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Work Packages EUPeace
Our Work Plan is designed by all EUPeace members in a transparent and discursive process, including a detailed analysis and outline of the Alliance’s resources, activities, expected output and outcome as well as long-term impact.
Each Work Package (WP) is led by one member as Lead Beneficiary, and co-led by at least one other. Each of the nine members is co-lead in at least one of the WPs. However, implementation is, of course, transversal since no WP could be implemented by one member alone, and joint activities and mutualisation of competencies and services is at the heart of each of them. This is how we guarantee that responsibilities are clear whilst ensuring close collaboration in a wide variety of combinations across the initiative already through the Lead/Co-Lead structure.
Our Work Plan consists of eight Work Packages:
WP 1: Project management, coordination, quality monitoring and governance
This Work Package serves the implementation of the subject-related Work Packages of the project. Furthermore, the activities of this Work Package ensure the creation of a long-term governance structure to assure the efficient and effective governance of EUPeace beyond the 4-year funding period.
Our objectives
A. To establish the long-term governance structure of the Alliance,
B. To ensure the smooth and timely implementation of the initiatives of EUPeace, as described in detail in the following Work Packages,
C. To execute the quality assurance and monitoring of the activities according to the Work Plan presented above (see 4.1),
D. To provide all EUPeace members with an administrative support infrastructure to ease the timely fulfillment of tasks described within the Work Packages,
E. To facilitate the emergence of further initiatives and activities to be borne out of the described EUPeace Work Packages (to be funded by other means),
F. To make the Alliance visible and prominent for both internal and external stakeholders.
WP 2: Transforming Curricula
Transforming Curricula implements two EUPeace Flagship Actions and their support activities:
(1) With the “European Track” we develop EUPeace signature content and formats, and broadly integrate EUPeace content into all curricula. Eventually, we make the “European Track” available to any student within the Alliance.
(2) By advancing European Degrees with strongly integrated curricula across institutions, we foster a specific profile of EUPeace students, graduates and alumni, who will go on to become change agents for Europe.
Our objectives
A. The heart of EUPeace lies in the flexible teaching and learning experience offered to all our students: we achieve our strongest impact by ensuring that students graduate from one of the Alliance’s universities with solid theoretical and practical experience of inclusion and the necessary conditions for peace and justice.
B. The Alliance also creates an environment and a space within the network for students/teachers/faculty to co-design a teaching and learning experience, to meet new and emerging needs in society. Together with our students, we will reshape our curricula to systematically introduce the EUPeace content and perspective. The activities integrate the acquisition of intercultural and language competencies as a basic component for all members within the network, regardless of their status (students, doctoral candidates, faculty and admin staff).
Our approach
Our European Track and European Degrees will offer a joint European immersion and mobility experience. We roughly distinguish four levels of immersion and exposure:
· Flexible learning opportunities for all students of all faculties and schools of the consortium (low threshold, general level): e.g. European Track.
· Innovative learning opportunities for students with specific interest in topics of peace, justice and inclusive societies (specific activities): e.g. EUPeace modules for international credit mobility
· Joint learning opportunities for students with advanced academic interest (advanced level): e.g. European Degrees
· Lifelong learning opportunities for students and alumni of the consortium: e.g. Developing Micro-credentials
The curriculum development activities equip teaching staff with a toolset to actively cultivate the conditions for peace and justice and provide knowledge and skills about inclusion/exclusion on all levels (gender, sexual orientation, age, race or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, economic status). Students will acquire competences for employability, life-long learning and meaningful interaction with society as “change agents” for EUPeace. These competences include conflict resolution, mediation, constructive approaches to diversity, intercultural awareness, as well as critical thinking and problem solving. The “international classroom” will become a matter of course for the students and teaching staff of the universities of this Alliance.
WP 3: Internationalisation of Teacher Education
Teachers are key multipliers and role models for European values and concepts. In order to promote pupils’ developing attitudes and skills as well as acquiring knowledge for European citizenship, student teachers and practising teachers themselves need to develop skills and build knowledge, fundamental to a democratic European society in the 21st century. Four of the Alliance members submitted a proposal for an Erasmus+ Teacher Academy, with a special focus on Inclusive Pedagogy. While the result of the herein envisaged project I-CONNECT is still pending, the need to define activities for a comprehensive skill set in future teachers regarding intercultural learning, diversity, inclusive teaching and the concept of global citizenship remains a task of this Work Package for all consortium members.
Our objectives
This Flagship Action aims to reach the following four objectives concerning the internationalisation of teacher education at the consortium’s universities, as well as within continuing professional development and training for in-service teachers:
A. Increase mobility from currently very low levels. This is a major issue for teacher training internationally, as it is such a heavily regulated domain.
B. Increase the attractiveness of the teaching profession and professionalise pre-service teachers through curricular and extracurricular means and in-service teachers with on-the-job training on democratic culture in Europe.
C. Enhance international and intercultural competencies of the future as well as practising teachers to prepare students for acting in diversity-friendly, value-conscious and democracy-conscious ways.
