Building on three successful rounds of the Study in Europe initiative, the consortium formed by ACA and member organisations DAAD (Germany), Nuffic (the Netherlands), HARNO (Estonia), and DZS (Czechia), and coordinated by Campus France, embarked this month on the fourth stage of the initiative (2024-2026). The consortium won the related call for tenders, with a total budget of EUR 5 million, thereby setting to support the implementation of this initiative on behalf of DG EAC (European Commission and of EACEA).
Overall, the initiative is to enable national promotion agencies and higher education institutions in Europe to increase their visibility abroad, strengthen their overall internationalisation strategies and increase the attractiveness of EU policies and programmes globally. Study in Europe aims to secure the European Union's position as the world's leading destination for higher education.
More specifically, the 4th phase of Study in Europe, which is the largest to date, includes:
- carrying out analyses and studies on, inter alia, national promotion strategies, access to study grants, and international student mobility trends;
- organising a series of 12 student fairs and institutional events (virtual and face-to-face);
- managing the Study in Europe information portal, the creation of communication tools and the running of an integrated communication campaign (in particular on social networks);
- setting up thematic webinars, as well as networking activities and exchanges of good practice for European promotion agencies and EU Delegations, including through a new and dedicated community platform; and
- the organisation of capacity-building and networking activities for higher education institutions, through:
- annual seminars on EU policies to raise awareness of the key elements of the European Strategy for Universities and initiatives linked to the establishment of the European Education Area among higher education stakeholders in countries outside the European Union;
- additional annual events to facilitate contacts between European higher education institutions and their counterparts in different regions of the world; and
- training sessions on the promotion of higher education for European higher education institutions, with priority given to the least visible/active European institutions in terms of promotion.
The consortium also includes three new associate partners, of which two are also ACA members – SEPIE (Spain) and Uni-Italia (Italy) – along UEFISCDI (Romania), contributing to dissemination activities.
Within the contract, ACA will lead the research on access to student grants and scholarships in Europe and on IT tools, it will be overseeing the webinar series with national promotion agencies and EU Delegations, coordinating the content input for the community platform, as well as hosting one networking meeting for national promotion agencies, organising one capacity building seminar and one EU policies event.
During the 3rd phase of the initiative:
- 17 000 visitors and 406 European exhibitors participated in related student fairs;
- numerous promotional actions have led to 230 000 followers and reached 27 million people on social networks. The 10 promotional videos produced during this phase totalled 700 000 views on social media, to date; and
- staff of all national agencies and EU Delegations around the world actively participated in nine online capacity-building webinars and three networking meetings (the former), strengthening their promotion activities.
