NEOLAiA

With a view to its future in the framework of the European Universities Initiative (EUI), NEOLAiA will implement governance and management structures that respond to the growing interconnectedness of its partners aiming at:

• Ensuring effective decision-making and well-coordinated functioning of the project’s Governing Bodies, by maintaining regular meetings and exchanges with the most senior leadership (Rectors and Vice-rectors) and operational leaders within the alliance (Work Package Leaders and specialists) (T1.1);
• Striving for an inclusive governance, by adopting Consultative Bodies that assure a full participation of all stakeholders with regular bottom-up initiatives, more streamlined and inclusive cross-border administrative processes (T1.2);
• Supporting the daily management of the project by setting up a common Project Management Framework and assuring a quarterly internal reporting on management (T1.3);
• Sustaining the highest quality assurance and risk management throughout the project’s lifetime, by assuring quarterly discussions at EC meetings and by developing a Quality Monitoring Plan (QMP) based on partner and third-party input (T1.4);
• Supporting the enhancement of institutional cooperation, by addressing and reducing existing cross-border administrative barriers and obstacles to cooperation, promoting all types of mobility within the alliance, and particularly, streamlining common provision of shared human resources. This will be accomplished by experimenting with legal entities such as the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) or other future cross-border legal personalities, under which the Key and Human Resources Hub would be founded with a view to a future full-fledged NEOLAiA integration as a fully-transnational legal-entity-based European University (T1.5);
• Monitoring, managing and evaluating processes and outputs throughout the project’s lifetime, by building an ecosystem of governing and consultative bodies, as well as project management and risk assessment tools (T1.1 to T1.5).

Teaching is widely established as one of the three core missions of HEIs (Teaching, Research and Societal Engagement).

Correspondingly, WP Teaching and Learning and its initiatives will operationalize this mission for NEOLAiA as a European University. To achieve a politically, economically and scientifically engaged community of European citizens who are fully able to participate in their societies and economies, NEOLAiA sees its role as an active contributor to the achievement of global educational goals.

• Promoting a sense of European identity and cooperation in HEIs for a common economic and societal development strongly rooted in a regional perspective, by creating joint collaboration structures that promote institutional cooperation in teaching and learning (T2.1 - NEOLAiA Pedagogical Hub);
• Facilitating international mobility and student-centric teaching and learning activities, by setting-up and deploying international joint degrees (T2.3 - NEOLAiA joint degrees) and short programmes (T2.2 - NEOLAiA Focus Academy and T2.4 - NEOLAiA Summer Schools);
• Reaching out to society and “strengthen the European dimension in higher education and research”, as argued in the European Strategy for Higher Education by promoting the use of inclusive and barrier-free digital research dissemination content (T2.5 - NEOTeAch) and;
• Promoting and instilling a mind-set for lifelong learning in its regional communities aimed at future-proof and market- oriented employability, in line with the Council of the European Union (EU) 16 June 2022 recommendation on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability, by deploying flexible and stackable upskilling/reskilling education micro-credentials and certification (T2.6).

One of NEOLAiA’s 3 key NEOLAiA Pillars (NP2) is focused on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), a cross-sectional dimension that will be embedded in various activities throughout the whole alliance. This will require an active advisory role from this WP in enabling internal and societal awareness on topics of D&I such as best practices and barriers to participation, in particular by under-represented groups in the regions where the alliance is present. NEOLAiA’s vision for an inclusive European University starts at its campuses, permeating into its surrounding communities in a step-by-step approach aiming at:

