In March, I led a team to submit an EU Erasmus KA2 project bid. The bid was a revised version of a bid submitted the previous year that narrowly missed out on funding. Against this backdrop, it make sense to revise and resubmit. After a month’s delay in announcing the funding of project, we received the good news that our project would be funded. Under my leadership, the University of Worcester will manage the project, working with partners from London, Belgium, Sweden and Turkey to develop tailored cross cultural training materials to support the development of learners cross cultural skills in both higher education and industry.
The project aims to develop the intercultural competencies of graduates in Europe by enhancing the quality and relevance of their skills to enable them to be active professionals in the European working environment. The project investigates the perceived and actual intercultural competencies of graduates needed by employers and subsequently provides outputs that help address these needs. The project responds to the European Commission’s (EC) Strategic Framework – Education & Training 2020 view that there has been a lack of focus on the involvement of social institutions on the cross-cultural skill-needs that companies have and on the effectiveness of investment in education and training in this area on business productivity.
The outputs of the project will include:
- A Competencies and Skills Report, which will highlight the intercultural skills needed by employers and highlight gaps in current student competencies;
- A Cross-cultural Competencies and Skills Development Toolkit, which will include a range of case studies and teaching materials;
- A Cross-cultural Competencies and Skills Development Training Manual, which will explain how educators can effectively utilize the teaching materials. The outputs will all be open-access.
As the output from the project are complete, I hope to share links to them via my blog and website, so stay tuned for my information.
Robin Bell 