Projects funded by the Erasmus+ Programme 2021-2027

• Up-skilling Agricultural Engineering in Europe – Next Generation in Europe and Abroad (USAGE-NG)
• Digital Education Material (DEM) 
• Mainstreaming Systems thinking In Natural sciences and Environmental education (SHINE)
• Promoting cross-cutting digital Skills through Europe-wide non-conventional learning experiences (OSCAR)
• Smaller Universities for Sustainability in Engineering Education (SUSEE) 

Up-skilling Agricultural Engineering in Europe – Next Generation in Europe and Abroad (USAGE-NG)

The project USAGE-NG focuses on supporting digital and green skills in further education and lifelong learning (LLL) through the collaboration of several higher education (HE) institutions and one implementing organization from three EU Member States, bringing significant experience and competences on different aspects of agricultural engineering, smart farming and sustainability. Climate change, social transformations and geopolitical tensions are changing the current agri-food and energy systems and potentially jeopardize food security in Europe and beyond. The challenges arising from such transformations require people working in "green" sectors to constantly re- and upskill their capacities. Farm managers, agricultural engineers, representatives from industry, governments and associations are particularly in the focus. The project USAGE-NG aims to expand the competences of those actors who are coordinating and running agri-food and energy systems through digital and mobile learning opportunities that are inclusive and innovative.
USAGE-NG is carrying out analysis on current demands and future needs, which leads to creating innovative educational modules, courses and other learning opportunities that follow the European approach to micro-credentials and are suitable for mobile (phone) learning. The realized modules are shared on existing mobile learning platforms within other HE institutions and explore further partnerships with more general online platforms.
This approach does not limit itself to learners in Europe alone, the project aims to extent its outreach potentially to developing countries, by sharing and adapting the realized modules and enabling interested partners abroad to re- and upskill competencies where they feel most needed.
With this programme agri-food systems are strengthened in general and important EU’s horizontal priorities are fulfilled as “Environmental safety and fight against climate change”, the “European Green Deal”, the “European Skills Agenda” and the “Digital Education Action Plan”.
 
Principal Investigator: Fabrizio Mazzetto — Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences 
Project Duration: 01/12/2022 — 30/11/2025
Project Partners: Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet - Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Lead Partner), Technische Universität München, BOKU Universität für BodenkulturWien, ENAMA Servizi Srl
Project Website: usage-ng.boku.ac.at
Funding Type: KA2 2022 — Grant agreement 2022-1-AT01-KA220-HED-000089504

 

Digital Education Material (DEM)

The DEM project aims to bring the use of digital textbooks to the next level: providing practical guidelines and specific samples of how to develop and produce a digital textbook considering all didactical, design, technical and accessibility aspects. In other words, the DEM project permits digital textbooks that meet the needs of all the stakeholders involved in the production and use of digital schoolbooks.
The multidisciplinary partners will develop and create the outcomes of the project at international working meetings, in online meetings and in individual working groups during the entire project. Subsequently, the outcomes will be presented to technical-pedagogical experts as well as to publishers, parents, and students on the project website, in social media, in a series of publications, and at national and international conferences and meetings.
In addition to a scientific analysis of the digital textbook, which describes the current state of development and evaluates existing implementations, the DEM project develops practical guidelines that illustrate how digital, accessible textbooks should be created. Prototypes will be the practical implementation of the guidelines and are dedicated to specific examples and problems of everyday school life.
 
Principal Investigator: Vanessa Macchia — Faculty of Education
Project Duration: 04/12/2023 — 03/12/2025
Project Partners: Centre pour le dèveloppement des compètences relatives à la vue Luxembourg (Lead Partner), Technische Universität Graz, Universität Hamburg, Universität Vechta, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
Project Website: www.dem-project.eu
KA220-SCH - Cooperation partnerships in school education — Grant agreement 2023-1-LU01-KA220-SCH-000152286 

 

Mainstreaming Systems thinking In Natural sciences and Environmental education (SHINE)

Objective of the project is to prepare future citizens to face climate change challenges by promoting the introduction and mainstream of Systems Thinking (ST) skills in natural science education. Specifically: educate in-service teachers on ST principles and how to apply them in natural science; support students in developing ST approach via game-based learning and innovative didactics approach in science education; sustain scientific skills and deep learning of complex topics; promote collaboration among different school grades 8-16yrs.

