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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Context/background of the project: The Faculty of Industrial Engineering Novo mesto (FINI) is focused on internationalization with mobility of students and staff being a key part of our Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE), Erasmus Policy Statement (EPS), and strategic plan. FINI is smaller-sized with approx. 150 (nontraditional adult) learners, who are employed. It is the goal for students to be exposed to new cultures, languages, ideas, societies, etc. With the onset of Erasmus+, FINI has a more focused approach towards EU mobility activities also in its strategic plan. As an institution of learning, FINI is aware that future professionals require global understandings, new international competences, and knowledge, a greater amount of tolerance towards diversity, just to name a few. As such, FINI encourages students and staff alike to go abroad and have attempted to host incoming mobility activities. Objectives: Through the principles laid out by the ECHE and EPS, internationalisation is a key and FINI fully understands the key contributions that quality mobilities have on students and staff. Specifically, the objectives of FINI are to develop cooperation with partners, promote and support student staff mobility, pursue the development of integrated, transnational teaching activities, recognise the importance of and provide visibility of all outputs (mobilities, projects), and continuously improving on quality. FINI understands that mobility projects entails respecting in full the principles of non-discrimination and ensuring equal access and opportunities to all backgrounds, motivating participants and preparation of participants before mobility, ensuring quality execution during mobility and after mobility, as well as ensuring full recognition for satisfactorily completed activities, monitoring, and providing support. The EPS strategy is to strive for excellence in our curriculum, lecturers as well as with students, to develop our international experience and attract foreign students and lecturers from abroad. To realize these objectives, FINI established that mobilities are from technical fields, with the most important objectives of sharing knowledge, integration of scientific research projects, conferences, and seminar and opening the possibilities of cooperation among companies and corporate incentives. Number and type/profile of participants: Students who have completed their second year as an undergraduate student have the opportunity to go on mobilities. FINI’s students are non-traditional adult learners that are mostly employed. One student mobility was awarded and also realized in Spain. Training and teaching staff are encouraged to partake in mobilities. One staff mobility also was awarded and realized in Spain. The staff mobility was scheduled at the same location and during the same time as the student mobility. This was organized so the student had a chance to share any potential challenges that he was having with the teacher. Description of undertaken activities with results and impact attained and longer-term benefits: Undertaken activities for KA1 2014 was one student mobility for studies and one staff mobility for teaching, which fully fulfills the approved mobilities that were approved. The results and impact obtained were that the outgoing student was exposed to a study programme that complements FINI’s study programme. The student also gained experience in two languages (Spanish and English), greater value of different cultures, increased knowledge of cooperating in teams, planning and organizing tasks and activities, expressing creativeness, as well as being exposed to cultural, societal, and economic differences. The obtained knowledge, skills and enhanced worldly understandings on the long term also benefits the student himself, students at home and with future employers. Similarly with the teaching mobility, the results and impact obtained indirectly contributed to the quality and relevance of higher education and increasing the social dimensions of higher education. The teacher enhanced development of good practices, experimented and developed new learning/teaching methods, gained and enhanced content specific and soft skills, reinforced cooperation with partner institutions and professional network development in the labour market and in civil society. Additional impacts were improvement of foreign language skills, social, linguistic and cultural competences. Longer term benefits is the increase of job satisfactions enhanced employment and career opportunities at the individual level, but also benefits students at home through implementation of enhanced knowledge, skills and competences through curriculum development, teaching, and sharing information with colleagues and complements FINI’s EPS as well as fulfills priorities set out by EU’s modernization and internalization agenda in higher education by providing opportunities for nontraditional adult learners.
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