The University of Cagliari regards participation in the Erasmus+ Programme - Key Action1 - through the various staff and students’ mobility exchanges - as an utmost priority, one of the key instruments we possess to become more competitive and attractive in the European Higher Education Area. Following the EPS objectives, during the first year of participation we managed to: - Strengthen the network of international universities as cooperating partners, giving priority to the disciplinary and geographic areas of strategic interest; - Adopt an efficient and functional organization, guided by our Vice Rector for International Affairs, engaging all our academic structures in the management and promotion of international mobility; - Find further resources, besides the EU and university ones, to increase our mobility funding; - Ensure best quality and practice in the selection of our candidates, rewarding merit and introducing financial aid for students from disadvantaged backgrounds; - Increase the computerization of our candidates selection procedures; - Advertise our online catalogue of all degree programmes, with course units and expected learning outcomes; - Strengthen our information and support services for the benefit of both incoming and outgoing beneficiaries; - Introduce the proper corrective actions to ensure that our students get full recognition of the credits acquired during their period of study or traineeship abroad, and that our staff receive the same recognition for the experiences carried out; - Enhance a close relationship between university and enterprises, especially by setting up traineeship programmes for the benefits of our incoming and outgoing students. Participants’ number and profile: Total number of participants to the mobility programmes has been of 637 outgoing and 310 incoming: Study programmes: 405 outgoing students and 209 incoming students ; Traineeship programmes: 165 outgoing students and 46 incoming students ; Teaching and administrative staff: 67 outgoing and 55 incoming; Erasmus+ monitoring visits: 12 of our teachers were involved in monitoring visits to assess the progress and status of our agreements. Impacts and benefits After the first year, our evaluation is more than gratifying, especially if we consider: - The efficient system actions and the synergies developed with the other local institutions (municipality, regional government, ERSU (regional organization for university study), enterprises and foundations); - The consolidation of the number and the increase in the range of our mobility beneficiaries, also thanks to ad-hoc contributions allocated for the purpose of diminishing the socio-economic disadvantages of students from disadvantaged backgrounds; - A better internal organization aimed at improving the accurate management of our programmes together with our IT services in the selection procedure of both incoming and outgoing students; - The accurate recognition of all learning activities, including the preparation of final dissertations and traineeship activities for the newly graduates; - The adoption of strategic instruments to attract foreign guests, such as the consolidation of the “Welcome Office Smile”, the setting up of the University Centre for Italian as a Foreign Language, and the launch of a new entry package, “Enjoy Casteddu“, which includes traineeship experiences to be carried out in Sardinian firms by incoming students; - All regional, ministerial and university fundings whereby we robustly co-financed our programmes; - Our staff mobility programmes for educational and teaching activities, whereby we were able to better scrutinize both organization systems and teaching methodologies of the host universities, to acquire new competences and strengthen our international networks. Thanks to our participation in the programme, the international reputation and visibility of our University has definitely improved. Moreover, the welcoming policies for both incoming students and teaching staff have been strengthened. The collection of public and private fundings to sustain international mobility has increased, as well as the connection between our institution and the world of international enterprises, thanks to our traineeship programmes Overall, our internal organization has benefited from the synergic collaboration between our central structure, in charge of the programme management, and the peripheral teaching structures, a collaboration which has introduced undisputable quality elements in the management and spread of international mobility culture within the entire academic body, and especially within our university governing bodies.