Guiding Refugees via European Exchange and Training (GREET) was ACA’s first Horizon 2020 project, which lasted from April 2018 until October 2019. Funded under the Science4Refugees call, the project aimed to contribute to the integration of highly skilled refugees in European higher education through mutual learning and exchange of good practices among national support structures and higher education institutions (HEIs) in 9 European countries (Austria, Belgium/Flanders Germany, Greece, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden and the UK). By scaling up successful practices in Germany and Finland by means of a peer learning activity (PLA) and disseminating its results through EU-level and country webinars, the project admittedly contributed to the debates at European level on current practices and obstacles for their implementation, search for joint solutions and improvements for a better and more effective integration of highly skilled refugees residing in the participating countries. The results of both PLA and webinars were disseminated at a stakeholder event in Brussels in June 2019, and systemised and stored in an online compendium – a repository of existing policies and practices available to the wider higher education community.  

The core consortium consisted of the Brussels-based ACA Secretariat (the coordinator), and ACA members DAAD (Germany) and EDUFI (Finland), but it also involved a number of ACA members (OeAD, IKY, IIE, FKA, UHR) and HEIs from the participating countries. Scholars at Risk, IIE’s Scholar Rescue Fund and VUB’s Mohammad Salman were involved as members of the Advisory Board and provided expert input in the project work towards supporting refugee students and scholars find their way into higher education systems and labour markets.

GREET provided the much-needed venue for the national support structures in Europe to meet and exchange their practices, and offered them an opportunity to get updated about the work of their own constituencies (HEIs) in integrating students and researchers with refugee background in the HE systems of their countries. The project brought together the community of practice of organisations and institutions involved in refugee integration both through project activities and by creating a platform to facilitate discussions and share relevant information and updates. 

For more information about the project, please contact ACA Policy Officer Marija Mitic at marija.mitic(at)aca-secretariat.be.