• Aligning and setting in motion within the alliance a set of common D&I values and principles based on European directives, by establishing a common framework (T3.1 NEOcharter);
• Bringing the NEOcharter to life within the alliance in a sustainable manner through continuous improvement, reflecting on the current best practices, by mapping current NEOLAiA D&I practices towards tackling barriers in different dimensions, as defined by EU policies (T3.2 NEObest);
• Enhancing the skills of NEOLAiA stakeholders (students, researchers, faculty, and staff) on tackling barriers to participation and inclusion, through training to empower primarily underrepresented (student) groups suffering from these barriers (T3.3 NEOstaff and T3.4 NEOmentors);
• Bringing D&I to life in on our campuses and beyond, by reaching out to our communities through a combined offer of lifelong learning content on sustainable D&I principles and practices for underrepresented groups suffering from regionally identified barriers to participation (T3.5 NEOlife);
• Advising all alliance stakeholders on how to sustain effective D&I practices (D&I NEOad) in the various WP activities and throughout the project lifetime by offering D&I orientation and implementation practices, training and certification (T3.4) as a cross-structural commitment of the alliance (T3.6).
• Educate users on the importance of D&I in the metaverse and on promoting a culture of respect and tolerance within the digital realm.

In pursuit of its ambition to transform European regions for an inclusive Europe, NEOLAiA will foster inclusive and value-adding mobility opportunities, expanding on traditional modes of academic exchange and internationalization through innovative blended and virtual formats as a fully inclusive, culturally diverse, integrated and transversal element that runs seamlessly through the whole academic experience, for students, researchers, teachers and university staff. The initiatives in this WP will aim specifically at:

• Reducing barriers to mobility by providing increasingly frictionless international experiences to all NEOLAiA students (T4.6, T4.7), teachers (T4.5 COIL), researchers (T4.8), and staff (T4.3), through a shared recognition of international mobility outcomes in T4.1 and T4.4;
• Ensuring that both physical and virtual mobility contribute effectively to the development of cultural awareness and intercultural skills among NEOLAiA students, teachers, researchers, and staff by providing tools to monitor, sustain and continuously improve processes, results and their positive impact. Integrating this intercultural awareness in the competency and career plans for students, researchers, teachers and staff (T4.2);
• Fostering inclusive, resilient and sustainable modes of mobility and networking at home, through the NEOLAiA Virtual Mobility programme offering (T4.5);
• Laying solid foundations to build international cooperation among NEOLAiA teams and harmonizing processes essential for a) educational and research collaboration, as well as for b) student, researcher, teacher and staff mobility (T4.1, T4.3).
• Facilitating the implementation and continuous development of innovative and inclusive mobility formats (T4.3), with a comprehensive NEOLAiA virtual mobility study and training offer for students, researchers, teachers, staff, as well as welcoming citizens to benefit from the international NEOLAiA lifelong learning offer and activities in virtual mobility formats (T4.5).

Research is one of NEOLAiA’s three core missions as a European University (M1 Teaching, M2 Research, M3 Societal Engagement). Upon the mapping of NEOLAiA’s research strengths and their relation with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we see our role not as a global leader in terms of high output number of scientific publications, but as an enabler of research with regional specialization. NEOLAiA will transform regional connectivity, by leveraging on regional research strengths and critical mass identified in the NEOLAiA bibliometric and specialization index analysis in section 1.1 and Objective 3 (with a proven track record output in research areas such as Global Health, Curbing Inequalities, Inclusion and Diversity and Digitalization Infrastructures, among others). These regional research strengths associated with a Smart Regionalisation Strategy will allow for a strong focus on transfer opportunities that are truly relevant for companies and universities from the participating regions. With this vision, NEOLAiA will aim at:

