Associated with increased migration flows, the social dimension of higher education is indeed concerned with providing opportunities for refugees to participate in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), including the integration of persons with refugee status, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons who might access to relevant mobility schemes.
The project targets EU Higher Education staff and faculty members, to empower them so that they are able to take an active stand towards the integration of refugees at institutional and local level, based on international peer-support.
The overall objective of the project is to contribute responding to the refugee crisis in Europe strengthening knowledge sharing, peer-support and academic partnership among Higher Education Institutions on initiatives and resources aimed at facilitating integration and access of refugees in European universities.
The specific objectives of the project are to:
- collect and analyse good practice examples of HE approaches and initiatives in wide range of urgent situations, focusing on refugees and displaced students, facilitating the identification of successful patterns of integration which have the potential to be easily scaled up (e.g. teaching local language and local culture, voluntary host services, tailored counselling services,…) and facilitate peer and networked communication on lessons learned;
- sensitise HE governance, facilitating communication and institutional support within and outside the university;
- provide relevant orientation and training to the university staff, to empower universities so that they are able to take an active stand and further replicate successful approaches and practices;
- mainstream results, achievements and recommendations to HE institutions, HE networks and HE policy makers on the strategies that can be put in place to integrate refugees in higher education, therefore increasing the social dimension of the EHEA.