On 22 and 23 January 2025, the Institute for the Development of Education hosted an inspiring training in Zagreb within the ECEM project, as the third in a series of trainings and was focused on Community-Engaged Learning, with a spotlight on service learning in the context of student mobilities.

The training started by painting the big picture, by exploring the social dimension of higher education and the concept of community engagement. From there, the participants zoomed in on showcasing individual inspiring practices from the University of Zagreb, the University of Split and the University of Valladolid, and engaging in hands-on workshops that encouraged deeper exploration of the topic. The training brought together a wonderfully diverse group of participants connected to higher education in various capacities, hailing from Spain, Algeria, Albania, Moldova, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy and Portugal. 

The training was based on the resources produced by the ECEM project and it was preceded by the project consortium meeting. If you are interested in more information about the social dimension in mobilities, you can have a look at the practical guidelines for organising impactful volunteer activities for students during their exchange in the toolkit "Volunteer on Exchange Activities". The Toolkit aims to support student representatives and activity organisers when designing community-engaged activities for international students, bridging the gap between academia and society through internationalisation. Also, the ECEM Project Consortium has released a publication titled "Inclusion and Engagement in Mobility through Volunteering" aiming to bridge the theoretical concepts related to active citizenship and sense of belonging, and the needs for access and support for students to actively participate and contribute to their local community while on exchange. The publication is a result of a combination of various methods, such as extensive desk research aiming to identify the importance of active citizenship in inclusion, a focus group with students from various backgrounds, as well as analysis of student data on access needs to engagement and integration on exchange and institutional survey for university staff with a focus on inclusion and integration measures. The results of this research is presented in this publication, exploring the correlation between community engagement, active citizenship and integration of international students. Based on this research, the publication outlines recommendations for improved models of integration and civic engagement in student mobility. 

The final conference of the project of planned for late September 2025, so stay tuned for more information.