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Description
The project involves four universities and a small company: the applicant- Universitatea Politehnica Timisoara (UPT) from Romania, two Norwegian institutions, one Icelandic university and one architecture company from Norway. It considers engineering fields, either classic or trans-disciplinary, as well as architecture. The partners already started in previous EEA projects to create a new generation of experts, highly-skilled and open to trans-disciplinary connections between education, technology and society. The project refers to the creation and education of a new generation of multidisciplinary-minded highly-skilled experts who can link education, technology and society in the future. This outcome can be achieved by establishing viable cooperation configurations to offer up-to-date content for international bachelor, master and PhD programmes. On short term, the expectations envisage exchanges of good practices, while on medium and long term they aim to support curriculum innovation, to generate ideas for new common projects and jointly supervised PhD theses. The primary target group will be the students and staff members in the participant universities, the secondary target group will be the members of the academic communities in particular the colleagues of the students and staff that participated in mobilities, the tertiary target group will be the stakeholders of the business environment. To increase the impact of the partnership Moderno A.S. is interested in sending one of its staff members to work with UPT students for a week. UPT and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology will send and host students for study and training and staff members to teach or be trained.The Norwegian University College for Agriculture and Rural Development (HLB) focuses in producing knowledge for rural development and will organize a short training for Romanian staff. Reykjavik University will host students mobilities for study and send students for training to UPT.
Summary of project results
In the context of climate change issues and rural development challenges, this project was needed to modernize the education and training systems of the partner institutions and to enhance the digital skills of participants to mobilities, with a focus on environmental protection, spatial planning, and development of entrepreneurial mind-sets.
This project involved, along Politehnica University of Timisoara, five EEA universities and a company. The presence of the architectural company from Norway, a traditional partner of Politehnica University of Timisoara (UPT), was justified by the strong contribution brought towards the integration of future graduates on the international labour market. In addition, adding Molde University College on the partners’ list was necessary to reach the objective related to the creation of entrepreneurial mind-sets. At the same time, adding UiT The Arctic University of Norway on the partner’s list was necessary to increase the chances to complete the planned mobilities, given its expertise in the environmental and climate change issues. Unfortunately, in the context of COVID-19 pandemic, only three mobilities (1 incoming staff training, 1 outgoing staff training and 1 outgoing student mobility for studies ) were achieved. All the participants declared an improvement of their knowledge, teaching skills and a development of research networks following the mobility. In terms of results’ dissemination, the participants attended diffrent workshops, started a COST action initiative and a collaboration on two research papers.
Finally, on the long-term perspective, the project allows the development of bilateral relationships between UPT and partner institutions.
Summary of bilateral results
Project partners were carefully selected based on expertise in specific fields, potential for developing future projects but, at the same time, former projects completed together.The involvement of Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in the project was necessary given its expertise in: (i) experimental and numerical analysis of rapid prototyped components and structures, (ii) immersive technologies in education, (iii) entrepreneurial learning and curriculum development in additive manufacturing.The Norwegian University College for Agriculture and Rural Development (HLB) focuses in producing knowledge for rural development. HLB usually organizes short trainings for Romanian staff. The exchanges with HLB from Stavanger focused on the connection between engineering and economics and their impact in the real world, but also on the assessment of the vulnerability to climate change of historic buildings.Reykjavik University (RU) has a modern, interdisciplinary approach and provides study programmes, which mix business with engineering. Therefore, RU’s involvement in the projects was necessary given its particular expertise in: (i) implementing ICT tools for an integrated management of the territory, (ii) geothermal energy, (iii) management of water hazards and impact of climate change.Molde University College (HiM) involvement in the project was necessary to achieve the objective related to the entrepreneurial learning mind-set, given its particular expertise in entrepreneurship and business administration, and circular economy.UPT and EEA partners will continue working together inside and outside future EEA mobility projects. UPT and its partners are involved in a similar ongoing project, which had good chances to achieve the established results if the pandemics will allow resuming face-to-face activities.