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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: Sep 30, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The University of Westminster has been actively involved in the mobility of students and staff for over 20 years through the Socrates, Lifelong Learning and Erasmus+ programmes. The university has over 100 exchange partnerships, and over half of these are with European Higher Education Institutes. The ECHE is displayed in the Student Affairs Reception and also available online along with the European Policy Statement. The objective of this year?s project was to continue our work with the programme to facilitate mobility opportunities in Europe to both students and members of staff. This sits at the heart of the University?s 2020 strategy which outlines our commitment to increase outward mobility to 20% by 2020 in line with the European target. In this project we have facilitated student study and traineeship mobility, along with staff training mobility. There were a total of 91 participants in the project, including 85 student mobilities and 6 staff mobilities. The majority of student study participants have compulsory mobility periods built into their degree programmes, and are selected to study abroad by their Faculty. Student traineeship opportunities also form part of compulsory mobility periods along with work placement opportunities which are a formal part of the students degree programme. The Erasmus+ grant application cycle is widely promoted throughout the institution and applications are considered in respect to the full principles of non-discrimination. In this project all eligible applicants were awarded a full Erasmus+ grant and subsequently were provided with all the Erasmus+ documentation (grant agreement, learning agreement etc.) including briefing documents outlining step-by-step how they must be completed. The University also continues to promote staff training opportunities to professional and support staff. In this project we have doubled the amount of staff training participants through increased marketing and promotional activities. These have been led by the Human Resources Development team in order to increase engagement with the activity across the university in line with the Westminster 2020 strategy which makes a commitment to high quality staff experience by encouraging staff to be global citizens and lifelong learners. The University ensures the recognition of satisfactorily completed activities of student study and traineeship mobility through the awarding of credit bearing modules that are included on the students final record of achievements - their academic transcript and from 2015/16 they will also be documented in the HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Record). Recognition for staff mobility is provided through the university's personal performance development review system. The Education Abroad Team regularly updates and publishes applications materials and course catalogues for incoming participants on the University webpages well in advance of the mobility periods. No fees are charged to incoming exchange students and equal academic treatment is always provided for incoming participants in line with the ECHE and also the University Academic Regulations. All inbound participants are provided with an academic transcript upon completion of their studies. A copy of which is also provided to the sending institution. There was a minimal decrease in participation in this activity in comparison to the previous year. This is due to a smaller cohort of students in this mobility window. However, we continue to increase student traineeship and staff training participation most notably in the area of Fashion Design where our students are increasingly sourcing internships in mainland Europe rather than in the United Kingdom. Project results are disseminated to internal stakeholders and participation in this project continues to support the university in increasing outward mobility. The results, and statistics outlined in this report, will also be included in report to be discussed at the next European Engagement Group. The University of Westminster will continue to engage in this project as a core element of outward mobility activity. Current data shows a significant increase in participation for the 2015/16 project, including the addition of staff teaching mobility.

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