On 24-25 September the consortium of ACA, DAAD and EDUFI ran the first major of activity of the GREET project – the Peer Learning Activity (PLA) for national-level organisations and higher education institutions (HEIs) from 9 European countries who are responsible for or engaged in supporting highly skilled refugees find their way into the European higher education systems and labour markets. The PLA gathered around 35 participants with the aim of providing them with an opportunity for in-depth exchange on good practices, challenges and obstacles in  their work as well as ideas for future cooperation between different stakeholders at different levels of implementation, from the EU policymaking to national governments, HEIs and associations active in this area.

 The two-day PLA focused respectively on students and scholars with a refugee background in a combination of plenary sessions and parallel group discussions on thematic priorities and the most pertinent issues in providing support for these two groups – from language support to administrative complexities, sustainable funding, support networks, cross-country cooperation and the much-needed EU-level support in addressing some of the current obstacles. While acknowledging that country-specific challenges are distinct and require customised approaches, the PLA also showed that more cooperation and joint action is needed for mutual support and learning across Europe. Networks, solidarity and European cooperation were among the key words that the PLA participants identified as the main takeaways from the PLA.