D. Promote inclusion, a vital element in teacher education, in daily teaching practices. In every European country, schools are places where the inclusion and exclusion of individuals and groups take place in daily practices. Inclusion has to do with participation and political education. It is not just a question of offering differentiated tasks, but of including all children, whatever their strengths and challenges, and the ways in which the group, as a whole, can interact and access activities in order to reach pedagogical goals.
Our approach is to equip future teachers with a skill set for teaching in diverse settings by adding and integrating specific subject matter into the curricula. The EUPeace school network serves to provide school internships abroad. Other flexible forms of (physical, blended, virtual) mobility options for teacher training students will be offered across the Alliance.
Since all members within EUPeace offer teacher education, the mutual exchange about how future teachers are educated in diverse European Societies and settings will be highly beneficial for the Alliance’s overall objectives. A guiding principle of our approach is the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, published by the Council of Europe: “In culturally diverse societies, democratic processes and institutions require intercultural dialogue. (…) Intercultural dialogue is, first, the most important means through which citizens can express their views to other citizens with different cultural affiliations. It is, second, the means through which decision makers can understand the views of all citizens, taking account of their various self-ascribed cultural affiliations […] Democracy and intercultural dialogue are complementary in culturally diverse societies” (Council of Europe, Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, page 24.).
WP 4: Facilitating Mobility
Mobility is influenced by a multitude of factors and obstacles (regional setting, structure of university, socio-economic factors, environmental factors, unforeseeable external factors such as the pandemic, individual and personal barriers, etc.). All EUPeace members have strengths and limits in tackling these aspects in different ways and to different degrees. The EUPeace mobility approach expressly addresses the diversity of the member institutions. The aim is to develop a support structure, which not only increases mobility numbers, but also the quality of mobility circulation amongst member institutions. EUPeace will balance efforts to augment the overall amount of student and staff mobilities with enabling mobilities from and to underrepresented areas of the EUPeace Network.
Our objectives
A. Establish a holistic mobility support structure beyond the ECHE-specific services to provide comprehensive information and support for all types of mobility endeavours. The aim is automatic recognition of intra-Alliance mobility results.
B. Create measures to effectively incorporate the realisation of EU horizontal priorities of inclusion and diversity, digital transformation, participation in democratic life, and environment, and to fight against climate change in all mobility related activities of EUPeace. Regarding these priorities, our focus of attention will be on:
· target groups starting out with fewer opportunities within the EUPeace system, in order to reduce mobility hindrances and increase mobility within the EUPeace Network among all groups and for all Work Packages;
· ongoing support for marketing communication about EUPeace mobility activities and associated agendas (EWP, ESCI etc.) to actively promote and support the EU Agenda on Digitalization (ease of credit transfer, automatic recognition, the interoperability of different learning management systems and the alignment of different exam administration systems within the network).
C. Provide EUPeace with a platform to test the feasibility of specific new measures related to the priorities highlighted under objective B. The aim is to use the network as a facilitator to test, evaluate and customise the structures and changes that are scheduled to happen within the current Erasmus+ program period 2021 to 2027, and to be a facilitating instance for new ideas and activities, with special regard to paperless mobility.
Our approach is to create an all-encompassing mobility system for diverse teaching and learning situations, for the multitude of languages, the diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds and the members’ diverse mobility requests and needs. All types of mobility (physical, virtual, blended) and all types of target groups will be addressed, including family-friendly and ecologically aware options across the network. This support system is based on already existing structures and pre-Alliance activities. In a postpandemic setting, EUPeace is conscious of the advances in virtual mobility and its advantages, especially for people with fewer opportunities. Still, at the heart of our mobility goals lie the invaluable benefits of personal communication, exchange and interaction that derive from meeting people in a non-virtual setting.
WP 5: Campus and Student Life
This Work Package will establish our Inclusive European Campus. This campus is our main lever to deeply internationalise our institutions so that the default background against which all staff and students carry out their activity will be international. This implies a strong commitment to diversity and inclusiveness, and conceiving our campus, in both its virtual and physical shapes, as a means of empowering everyone, regardless of culture, race, gender and ethnicity, to develop to their full potential as future agents for change. The Campus is a cross-sectional and long-term task towards developing and implementing sustainable Alliance structures. In this funding period, it will be realised in close coordination with WP1 (for Alliance-wide management questions) and WP8 (for communication and branding of the Inclusive European Campus).
WP5 also addresses the EUPeace Flagship Action on student organisations.