The activities to be implemented consist in the delivery of local training courses for in-service teachers to acquire key knowledge on ST principles, on how to implement ST in science and climate change education, and on the most innovative and effective didactic approaches for implementing ST at school. Development of a didactic toolkit with:

•  1 ST-Game
• 6 didactic modules
• 2 assessment tools

suitable for students (8-12 and 13-16 y.o.) and related translation in the partners’ languages. Testing events dedicated to schools in each partners’ country to boost the mainstream of ST at school.

Principal Investigator: Federico Corni — Faculty of Education Con Link alla pagina web del ricercatore
Project Duration: 01/10/2023 — 30/09/2026
Project Partners: Hochschule RheinMain (Lead Partner), InEuropa Srl, Tallinn University, Virtual Campus LDA Portugal 
Funding Type: KA220- SCH – Cooperation partnerships in School Education — Grant Agreement 2023-1-ES01-KA220-ADU-000151613

 

Promoting cross-cutting digital Skills through Europe-wide non-conventional learning experiences (OSCAR)

The digital economy requires active, responsible, and engaged citizens, equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to actively contribute to developing a safe, green, and fair society. This project aims at improving the education and training systems by developing and testing an innovative, high-quality, and inclusive Europe-wide platform for promoting cross-cutting digital skills through online/ hybrid non-conventional learning experiences for high school students. The platform will be supported by a handbook containing recommendations and implementation guidelines to organize online/hybrid coding camps replicating the face-to-face dynamics by taking a holistic approach (i.e., addressing several complementary angles, such as logistics, spaces, multilingualism, and inclusion). The project will propose as use cases three coding camps on motivating and timely topics: serious games, extended reality, and app development.

Principal Investigator: Ilenia Fronza — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 01/12/2023 — 30/11/2027
Project Partners:  Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Universitat Jaume I de Castellon, University of Jyväkylä (Finland), Provincia Autonoma Di Bolzano - Intendenza Scolastica Italiana, Diputacion Provincial De Castellon, Ministero Dell'Istruzione e del Merito
Project Website: https://oscar-codingcamps.eu
Funding Type: KA2 ERASMUS-EDU-2023-PI-FORWARD — Grant Agreement n. 101132432

 

Smaller Universities for Sustainability in Engineering Education (SUSEE) 

The project is based on the transnational cooperation of Smaller European Universities (less than 10,000 students). Sustainability is a transversal subject, that is nowadays not easy to integrate in pre-existing programs except by adding new full courses which are often disconnected from the other courses. This project proposes a novel approach by developing ways, guides, and courses that can be integrated in a new module. It aims to provide a set of all possible solutions for integrating sustainability in teaching to aid current teachers/lecturers in including this aspect in their pre-existing courses. This project also includes not only staff and researchers/teachers in the development phase but also students who will be amongst the main actors in the development and testing phases of the project.

This ERASMUS+ project is designed to promote collaboration and cooperation among four different organizations, with the goal of improving the quality of education and training about sustainability aspects in engineering education across Europe. The participant universities have a distinct focus and set of activities but the scope of this project enables possibilities to exchange experiences in education between teachers and professors. The project includes four work packages for reaching the goals which are addressed to these needs:

• Stocktaking: the need is to integrate the already detected and explored preexisting expertise at each participating university to leverage synergies
• Development, Design and Integration: the need is to create new educational content on different levels in the field of sustainability in engineering. The cooperation of the four transnational universities will support the broad fields of required expertise in sustainability aspects.
• Testing and evaluation: the need is to test new methodologies for lectures and courses. The goal is to create an accredited 5ECTS module “Sustainability in engineering education”. Two winter and summer schools ensure an exchange between students and teachers on a transnational European level, to learn from each other and to develop a new mindset in sustainability and the testing and evaluation of the new developed content (lectures and methods).
• Dissemination and communication: the need is to communicate the progress of the project to the public and to transport the new key role of smaller universities in the field of sustainability in higher education.

Principal Investigator: Erwin Rauch — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 01/01/2024 — 31/12/2026
Project Partners: Wyższa Szkoła Informatyki i Zarządzania (Lead Partner), Technische Universität Ilmenau, Université de Technologie de Compiègne
Project Website: susee-project.eu 
Funding Type: KA220-HED – Cooperation partnerships in higher education — Grant Agreement n. 2023-1-PL01-KA220-HED-000165430