Formation Continue du Supérieur

The event took place in Santiago (Chile) between 21-23 January
The First Academic Summit CELAC-EU (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños y la Unión Europea) was celebrated at the Universidad Central de Santiago (Chile) and counted on the participation of around 220 institutions from both regions, as well as 650 scholars and expositors from France, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Peru, Panama, United Kingdom, Mexico, Romania, Slovakia, Belgium, Italy, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. The participants discussed themes such as the reality and perspectives on the strategic association of both regions; the development of the Euro-Latin American Higher Education Space; the cooperation perspectives in Science, Technology, Innovation and Research and the Horizonte 2020 program; and the relationship between Universities and private companies for professional formation, innovation and technology transfer.
To Access the documents of the Summit, follow this link. To read the statement of the Summit, follow this link. For more information, follow this link.
See also on the blog: ALFA PUENTES project: Research and higher education cooperation promoted at EU-CELAC summit, Premier forum académique UE-CELAC.

By Tania Berman. New EAEA project ARALE tracks the keys to successful adult education campaigns
EAEA's new project Awareness Raising for Adult Learning and Education (ARALE) aims to collect best practices of awareness raising and advocacy campaigns for adult education in Europe. The project got its kick-off meeting on the 4th of February 2013 in Copenhagen, Denmark. ARALE is a one-year project funded by the European Commission´s Grundtvig programme. Its objective is to analyse the criteria for success for adult education campaigns targeting policy-makers, general public or specific target groups. These campaigns will serve as a basis to determine key conditions and tools to create successful adult education campaigns.
The kick-off meeting took place in the cosy and beautiful office of the Danish Adult Education Association (DAEA), one of the three partners of the project. Other partners include EAEA and the Estonian Non-Formal Adult Education Association (ENAEA).

Spreading information about adult education from the countries of Europe and EU institutions is the aim and objective of the unique English service "European InfoNet Adult Education", which has been developed as part of an EU project and now restarts the service after a one year break. EAEA is partner of InfoNet.
The first Infonet Newsletter has been released last week. It is the new format of the former InfoLetter which was published by InfoNet Adult Education. After a break of one year InfoNet Adult Education in late 2012 resumed activity, when it was approved by the European Commission for a new three year period as a multilateral Grundtvig Project. The first Infonet Newsletter focuses on the effects of the economic crisis around Europe. Also European adult education policies are covered, and the reader gets latest news on Erasmus for All.
In the next period InfoNet intend to seriously upgrade its coverage of science and research in adult education. In the first issue Dr. Maurice de Greef explains the results of a Dutch research project on the effects of digital learning on different target groups, including participants with learning disabilities. As a new feature of InfoNet we will occasionally publish articles on adult education policies and practices outside Europe. Recently Gisela Waschek uploaded an article on training funds in Uganda, and Katarina Popovic interviewed a young Afghan woman who did not lack learning motivation. The InfoNet Newsletter is not available as PDF but to make sure you get the next issue, you can subscribe it on InfoNet website.

Curriculum reform – a global invitation to submit case studies of whole institution curriculum reform
    Has your university changed its offer to students recently?
    Is your institution growing or rationalising in response to economic or policy drivers for change?
    Has your institution revitalised, changed or developed its curriculum over the last 5 years?
The Research
The Open University UK and the Higher Education Academy are working together to develop case studies of excellent global practice in curriculum reform which will be used to make recommendations to the UK higher education sector and internationally.
We are looking for universities across the globe which have, or are in the process of moving towards, large scale curriculum reform and we hope to develop a small number of detailed case studies that shine a light on excellent practice. The research will be developed into a resource which will be relevant and useful to higher education institutions globally.
If you can offer an example of curriculum reform from your institution, please complete and return the Initial Response Formby 28 February 2013 and join us in developing our knowledge of global change in the university sector. We only need a few details from you at this stage – the attached form will not take more than a few minutes to complete. All information provided by you will be considered as confidential and not discussed outside this project without your express permission.

22nd Annual Conference in Collaboration with the Council of Europe - The Evolution of Access: Adapt to Survive?
New Challenges and Opportunities in Widening Participation in Higher Education
Monday 3 – Wednesday 5 June 2013. The Agora, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France
Globally, participation in higher education has risen substantially. According to the OECD (Education at a Glance 2012) entry rates to university level programmes in OECD countries grew on average by nearly 25 percentage points between 1995 and 2010.
This is good news, but fireworks would be premature.  Despite expanding opportunities, participation and success in higher education remain skewed.
In Europe, higher education entered a new era when the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) came into being in 2010; and the Bologna reforms had ‘changed the face of higher education across Europe’. Meeting in 2012 against the backdrop of the European financial crisis, the European Ministers responsible for higher education affirmed it was ‘an important part of the solution to our current difficulties’.
Progress towards equitable and inclusive higher education in Europe has previously moved slowly. The resolve of the Ministers is clear, but can real progress be achieved?
Conference Details
Overview.
Themes and Objectives.
Call for Proposals.
Conference Programme.
Please note registration for the conference will start on Friday 8 February 2013.

EFMD Annual Conference 2013, Brussels, Belgium (9-11 June 2013)
The Management Development Network (EFMD) is holding its Annual Conference in Brussels from 9 to 11 June under the theme “Does management education create impact?”.
The conference aims at all those interested in management education and development. It is intended to bring together EFMD members, companies, educational institutions and other associations, to offer various perspectives and discussions on the conference theme.
To view the programme or to register for a reduced fee by 28 February, please visit the event website.

