American Council on Education (ACE) has joined forces with the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (Diku) in order to strengthen the resilience of partnerships among their respective higher education institutions (HEIs) in the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic. The new project aims to provide Virtual Exchange/Collaborative Online International Learning (VE/COIL) training to a selected number of US – Norwegian institutional “pairs” in order to keep them resilient during the ongoing global pandemic. 

 Building on the experience of ACE Rapid Response VE/COIL Transformation Lab for institutional partnerships between the United States and Japan this summer, the programme will be expanded to work together with Diku “online over a period of three months to adapt their education or exchange programs in the current global conditions into quality assured, high-impact VE/COIL programming” including professional development training for both US and Norwegian faculty staff and administrators as well as a number of activities tackling intercultural understanding among students and promotion of COIL at HEIs. 

 The five institutional partnerships selected to participate in this initiative are: 

• The Ohio State University and Lovisenberg Diaconal University College 
• Gallaudet University and Oslo Metropolitan University 
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences 
• Stony Brook University and Norwegian University of Life Sciences 
• The Ohio State University and Norwegian University of Science and Technology 

 More details are available at American Council on Education.