• Facilitating access to a comprehensive account of synergies across the NEOLAiA partners' research groups and centres in order to form new transnational research teams and projects, producing high-impact and meaningful research addressing societal challenges of regional relevance (T5.1).
• Fostering transnational research collaboration via the launch of the NEOLAiA Research Framework, outlining the principles for sharing research resources in an efficient, sustainable and quality-enhancing manner, aided by digitalization, to strengthen research quality and applicability (T5.1).
• Supporting research regional relevance and inclusion built on the combined strengths of NEOLAiA universities by establishing a detailed map of infrastructure and resources (e.g. technical equipment, databases, cohorts, staff, regional collaborative networks, and living/social/impact labs) that can be shared across NEOLAiA universities (T5.2).
• Creating expert support teams specialising in external research funding, academic career development and general research support for the benefit of regional engagement and the prevention of researcher brain-drain (T5.3).
• Providing enhanced quality and regional relevance of NEOLAiA research by offering targeted activities for Early Stage Researchers, leading to successful transnational networks and research projects through mobility and mentoring (T5.4).
• Constructing open digital platforms for co-creation of knowledge among stakeholders, resulting in, and based on, innovative regionally relevant and high-impact research linked to societal needs (NEOLAiA Living Lab Programme, and WP OpenScience) (T5.5).

NEOLAiA’s third mission towards Societal Engagement is intrinsically connected with its bridging role between academia, regional economic participation and social development via local entrepreneurial ecosystems. This will be achieved by supporting aspiring entrepreneurs in our regions and helping them cope with a broad range of obstacles to economic inclusion.

Defining the common core values and strategy for regionally integrated entrepreneurship specialization will be key for a SMART regional economic growth and employability strategy. With this vision, this WP will aim at:

• Mapping and fostering synergies (T6.1 Taskforce for Entrepreneurship - TAFE) and best practices (T6.2) among alliance partners, identifying the internal strengths and regional needs;
• Improving the quality of entrepreneurial competencies (among entrepreneurs and alliance partners) via best-practice sharing and a training toolkit (T6.3);
• Increasing the ability of partner universities to provide better entrepreneurship training by creating joint training curricula and a toolkit that will provide additional support for trainers, students and entrepreneurs from NEOLAiA regions (T6.3);
• Fostering connections between alumni-entrepreneurs from all countries with students at partner universities by creating a framework for cross-national entrepreneurship internships, organized as shadowing programmes with mentorship support (T6.4).
• Providing increased opportunities for students to participate in mobility, testing and analyzing business ideas among partner universities, by creating international/multicultural entrepreneurship bootcamps such as the Summer Entrepreneurship Challenge (T6.5).

A truly plurilingual and intercultural educational ecosystem is key for an inclusive and diverse EEA and EUI. In pursuit of the European values for a linguistically and culturally equitable education, the NEOLAiA Alliance has set forth this WP with a set of objectives aiming at a sustainable practice and continuous improvement of the longstanding European language recommendations by the Council of Europe since the late 1990s, recently reiterated in Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)1 (February 2nd, 2022) as a set of “policy guidelines and frameworks that provide conceptual and practical support for plurilingual and intercultural education for democratic citizenship”. In parallel, NEOLAiA’s regional connectivity mission means that this WP’s objectives will also pursue the two items of “language barriers” and “cultural differences”, as key alliance-specific barriers, identified as barriers that stand out above other barriers to inclusion in the NEOLAiA regional survey (the report that served as basis for identifying the NEOLAiA Diversity & Inclusion pillar targets) by:

• užtikrinti, kad šios darbo grupės įgyvendinimas atitiktų daugiakalbio, tarpkultūrinio Europos universiteto vertybes, taip pat būtų sprendžiamos NEOLAiA regionui būdingos kliūtys, skatinant nuolatinį iniciatyvų tobulinimą ir tvarumą, taikant geriausios praktikos metodą, pagrįstą reguliariais partnerių mainų forumais per visą veiklos laikotarpį (T7.1 Simpoziumas apie kalbų politiką).
• Daugiakalbystės ir tarpkultūriškumo skatinimas universitetų programose, gerinant visų NEOLAiA vidaus suinteresuotųjų šalių (dėstytojų, tyrėjų, studentų ir darbuotojų - T7.2) kalbinę ir tarpkultūrinę kompetenciją, taip pat vykdant tikslines iniciatyvas, skirtas konkrečiai dėstytojams (T7.3), tyrėjams (T7.4) ir studentams (T7.5), suteikiant jiems optimalius įgūdžius jų akademinei ir profesinei ateičiai.

