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

Windesheim UAS has been involved in the previous Charter period in Comenius and Leonardo Projects and Intensive Programs. The motivation to participate in Erasmus+ is to share and exchange knowledge and skills with participating partners which can be used for curriculum development and to stimulate student and staff mobility. This policy will be continued and extended. In our internationalization policy participation in European and non-European cooperation projects to support student and staff mobility is stimulated and support in teaching and training innovation will be focused at. The objective is to strengthen the quality of all aspects of the internationalization policy. Therefore, Windesheim designed a system of partnerships related to the intensity and specific character of the intended activities. In order to make sure that these activities are being implemented with the appropriate partners Windesheim UAS makes a distinction between Corporate Partners (partners at university level), Focus Partners (partners at division level) and Exchange Partners (partners at course level). It is possible for partners to change level in relation to the intensity and/or specific character of the activities. Because of this differentiation in partners it is not only possible to make the appropriate arrangements but also to get a stronger focus on what can be successfully realized. This approach makes sure that the international cooperation projects within the university will have a strong support base en because of that the outcomes are being implemented. Because of being a University of Applied Sciences, applied research in the policy document is one of the spearheads. Because of its regional embeddedness and its close links with regional companies and non-profit and public institutions, a strategy will be developed to incorporate these regional relationships and links as much as possible in its internationalization policy. The objective for this academic year (according to our policy plan for internationalisation) was a 10% increase of mobilities, which we managed to achieve significantly: As a result we achieved an increase of over 20% for outgoing Erasmus+ mobilities in comparison with 2013-2014! This academic year 130 study mobilities (37 more applied for a study abroad but did not proceed with it in the end) and 43 traineeship mobilities (3 more trainees cancelled their traineeship) took place as outgoing exchanges. On top of that we had 30 staff mobilities (3 for training and 27 for teaching), which was more than the year before; an increase of 30%! (And 10 pre-visits on top of that). It certainly was far more than the budget we got from EP-Nuffic, so Windesheim decided to offer 12 more staff grants, which are tagged as zero-grants in this report. (These grants were all applied for in the next following day, so there still were a lot more teachers who would have wanted to go abroad for an exchange). For incoming mobilities the numbers are some more difficult to outlay for only Erasmus+, as we also receive a lot of exchange students form outside Europe. But overall there we managed to achieve an increase of 9% which is not bad at all. Incoming staff from participating countries are not registered centrally by the International Office, but are being dealt with within the divisions. The reason for the above results could be our new policy plan on internationalisation which entails several improvements on cooperation, the curricula and research. Alongside the policy plan we have undertaken several activities to promote exchange for our outgoing students/staff even more; Information fairs for students, office hours for students and employees, information meetings in class, producing a seperate flyer/newsletter for students and one for staff, organising Pre-departure Briefings etc. Beside that we just purchased the special administration system Mobility Online to professionalise our International Office and her service. And we will continue to pay more attention to this communication and promotion of our International Office and the Erasmus+ programme in the following year(s). For our incoming students we organise every semester a buddy & activities programme, called SUN (Students United in the Netherlands). This is a committee of Dutch Windesheim students who organise a cultural programma for our incoming students with activities such as an Introduction Week, Country Presentations, Mulit Culti Food Night, Ice-Skating or Sinterklaas, the Sun schooltrip and a Goodbye Party. Besides that every member of SUN is mentor to a group of incoming students and is avalaible for questions and/or spending time with the incoming students. Longer-term benefits and impacts on exchange mobility can be; - awareness of issues related to European policy and the integration process, incl. cultural diversity; - studentst trained as future professionals, competent to function in an increasingly international environment.
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