Universities - Communities: strengthening cooperation

Project timeline: 4 years (01.02.2023 – 31.01.2027)
EU funding program: Erasmus+: КА2 CBHE
Financing: 988,435.00 €

General Objective:

To enhance universities’ social role through boosting university-community engagement leading to the elaboration of state policy on supporting the third mission of universities for ensuring social cohesion, resilience, sustainability and prosperity in Ukraine.

Specific objectives:

To develop and discuss national policy on enhancing the third mission of universities and community-university cooperation (indicators: a policy paper; a road map, national guidelines, a research published);
To develop the model strategies for relations between universities and communities based on their needs and aimed to enhance civic activism and citizen engagement based on principles of equality, solidarity, non-discrimination and inclusion and to pilot them in the HEI’s and communities involved (indicators: 7 on Ukrainian universities’ visions on the cooperation with the communities in terms of their social responsibility and university development strategies;
To foster the cooperation between the project target groups and stakeholders on university-community cooperation based on European experiences and practices in the field of inclusion and gender equality, cyber security and digitalization, ecology, and civic education, etc. (indicators: community empowerment program, 3 hackathons, 2 volunteering programs);
To increase the social responsibility and community engagement of universities through raising their capacities in the area of community development and local leadership (indicators: joint reports on the needs of the communities and their expectations from the cooperation with the HEIs);
To foster the cooperation between the project target groups and stakeholders on university-community cooperation based on European experiences and practices (indicators: research/experience exchange visits to European partners and internally for experience exchange and cooperation; the number of participants at the project events and mobilities performed; training programs and relevant teaching materials for the project teaching component, a future summit);
To ensure the qualitative project implementation is in line with best European practices as to the academic content and project management;
To ensure proper cooperation between PI, target groups, and stakeholders in order to implement the project dully and timely to report to European and national authorities;

Project website