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

Project background: It is among BTK's core principles to make internationalisation an inherent aspect of the study experience. BTK is member of the Laureate International Universities network, for that international cooperation is a basic component of its philosophy. The fifth semester of all BTK BA degree programs is laid out as a mobility window allowing students to realize a complementing their studies with a relevant experience outside of university. This experience can be either an internship or a semester abroad. Within Europe stays abroad are organized via the Erasmus scheme. The program offers advantages for the participants: Interns are supported financially; students additionally are relieved of the tuition fees at the receiving institution. Moreover they are usually included into student organized Erasmus networks that facilitates the time abroad academically, socially and in organisational matters. Staff, too, is integrated into BTK's internationalization endeavours. On the one hand, staff can help in motivating students, on the other hand, they themselves can use the possibilities of a staff stay abroad. In doing so, they profit personally and support the contact maintenance with BTK partners. Objectives: Although BTK's internationalisation only started in 2014/15, the project 2014's qualitative and quantitive objectives could already be reached to satisfactory degree. Not all of the original grant was used, but it became obvious which funding lines are particularly requested. This knowledge helped for more specific funding requests in the following projects. Number/profile of participants: Due to the new availability of international mobilities, the number of participants in the project 2014 was still low but showed a clear upward tendency. This gave reason for applying for higher budgets and with it more mobilities in the following projects. Conducted activities: All funding lines were used by BTK participants in the project 2014. It turned out that SMS and ST are demanded the most. Results, effects and long-time benefits: BTK profits from internationalisation in multiple ways: First, BTK becomes more attractive if it can offer students a promising and successful study period abroad. For many students the possibility to study or intern abroad is an essential point in deciding for a degree program. Apart from that, the BTK's reputation improves if graduates enter the work field intercultural sensitive, oriented towards global clients and markets and multilingual. A stay abroad proves to be decisive for employment in many sectors. Students need to know the international market, must be able to react to foreign costumers' needs and communicate. For that a successful stay abroad is in the centre of the internationalisation endeavours. "Successful" can mean challenging, nevertheless the info offer and the supervision from BTK side should be satisfying and the organisational steps well structured. The international strategy can be supported by colleagues from teaching and administration. In that way they will be motivated themselves, can upskill, establish new contacts and add to the quality and diversity of BTK's partner university network.
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