Educational Program for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Nurses Erasmus Project

Project Title

Nursing Leadership Educational Program for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Nurses

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries

Project Summary

Nurse leaders are needed to ensure that the distinctive nursing perspective is included in decision-making in global healthcare. There is a lack of highly qualified postdoctoral nurse educators and academic career opportunities for postdoctoral nurses, which is necessary to enhance patient care through the creation of evidence base to inform practice in which nurse educators play a pivotal role. Transformational leadership competencies of nurses positively impact professional, health care and patient outcomes. However, postdoctoral nurses (PN) and Doctoral Nursing Students (DNS), the experts in the field of research and evidence based practice, experience barriers in their professional development and need enhanced strategic leadership competencies to enable them to actualize their expertise in health care so that they are able to operate effectively at all levels in organizations across countries. Based on this background “The Nursing Leadership Educational Program for Postdoctoral nurses and Doctoral nursing students“ – “The Nurse-Lead project“ was established.
The Nurse-Lead target groups were doctoral nursing students and postdoctoral nurses working in education and research.
The consortium partners included: University of Iceland; University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands, The University of Turku, Finland, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, Nursing School of Lisbon, Portugal, Vilnius University, Lithuania and Elevate Health, Netherlands. Associative partners were: European Academy of Nursing Science (EANS), European Federation of Nurse Educators (FINE) and Sigma Theta Tau International.
The overall objectives were:
To stimulate the future generation of leaders in nursing education and research, encouraging high performing, education research environments and to train and educate DNS and PNs to support them in qualifying for professorships, to further stimulate the development of European nursing science.
The project resulted in the following outcomes and achievements:
An 18 month leadership and mentoring program for PNs and DNs was successfully developed and executed. A total of 50 fellows, including 25 PNs and 25 DNSs followed the online leadership program and mentorship trajectories with experienced leadership health care research.
a) Two 18 month online leadership modules for PNs and DNSs were developed and executed. One online module for PNs (7,5 ECTs). Another module was developed for DNS (5 ECTs). Both modules covered a with wide range of topics focusing on leadership and professional development in research and education.
b) A closed online community for participants and the project group in Nurse-Lead platform: https://elevatehealth.eu/showcases/blended-learning-programme-on-nursing-leadership/ and a website were developed. https://www.nurselead.org/
c) A MOOC focusing on leadership for nurses and nursing students was developed and run online for 18 months free of charge. A total of 955 nurses from 12 countries followed the module which covered the following topics various topics focusing on leadership and Evidence Based Practice.
d) Competency profile: A scoping review was conducted identifying relevant competencies for postdoctoral nurses working in research: Postdoctoral nursing researcher career: A scoping review of required competences. Numminen O, Virtanen H, Hafsteinsdóttir T, Leino-Kilpi H; Nurse Lead Consortium. Nurs Open. 2019 Sep 24;7(1):7-29.
e) Business Model for continuation and sustainability: The consortium group has collaborated on a BM and the group has explored ideas and arenas for the continuation and sustainability of the program. The consortium continues work on expanding the Nurse-Lead to include a range of European countries in collaboration with EANS, FINE, ENDA and Sigma Theta Tau International.
F) Assessment studies evaluating outcomes and fellows experiences of the project have been conducted which included a survey and interviews among the fellows following the program.
g) The Nurse-Lead Closing Symposium: “Competent Leadership in Nursing Science“ took place online, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, on the 26th and 27th of October. The closing symposium was a huge success, attracting 122 attendees from 26 countries and four continents. Global Key-Note speakers, fellows and consortium partners gave presentations with interactive discussion on various leadership topics.
The Nurse-Lead has resulted in various products aiming to improve quality and relevance of higher education and help attune the nursing curricula to emerging labor markets needs by developing active collaboration between HEI and local regional bodies. The project has brought together nursing leaders, (post)doctoral nurses and students, to improve collaboration and networking opportunities, resulting stronger education and research capacity of the countries participating which again may give a spinoff to other countries and ultimately lead to improved European healthcare.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 335878 Eur

Project Coordinator

HASKOLI ISLANDS & Country: IS

Project Partners

• MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITAET HALLE-WITTENBERG
• ELEVATE BV
• ESCOLA SUPERIOR DE ENFERMAGEM DE LISBOA (ESEL)
• UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM UTRECHT
• TURUN YLIOPISTO
• VILNIAUS UNIVERSITETAS