The ACA Secretariat and two ACA members – the Slovak Academic Information Agency (SAIA) and the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) – started work on the UniWellS project (see ACA Newsletter – October 2020 edition) aimed to support internationalisation of higher education through professionalising services for mobile academic staff. Coordinated by SAIA, this EU-funded Erasmus+ project targets incoming researchers and higher education support staff in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.  

Following the virtual kick-off meeting on 20 November, the ACA Secretariat will proceed with the design of the analytical framework by  

• mapping specific needs of mobile researchers in support services in ten countries of the region and  
• exploring demands of local higher education professionals for further professional development and training.  

Supported by SAIA and NAWA as well as the Comenius University in Bratislava, the University of Niš, and Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, ACA will develop an open survey of mobile researchers in the target region and will prepare a series of interviews with higher education staff. The survey will be published in February 2021.   

The first analytical stage will result in a report summarising the state-of-the-art in the ten countries and furnishing recommendations to institutional leaders and policy makers on various ways of mainstreaming support services for international researchers.