On 18 September 2018, the European Commission – DG Education and Culture, EACEA and the EVE project team held an info day sharing interesting news about the development of the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange project. The initiative, funded under Erasmus+ and launched at the beginning of the year, is implemented by a consortium composed of Search for Common Ground, Anna Lindh Foundation, UNIMED, Sharing Perspectives Foundation, Soliya, UNICollaboration, Kiron Open Higher Education, and Migration Matters.

The project is an important one for the European Commission and for the cabinet of Commissioner Tibor Navracsics in particular, that see it as a pilot initiative, testing if and how virtual exchanges could be integrated as a “classic action” in the next Erasmus+ programme. The intention is not to replace physical exchanges, but to complement them in the near future. 

The project builds on over ten years of successful virtual mobility implementation in the EU context in the school sector, and aims to provide a more accessible, “ground-breaking way for young people to engage in intercultural learning”, i.e. via virtual exchanges, and thus increase inclusion in internationalisation activities. The exchanges are open for students and more widely, youth in the Erasmus+ programme countries and the ten countries part of the Southern-Mediterranean region. What seems to differentiate this approach from others in the area of online mobility, is that it offers a very structured learning experience, organised and moderated by a facilitator (teacher). The overarching target is to involve up to 25 000 young people in such exchanges in the programme period. 

Below are some of the first results, half-a-year into the project period