From November 2026, students and staff at EUPeace universities can take part in a new programme of Soft Skills Courses offered across the Alliance. The courses are available in online, hybrid and on-campus formats and are designed to strengthen competences that support constructive engagement with people, communities and societal challenges.
The new courses belong to Tier 1, the programme’s introductory, self-paced level. They give participants a shared foundation for taking part in Tier 2 challenge-based courses, EUPeace Living Labs and other community activities. In Tier 2, participants work on real societal issues with community partners.
Developing skills across disciplines and institutions
The programme brings together students, academic staff and administrative staff in a shared learning environment. Courses address areas such as critical thinking, intercultural awareness, conflict resolution, mediation, problem-solving and dealing with diversity. Participants can develop skills for analysing complex situations, communicating across different perspectives and approaching collaboration in a constructive way.
The courses can be taken individually and cover different levels of learning. Introductory Tier 1 courses are self-paced online modules in English and provide a common foundation in key soft skills. Tier 2 courses focus on practical application, giving participants opportunities to work on societal challenges together with other participants and with community partners.
The four courses
- From need to project: planning, tools and storytelling (University of Limoges) covers how to set up a collaborative project for an NGO, an association or a research team, from the first idea to a realistic plan. It also shows how to use storytelling to communicate a project’s goals and impact.
- Navigating Cultural Differences: Practical Communication Skills (Justus Liebig University Giessen) gives practical tools for approaching other cultures without stereotyping or miscommunicating, and for encouraging intercultural teamwork.
- Diversity, Inclusion and Peaceful Coexistence in Europe: A soft skills perspective (Comillas Pontifical University) treats diversity as an asset and dialogue as the basis for living together peacefully. It also considers what the university can do to bring about social change.
- Conflict, Power and Communication (Çukurova University) uses case studies and personal reflection to look at how power, inequality and communication shape conflict. No prior knowledge is needed.
Connecting learning with societal challenges
A central aim of the programme is to connect the development of individual competences with their practical use beyond the classroom. Practice-oriented courses address issues ranging from intercultural communication and inclusive participation to social project development, employability and community engagement. Through challenge-based formats and EUPeace Living Labs, participants can use what they have learnt to explore concrete problems, work with different perspectives and develop possible responses.
In this way, the Soft Skills Courses create opportunities for students and staff to strengthen the competences needed for responsible and collaborative engagement across institutional, cultural and societal contexts.
Flexible and stackable
All four courses are online, self-paced and taught in English, and they are open to students, academic staff and administrative staff across the alliance. You can take them one at a time or combine them into stackable learning pathways. A micro-credential framework is being developed to recognise these pathways.
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