Sveučilište u Splitu - Fakultet građevinarstva, arhitekture i geodezije University of Split - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy

During the realisation of the project, an international (freely accessible) database will be created that will contain characteristics of buildings, elements and materials. The database will not only lead to predictions in the field of earthquake risk, but will also provide a basis for future research in this field as well as in the field of earthquake protection, both in the member countries of the consortium and possibly beyond. In addition to professors, students will also be involved in the project activities, so that a large number of future engineers can acquire new knowledge and skills and establish contacts with colleagues at home and abroad. This will not only provide future engineers, designers and contractors with concrete knowledge and (digital) tools in the field of earthquake risk, but will also ensure active participation in the development of a future sustainable construction waste management system. Through the multidisciplinary involvement of students and professors in researching earthquake risk, predicting earthquake damage and testing new recycled building materials using digital tools and machine learning, the consortium of 7 partners will strengthen capacities in work, research and teaching with the aim of education for sustainable development. The backbone of the activities is virtual and combined collaboration with the application of IT tools and the active participation of all stakeholders from the public and private sector in dissemination.

GEOBIZ project consortium built out of 15 academic and 3 business partners together with 5 affiliated partners is addressing partners needs regarding geoinformatics business and academic sector in five European countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova and Montenegro. Geoinformatics ecosystem, as a link between technical and ICT subject and professionals, is part of digital industrial revolution characterized with fast technology driven changes and development of new knowledges and skills necessary for efficient use of this technology for satisfaction of user needs. Rapid change is creating situation in which academic sector faces problems. It can't cope with fast changes and lags in introduction of new content in educational process. This results in situation that new professionals finishing academic education do not master necessary knowledge and skills in field of geoinformatics and therefore are not well prepared for industry. Ultimately business sector suffers from such situation lacking new experts which can contribute in their development. Therefore, GEOBIZ project aims to design and establish new business-academia cooperation platform in field of geoinformatics in targeted countries which will bring together geoinformatics subjects, foster their cooperation and create situation in which all stakeholders will benefit. Based on this cooperation HEI's will improve quality of education of geoinformatics and related courses using business-driven problem-based cases which are prepared (designed) by geoinformatics companies for use in educational process and thus modernise their geoinformatics courses. This modernisation will result in raising attraction of geoinformatics studies for students, deliver well educated and prepared professional, satisfy needs of business sector for expert work force and ultimately offer to society geoinformatics sector capable to answer on societal needs in efficient, timely and cost benefit manner.

This project is addressed to enhance STEM students knowledge and skills in mathematics within the STEM context. Using active and collaborative learning and ICT methodology for learning will lead to enlarge students skills to solve practical problems. Students will be an active part of the educational process using this new methodology. Students gained knowledge and skills in maths can be applied for success in today’s world, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. A project of this kind is an excellent opportunity for making arguments between minds, criticizing different opinions on some topic, all of it with one goal: achieving excellent skills of maths of students to be used in everyday life.

MEMUD (Middle European Master of Urban Design) is aimed at establishing a joint master program for urban design with a particular focus on the Central European Region, involving the Technical University Vienna (TU Vienna), University of Ljubljana (UL) and University of Split (UNIST). With this orientation, the program seeks to create strong transnational bonds in academic research training so as to improve the culture of urban design in the region on the one hand and to enter new fields of employment and enhance the job opportunities of graduates on the other.

The project provides the development of an educational platform for broader educational discourse within the discipline through exchange of knowledge and methodology that benefits from the diverse experiences and expertise of the involved institutions. Former successful collaboration has confirmed that the benefit of such cooperation lies not only in the production of a new model of planning and design education, but that it also enhances the existing structures in education of participating universities.

Mobility, migration and adaption to ever changing environments have become key issues for the contemporary urban landscape. Also for successful and effective urban design and planning these have become prerequisites. The education of young urban designers in a joint collaboration needs to respond to these requirements through particular training in flexible and processual thinking, collaborative work in-depth knowledge of urban and planning processes, in techniques of research and knowledge acquisition and in communication with formal and informal stakeholders.

As an effect, the project contributes not only to the educational system but to the regions and their communities at large. Experiences in different and foreign environments, other forms of knowledge acquisition and new methodologies in planning allow for the implementation and of thoughtful, research-based and openly tested and reviewed proposals designed specifically for the local context. Local communities thus benefit from the project by being involved in the processes of round table discussions, lectures, presentations and exhibitions.

Additional benefits lie in stabilizing the existing educational network and further academic output in professional journals and web-platforms. On the long run, the program is geared towards quality improvement in urban planning through the academic training of experts in shaping the built environment by fostering new and inclusive research-based design methodologies and transnational knowledge exchange.

The project includes the development of the curriculum, the content of the program and other accompanying strategies concerning mobility and knowledge exchange, the training of educators and a pilot phase of the MA program.

The objective of the Focus on Automatic Institutional Recognition (FAIR) project is to improve European recognition as practiced by higher education institutions by implementing elements of automatic recognition.

The measure to be tested is the introduction of automatic recognition in institutional recognition procedures. Automatic recognition is a fairly new concept that is explored by the 'pathfinder group on automatic recognition' in preparation of the Bologna Ministerial Conference in Yerevan 2015. FAIR aims to test how the recommendations can best be implemented in institutional recognition practices.

Since most recognition decisions in the EU and EHEA are made within HEIs, the FAIR project is expected to significantly improve European recognition practice.

The target groups of the project are:

• Higher Education Institutions - Admissions offices, through smoother recognition procedures and fairer and consistent decisions. HEIs as a whole will benefit as well. Smoother and fairer decisions increase the quality of students and reputation of the institution.
• ENIC-NARICs - The recommendations on how institutional recognition practice can be improved will assist ENIC-NARICs to perform their tasks as information centres on recognition and their efforts for achieving fair recognition.
• Ministries of Education - Fairer and smoother recognition decisions for incoming students will make a country a more attractive destination for students and highly skilled workers.
• Quality assurance agencies - The analysis of existing institutional recognition procedures and the recommendations for improvement will lead to useful expertise for the QA agencies, especially in the light of the revised European Standards & Guidelines.
• Students - Smoother and fairer recognition decisions will lead to fewer obstacles for students when applying for a higher education programme in another country.

The evaluation will entail the following:

• Baseline assessment in which participating HEIs score their recognition procedures on the basis of objective indicators (a scorecard). The evaluation body guides the baseline assessment of the recognition procedures to ensure that the indicators are clearly understood and reliably scored by the HEIs.
• Improving the institutional recognition procedures by including automatic recognition elements and recommendations from the EAR-HEI recognition manual
• Measuring the effect of the new recognition procedures against the previous set of indicators.

Automatic recognition is expected to simplify institutional recognition decisions, because substantial parts of the recognition procedure will be standardized. The experience and recommendations on how to do this at national level will be made available by the FAIR project team for all EHEA countries. This will lead to faster and smoother recognition decisions.