EUA has today published a new report which examines the development of ‘full costing’ in European universities. Entitled “Financially Sustainable Universities. Full Costing: Progress and Practice”, the publication aims to assist university practitioners in implementing full costing, with examples of good practice, whilst at the same time providing important information for policy makers and funders, in particular for the current debate on Horizon 2020.
Full costing – the ability to identify and calculate all the direct and indirect costs of an activity – has been identified as a crucial element for universities’ financial sustainability. It has become increasingly important as a result of the financial challenges that many universities currently face: reduced public funding (in many European countries); changes to the way funding is allocated (e.g. performance-based elements); increasing use of ‘co-funding’ requirements; and the management of diverse income sources. The publication provides an update on the status of the implementation of full costing in 14 European higher education systems and examines its impact on the relationship between universities and different funders. It shows that funding rules are an important driver for full costing development. In 10 out of the 14 systems analysed the possibility to recover costs based on a full costing methodology under FP7 have been an important driver for development.
Full costing methodologies help universities to identify the full costs of their activities and provide information for evidence-based decision-making at the strategic level of the university. It also enables them to show in a transparent way how they spend money and what the real costs of their activities are. It supports, therefore, accountability in relation to funders and provides information to enhance understanding of the adequate level of funding needed in a system. The report, which brings together evidence collected during a major EUA project supported by FP7 (European Universities Implementing their Modernisation Agenda – EUIMA) and from other EUA work on funding concludes that, overall, considerable progress has been made in recent years in the implementation of full costing. EUA’s work has shown that nevertheless a number of obstacles to implementing full costing still exist.
Full costing has been one of the important pillars of EUA’s work on financial sustainability, and EUA will continue to take this work forward through two new projects launched at the end of 2012, DEFINE and ATHENA. The full report can be downloaded here.

Presentation of the ARDE project results and report (26 February 2013, 8.00-10.30 a.m.)
On 26 February EUA will present a new report: “Quality Assurance in Doctoral Education – results of the ARDE project” at a breakfast event to be hosted by the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union in Brussels. The importance of training researchers has been recognised as central to the development of knowledge societies over the last decade and the number of doctorate holders in Europe has risen sharply. Improving accountability and enhancing quality in doctoral education have thus become a priority.
The report will present the outcomes of the Accountable Research Environments for Doctoral Education (ARDE) project which has aimed to demonstrate how quality assurance for doctoral education has been implemented in European universities through a combination of quantitative methods – a European-wide survey – and qualitative methods – focus group meetings with university representatives and a workshop including non-university stakeholders. A wide body of evidence has been gathered regarding processes, challenges and good practices in quality assurance in doctoral education and the report will describe the developments in the field and outline recommendations. To find out more about the event and how to register, please click here.
The ARDE project was coordinated by EUA in partnership with University College Cork (UCC), Universities Austria (UNIKO) and the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP). It was supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission.

Heads of state and government of the European Union countries and CELAC countries (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) convened in Santiago de Chile from 26 to 27 January under the theme ‘Alliance for Sustainable Development: Promoting Investments of Social and Environmental Quality’.
One of the points highlighted by the Summit Declaration was the need to reinforce the Strategic Partnership between the two regions in research and higher education. Higher education was declared an official action point to be followed up under the EU-CELAC Action Plan 2013-2015. In conjunction with partners of the ALFA PUENTES project, EUA and 23 university associations in Europe and Latin America submitted a statement to heads of state and government in the run-up to the summit. Based to a large extent on the outcomes of the recent bi-regional EU-LA University Association Conference held in São Paulo, Brazil (11-14 November, 2012), organised under the ALFA PUENTES project, the statement stresses the importance of higher education and research investment in meeting the priorities for sustainable development outlined under the EU-CELAC Action Plan. In particular, it highlights the following lessons learnt from ALFA PUENTES:

• Competitive research and innovation requires talent and well-trained individuals; governments should place a strong focus on the careers of young researchers (postdoc, doctoral candidates), and also Masters’ students through joint degrees or collaborative delivery of programmes, joint labs, and partnerships with industry and other social actors. In particular, collaborative provision of doctoral degrees should be supported and promoted.
• Higher education and research cooperation should exploit good practice from existing EU programmes: for example, cooperation and mobility grants through consortia comprised of universities from different countries of both regions have been extremely successful and should be scaled up.
• University associations are at the forefront of higher education and research policy development at national and regional levels. They should be consulted systematically in both regions on the points of the EU-CELAC agenda that relate to research and higher education.
• ALFA PUENTES, which is supported by the EU, has made great strides not just in facilitating cooperation between European and LA universities, but also among Latin American universities. LA governments should also look to invest in similar regional collaboration initiatives in the LA context.

The Summit Declaration stresses the “importance of triangular, south-south and other modalities and mechanisms of cooperation” and also recognises “the important contribution of higher education programmes for academic cooperation and international student, research and academic staff mobility between (the) regions”. This is a positive sign that both research and higher education are considered on the EU-CELAC agenda, and seemingly have gained more attention, compared to previous summits. EUA, in the context of ALFA PUENTES, will continue to follow this agenda in cooperation with university associations in Latin America.
The project, ALFA PUENTES: Building Capacity of University Associations in Fostering Latin American Regional Integration, unites 23 national and regional university associations of Latin America and Europe. The project places a strong focus on higher education internationalisation and integration of Latin American higher education systems, and explores the specific role of university associations in this regard. It is co-funded by the European Union Alfa Programme. Over the past two years, the project has been developing mechanisms and frameworks for regional quality assurance collaboration, modernising degree structuring, and enhancing academic mobility.