The exciting Study in Europe initiative has now officially entered its second phase (2017 – 2020), via the kick-off project and Advisory Board meeting held in Paris on 29-30 January 2018, and hosted by the project coordinator, Campus France. The consortium includes, along with the coordinator, ACA as well as its member organisations DAAD and the Archimedes Foundation, together with Nuffic and the British Council – all very experienced agencies in matters of international promotion of higher education. The project team is advised by an extremely knowledgeable international board composed of the Slovak Academic Information Agency (SAIA – ACA’s Slovak member organisation), the Erasmus+ Student and Alumni Association (ESAA), the Spanish National Agency for internationalisation and Erasmus+ (SEPIE) and the Swedish Institute (SI). The project is also supported by a Monitoring & Evaluation expert, Dr Uwe Brandenburg, of the Global Impact Institute (GII). The meeting was equally informed by advice from representatives of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC) – Claire Morel and Adrian Veale – representing the contracting authority. Specifically, the initiative is funded by the Erasmus+ programme.
The second phase of the project covers:
- the organisation of six Study in Europe fairs (see below the country choice and preliminary timing),
- managing the Study in Europe portal and Facebook page,
- enhancing the social media presence of Study in Europe,
- refreshing the promotional materials,
- maintaining and strengthening cooperation with the internationalisation and promotion agencies in the Erasmus+ programme countries via peer learning webinars.
ACA’s role within this phase of the project is related to the latter activity – the organisation of webinars for promotion agencies and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). ACA looks forward to working with all the higher education promotion agencies in Europe in the framework of this activity.
Importantly, this initiative builds on the success of the Study in Europe 1 project, implemented by the same consortium, with the British Council as coordinator. Here are some of the main achievements of the project in its first phase (2014 – 2017):
- Organisation of study fairs with a clear European profile, involving HEIs and promotion agencies from Erasmus+ programme countries – 7 face-to-face fairs (Ecuador, Jordan, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, Uzbekistan) and 2 virtual events (USA/Canada, Russia) – involving 405 exhibitors (26 European countries) and 24,000 visitors. This initiative also involves the set up of a fairs registration platform, that will be further used in the second phase.
- Revamp of the Study in Europe portal and its integration into the official European Commission’s website.
- Development of a Study in Europe brand identity and of promotional materials of European higher education as a whole – 160,000 Study in Europe promotional materials distributed worldwide.
- Set-up of a social media presence – the Study in Europe Facebook page, counting 6,825,658 users and 220,000 likes.
- Creation of networks of European Higher Education Experts (EHEEs) in 5 countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, counting 45 EHEEs and reaching out to 23,904 interested students to Study in Europe that attended information sessions/seminars.
ACA, who was in charge of running the networks of EHEEs in the BRICS countries, is particularly grateful and indebted to the 45 experts, for their warm welcome, fruitful cooperation and lasting enthusiasm, despite this activity not being covered in the second stage of the project.