Our objectives
A. To build a joint inclusive European inter-university EUPeace campus
B. To establish inclusion and equality as core shared values to enable excellent conditions for learning, teaching, research, and innovation
C. To turn our campus into a model inclusive space for students, faculty, and staff
Our approach
· To engage the whole campus community (students, administrative and academic staff, caretakers) by inviting ideas, suggestions, and critique to continuously improve our learning and teaching environments
· To shape spaces, work, and learning environments to enable encounters blending the engagement both in common virtual spaces and local physical sites
· To foster strong student engagement in EUPeace activities and active student participation in our Governance to contribute to defining our trajectory
· To empower students to build on their diversity, shape the Alliance activities, and embody the European idea to promote social justice and diversity on the campuses
WP 6: Research Hubs and Doctoral Studies
EUPeace responds to societal challenges by building world-class Research Hubs from existing scholarly strength of members in peace, justice, and inclusive societies. With the Research Hubs, the Alliance contributes to enriching and strengthening the European Research Area with a transdisciplinary approach to peace, justice and inclusive societies. Thus EUPeace highly contributes to dealing with global challenges - always in dialogue with society. The Research Hubs build on the synergies of the Alliance members to foster research and research-based teaching with an attention to bringing in all subject areas of the Alliance.
Our objectives
A. Raising attractiveness and competitiveness of the European Research Area by improving and strengthening European research and capacities on topics directly and indirectly concerned with peace, justice, and inclusive societies
B. Promoting excellent transnational research cooperation as a means to foster peace, justice, and inclusive societies
C. Training of excellent early-career researchers (doctoral and post-doctoral level) to maximise their employability in academic and non-academic fields
D. Establish regional cooperation and knowledge transfer on questions related to peace, justice, and inclusive societies inside and outside academia at local, regional and European levels
Our approach
· Cooperate and co-create knowledge across different disciplines and research cultures, on topics concerning peace, justice, and inclusive societies and the conditions that make them possible
· Support the emergence of collaborative, Alliance-wide research on all levels, together with doctoral studies projects on all topics
· Build on the synergies of the Alliance members to foster research and research-based teaching on peace, justice, and inclusive societies, and expanding to bring in all subject areas of the Alliance
· Ensure a high degree of diversity on all levels of the Research Hubs with regard to different backgrounds, experiences, perspectives and identities
· Involve relevant actors outside academia which bring in specialist expertise for the research fields and doctoral projects
WP 7: Societal Dialogue
WP7 develops the EUPeace Living Peace Lab Flagship Action as a platform for civic community engagement by means of campus-related, regional, and international cooperation bringing together a variety of stakeholders including civil society, policy makers, NGOs, or companies. It will be specifically designed to encourage societal dialogue and innovation around the topics of peace, justice, and inclusiveness. The Living Peace Lab will be a collaboration hub for generating physical and virtual spaces where stakeholders can meet and find support for developing co-creating teams and engaging across the academia-society divide. This will create a virtuous cycle of continuous exchange between higher education institutions and society, which contributes to a strong policy and innovation impact of the EUPeace Alliance.
Our objectives
A. Contribute to the effective conditions and impact of peace, justice, and inclusiveness, ensuring that the Alliance is attuned to societal factors which threaten them in Europe and the world
B. Engage both the EUPeace community and external stakeholders in a dialogue and establish the Living Peace Lab as a permanent civic engagement and innovation environment, where sensitive topics can be tackled together
C. Generate concrete solutions and approaches that can be translated into research projects, spin-offs, and integrated into the European Track and other courses
D. Use information and data generated via the Living Peace Lab to improve the long-term sustainability of EUPeace beyond the funding period
Our approach
Community engagement is key for the success of this initiative. The Living Peace Lab emphasises and enables both grassroots formats to support the emergence of co-creating teams and the development of strategic partnerships beyond academia. The key to both is the development of three assets: a compelling narrative, collaboration spaces and a support base, and actor engagement. The Living Peace Lab will be the initial catalyst of societal dialogue, and will then become a staple of the network that continues beyond the currently planned project and funding period.
WP 8: Impact and Dissemination
The impact of the EUPeace Alliance will be reached via four dimensions: Education, Research, Society, and Institution. This Work Package coordinates all impact and dissemination activities and will thus make available all Work Package achievements to other actors. The tasks under WP8 are cross-sectional and develop communication, dissemination, and open science strategies, to ensure the Alliance’s internal and external visibility including science communication. The monitoring process of the Alliance’s impact is also part of this Work Package. We aim for impact on local, regional, national, and international levels.
Our objectives
A. To provide academic advice and expertise based on hands-on experience in conflict resolution for local community leaders, civil society actors, and governments
B. To offer best practice examples for institutional and international strategic development to other universities and actively engage with the further development of the European Education Area
C. To reach all target groups (see 3.2) most efficiently on themes of inclusion, diversity, and conditions necessary for peace and social justice
Our multi-channel approach
· To communicate adequately and effectively with all internal and external stakeholders
· To develop and implement an open science policy and to disseminate our research results via science communication and open access publications
· To provide services and support for Work Package leaders and the Coordination Network
· To intensify regional embeddedness and effective collaboration with local actors in civil society
· To generate quick wins for regions and social groups directly concerned
· To train student teachers as key multipliers and role models for European values, and thus ultimately foster long-term impact on new generations of citizens
· To collaborate closely with the Work Package leaders and monitoring committee to ensure sustainable impact in research, education, innovation, and service to society
· To provide infrastructure and tools for monitoring processes and steering of Work Package outputs and in particular the Flagship Actions