Research is one of NEOLAiA’s 3 core missions as a HEI and as a European University. This WP on Open Science will contribute to sustain research activities as a key HEI mission, in conjunction with WP5 – Research Excellence and Regional Impact. It will do so by adopting a set of policies and technological infrastructure to ensure a collaborative knowledge sharing research ecosystem, as well as an inclusive and equitable science citizenship participation. It will use principles such as the FAIR framework and will set in motion the European Commission’s 2030 Digital Compass vision for science citizenship with the aim of:

• Increasing researchers’ early knowledge-sharing practices with all relevant stakeholders across academia, industry, public authorities, citizens’ groups, non-governmental organisations, and society at large;
• Supporting widespread stakeholder participation in knowledge-sharing in order to increase trust in science;
• Contributing to the growth of Europe’s community of digitally-empowered citizens;
• Designing appropriate rules, internal procedures and strategies to enable the NEOLAiA alliance to understand and implement Open Science principles and practices (T8.1);
• Developing and sustaining a NEOLAiA Open Science Policy that will be embraced by all alliance partners and stimulated through training, dissemination, and exploitation activities. (T8.1) ensuring that data on research results is fed into this WP so that open science is connected with concrete research activities throughout the NEOLAiA alliance, by working closely with WP5 Research Excellence and Regional Impact through joint remote annual meetings (T8.2);
• Engaging and stimulating all partners in co-creating Open Data on their teaching and research activities, by collaborating with citizens and citizens’ groups (T8.2).

Our alliance envisions Digital Transformation as one of the 3 key NEOLAiA Pillars (NPs) - NP1 Digital Transformation, NP2 Diversity and Inclusion and NP3 Enhanced Mobility. We therefore see NEOLAiA as having an active role as an enabler of advanced digital skills for inclusion, widening the participation and usage of digital technologies by society at large and in particular by under-represented groups in the regions where the alliance is present (see WP3 on under-represented groups), facilitating lifelong learning education that prepares the workforce for the ever-changing market demands. This WP will thus aim at:

• Embracing digital transformation through the effective use of new technologies aiming to reinforce Europe’s global position and leadership in digital transition;
• Empowering technology knowledge, research, and digital skills to support all universities in shaping the future of education towards a shared virtual world, by developing and adopting an analytical digital framework (T9.2);
• Becoming a leading European University in metaverse access across NEOLAiA campuses, in line with the European Commission’s declaration on digital rights and principles for the digital decade: “Technology should unite, not divide, people” (T9.3).
• Leading by example in digital education as a European University by offering courses to NEOLAiA partners on the metaverse, using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) metaverse Living Labs at each partner’s campus (T9.2);
• Fostering frictionless mobility through digitally-based academic recognition among NEOLAiA partners by creating a Shared Identity Mechanism (T9.1).

NEOLAiA’s sustainability as a European University relies in great part on the quality of its projects and activities, as well as on the continuous assessment of its outputs and collaborations. It is key to support the alliance’s mission through time beyond EU funding by assuring that all stakeholders (internal and eternal) are kept informed and involved in all activities through inclusive means of dissemination and participation within the alliance and towards the general public.

For this purpose it will aim at:

• Developing a plan for dissemination and communication activities (PDC) (T10.1).
• Facilitating communication among NEOLAiA alliance members (researchers, faculty, students, alumni communities) and society as a whole, focusing on the alliance’s mission statement, activities and achievements (T10.2).
• Raising awareness towards society at large, businesses and regional governments on the pace of ongoing projects and collaborations through the use of inclusive communication channels (digital fora) with a particular focus on a strong digital presence and branding (T10.3).
• Ensuring the continuity of the NEOLAiA alliance beyond the European Universities funding, through a periodical and transparent financial and sustainability reporting (T10.4).