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Higher education student and staff mobility projec..
Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014,
End date: Sep 30, 2015
PROJECT
FINISHED
The University of Algarve (UAlg) internationalization strategy is largely based on the promotion of students, teaching and non-teaching staff mobility. International mobility does not only open students and staff horizons but also strengthen collaboration between institutions, develop new projects and partnerships, new and better curricula, as well as the implementation of good practices, clearly contributing to the overall quality of the institution. For this reason, UAlg?s goal is to promote the widest possible range of mobility of students and staff, outlining international experience as part of academic routine.
UAlg currently has a network of 196 bilateral agreements with European Higher Education Institutions that allows the execution of a large number of flows, having run 114 mobility?s of students and staff in 2014/2015. Of these, 103 have been funded by the Erasmus+ Project KA103. The number of actual flows exceeded funding by 11%, which was due to an increase on non-teaching staff mobility for training and reflects the institution's interest in promoting international cooperation at all levels.
From the 114 mobility executed in 2014/2015, 74 were mobility of students to carry out a period of study (SMS); 9 Mobility of students for a Training period (SMT); 16 mobility of staff for teaching (STA) and 15 mobility of staff for training (STT).
Mobility issues are managed centrally by the International Relations and Mobility Office (IRMO). This office is responsible for all projects under the Erasmus + Program. Apart from IRMO, each of the eight Faculties that constitute UAlg designates one to three teachers as Mobility Coordinators, which make the connection between their students and IRMO . Each Mobility Coordinator ensures that the mobility period of each student has academic recognition. Mobility Coordinators are also responsible for the processes of Incoming students and are the contact point for these mobility?s.
UAlg announces the opening of the internal application process for the Erasmus+Programme, staff (teaching and training) and students, in December, via email and on the web page. Applications should be submitted until mid-February. Institutional application is submitted to the National Agency in early March.
During the application period IRMO organizes clarification sessions in each Faculty.
The academic recognition of student?s mobility for studies and training is guaranteed by the institution. Mobility Coordinators are responsible for registering all credits obtained by its students during their mobility period. When mobility reflects an extra-curricular activity, credits are registered as such. Both, mobility and credits earned by the student, are fully recognized in the Diploma Supplement.
Following the trends of recent years, UAlg students are opting mostly for doing their mobility?s for studies in Spain (14), followed by Poland and Ireland (10), the Czech Republic and France (9). The same preference is applicable for trainings and teacher mobility.
UAlg currently participates in three Training Consortiums, which resulted in 80 student trainings in the academic year of 2014/2015, in Europe.
This project is fully in line with UAlg?s Internationalization strategy insofar as it allowed to increase the number of student mobility by 14% over the previous academic year, an increase of 30% in the staff mobility for teaching and 300% in mobility of non-teaching staff for training. That reflects the institution's policy of encouraging the mobility and training of its teaching and non-teaching staff.
This increase in mobility allowed also to establish new contacts that will lead to future partnerships, cooperation and analysis of joint / double degrees courses, as well as application of new teaching approaches. UAlg also benefits from previous students and staff mobility in the previous years, as we are part in several other Erasmus + projects such as the three Training Consortium, three EMJDs, five Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters (two of them coordinated by UAlg), one Erasmus Project + key 1 Action - International Credit Mobility, one Erasmus Project + Action Key 2 - Sector Skills Alliance, two Erasmus + Action Key 2 Project - Capacity Building and seven Erasmus + Key Action 2 - Strategic Partnerships (2 coordinated by UAlg).