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Description
The increased need to ensure social, food and environmental security, places the rural communities as hotspot for designing sustainable development practices at local level. In this context, two relevant remarks conducted to the project design:- the low level of education on environmental quality in local disadvantaged communities and the need of active participation of the population in debates on the Environmental Impact Assessment reports.- the need of relevant information on the Romanian national strategy of social inclusion and poverty reduction in these communities.
The Transilvania University of Brasov (RO) jointly with the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (RO), the “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi (RO) and the Reykjavik University (IS) concluded a partnership to exchange knowledge and best practice between stakeholders and professional networks in order to offer quality education on environment protection in rural communities.
Through educational means, the project team is providing free of charge training (6 Open Educational Resources, OERs) to local administration and community leaders for a better understanding of the environmental protection in their community, 1 e-learning platform hosting the teaching modules, 1 set of policy recommendations on environmental projects implementation and on citizens involvement in maintaining the environment clean in rural communities. 4 conference papers will be submitted to specialised pier reviewed journals, as well as 2 multiplier events and 2 workshops will be organised to facilitate the transfer of basic scientific information to the local community.
The institutional cooperation project will bring positive and long-lasting benefits to the participating organisations, to the administrative systems in which such actions are framed and to the persons directly or indirectly involved in the activities, and will strengthen the bilateral cooperation between Romania and Iceland.
Summary of project results
The growing need to ensure the design of sustainable development practices at the local level, and to increase the environmental education of ordinary citizens, especially those from disadvantaged rural communities, generated the need to carry out the project: Environmental Education - OERs for Rural Citizens. The Transylvania University from Brasov jointly with its Islandic partner, the Reykjavik University, and Romanian partners, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies and “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, implemented the project to respond to these needs and to support representatives of local authorities in implementing the environmental legislation, especially that one dedicated to waste management. In this respect, the partners increased the active participation of the local citizens in public debates regarding impact studies and trained local administration representatives and citizens to better understand environmental protection at local level.
Six teaching modules (TMs) for life-long training were elaborated to develop pro-environmental values and attitudes that foster the environmental responsibility in local rural communities: TM1 - Sustainable Communities and Social Communication, TM2 - Environment Quality, TM3 - Environmental Management, Impact and Risk Assessment, TM4 - Waste Management in Rural Communities, TM4 - Water Resources and Water Balance for Sustainable Communities, TM6 - Environmental Projects Management. All modules were carried out in an open system (open education resources – OERs) and integrated in the EnvEdu-OERs Learning Platform, created within the project in order to provide free access for post-graduate students and interested citizens to the teaching modules.
Complementary to the teaching modules and the learning platform, the project also delivered a set of two policy recommendation, as two bilingual books (English and Romanian), to ensure the transfer of the scientific knowledge, from the local leaders, to other local community groups: 1. Waste Management in Rural Communities Legal Approach and Recommendations and 2. Policy Recommendations for the Conception, Planning and Implementation of Environmental Projects, as well as, for the Involvement of Citizens in Maintaining a Clean Environment in Rural Communities.
Three conference papers, with a high degree of transferability, were elaborated and presented during the 16th International Management Conference “Management and Resilience Strategies for a Post-Pandemic Future” (IMC) 2022 and published in the IMC proceeding. All publications developed and presented are a fertile environment for the transfer of good practices, which amplifies the socio-economic impact of the completed project.
Two multiplier activities were organised during the project to offer training and disseminate knowledge on basic guidelines in sustainable practices in waste management for rural communities and to work on site with the local rural representatives from Prejmer (Romania) and Brasov County (Romania).
The transfer of experience in transition to sustainable practices in local communities and the lessons learned by policymakers in developing regional and local strategies from the Islandic partner took place during the first workshop in Iceland. The second workshop, in Romania, addressed the trainers (members of the project teams) and the category of the student trainees, representatives of rural communities, of the National Agency for Environmental Protection, and of the academic community in order to present them how the use the EnvEdu-OERs Learning Platform.
The project addresses the following target groups:
1. citizens from rural communities, local administration representatives, with medium/ high education degree, acting as formal and informal local leaders (direct target group);
2. other interested stakeholders: staff and students from different universities, professionals from other domains, young entrepreneurs intending to develop new businesses especially those with significant environmental impact (Indirect target groups).
The target groups were active in the project learning platform, and took part in the local workshops (more than 40 local and regional participants from Romania) and multiplier events (240 national and international participants).
Within the project, the partner universities were involved and shared experiences in designing lifelong learning strategies in the field of environment education, in testing specialised OERs and elaborating training sessions for the direct and indirect target groups, in rising awareness among specialists by publishing scientific articles in the field and in transferring the experience gained in this project to other fields and areas of study. They also amplified their internationalization potential, improved their teaching methods and innovative approaches to the learning process through dedicated platforms.
By participating in the project activities, mayors, teachers and other authorities from the Brasov County are able to adopt better local development decisions, without significantly affecting their environment.
Summary of bilateral results
The donor project partner is from one prestigious university, from Iceland, Reykjavik University (RU), while the beneficiary partners are from three universities from Romania. The population from the two countries have different living conditions due to the geographical and historical differences. Moreover, they belong to two different socio-economic systems, with different cultures and education. The Icelandic project group contributed to strengthen the bilateral collaboration, by contributing to the intellectual outputs development, incorporating Icelandic teaching experince and expertise into Romanian education for rural citizens. The open education resources (videos, text-based documents and evaluation tests) developed by the donor partner team will be available to the rural community in Romania, providing new insights into sustainable development. Their contribution was completed with presenting or providing materials for case studies, where the innovative concept of nature-based solution was introduced for a better understanding of sustainable development in Romania.The Icelandic partner contributed to the development of the teaching modules and the elaboration of the four conference papers, participated to the team meeting and to the workshops. During the events, the RU team contributed with presentations.During the two face-to-face team meetings organised at RU and the project promoter, participants shared experience and had the opportunity to learn how Icelandic and Romanian geography and history influence their culture, education, and everyday life.Based on the experience and the collaboration during the EnvEdu-OERs project implementation, the partners teams came to the conclusion that it would be good to have a continuation of the collaboration.