Description
The EEA Grants project is of very high importance for the Romanian-American University (RAU) and its internationalization process, because it can bring international recognition from international competitiveness and offer a good quality "certificate". The project objectives focus on enforcing the international experience for students, strengthening the international dimension of study programs, increasing the number of international students and staff, enhancing staff skills for international activities, and enhancing the dimension of research. The project outcomes are as following : (1) Expanding the partnerships with entities from EEA and increasing the number of students and staff exchanges; (2) Participating in IP or double-degree programmes and developing new study curricula; (3) Creation of a Centre for Scandinavian/Nordic Studies at RAU; (4) Promoting tourist destinations within the partner countries; (5) Development of entrepreneurial skills for the beneficiaries in a globalised world. The project seeks to address challenges using a range of methods such as networking tools, drawing a set of criteria to choose the proper academic partners as well as preparing a procedure to approach them, and developing a set of standards for launching new partnerships with external stakeholders, with a focus on businesses. The target groups will be students and staff, universities and businesses, and the local community. The role of the donor project partners is to cooperate and support the beneficiaries and the activities agreed on, as good as possible. The partnership is structured so as to achieve a good image on national and international level, especially on the market for educational services.
Summary of project results
The Romanian-American University started the cooperation with universities form Iceland and Norway in 2008, based on the first opportunities to access EEA grants in order to sustain the mobility project. EEA Grants projects are considered of very high importance for the RAU internationalization. Students experienced the northern study environment and came back with very good feedback. The cooperation with partner universities has been consolidated. It is important to mention that our objective was multi-faceted: partnerships’ diversity; our students’ international experience strengthening; the RAU study programs’ international dimension consolidation; positive feedback from other universities; improving the image and status of our university across the network of higher education institutions from Europe; We succeeded in attaining most of these aspects and the outcome was the delivery of a favourable image on the EEA Grants programme and greater satisfaction for beneficiaries. There were 4 exchanges organized that contributed to reach the project’s objective through: expand the EEA bodies’ partnerships and increase the students mobilities; Improvement of students and staff’ skills for acting in the international environment; further development of our curricula; foster the entrepreneurial skills of the beneficiaries; share best practices; get in touch with the local community. We can also mention the participation and involvement in different events, conferences and seminars.The most important achievements are of course at the level of main beneficiaries, in this case the student that benefited from an experience in Iceland or Norway. The 4 exchanges were all in the field of Economics, with an even split between Bachelor and Master level. The beneficiaries were able to further refine their skills in the business area, to assure personal and cultural development, to improve language and general social skills and to get a wider perspectives on developing their career.
Summary of bilateral results
Under the project, the main achievements at the bilateral level are considered to be: students had the opportunity to participate in interactive courses from which they gained new information and had access to different teaching styles; exchange of relevant information and expertise; getting familiarized with new developments in international education; opportunities for new projects were discussed and analysed; getting in touch with the local community of business; skills of the beneficiaries. In this context, the most tangible achievements of donor partner were: attracting top students to enrich the study environment; getting financial support for incoming mobility; benefiting of logistic support for mobilities; assuring a multicultural environment within the university. The project assured the continuity of the bilateral relationship and definitely contributed to strengthen the partnership, mainly at the project level. It also opened new opportunities for other projects to be explored at the program level. Strengthened bilateral relations in our partnership will lead to the optimisation of the curricula, its harmonisation to current needs as well as possible cooperation in the area of study programs. More efficient communication will positively contribute to a more effective management of the EEA Grants. The cooperation at the partnership level has been pretty effective, with each partner fulfilling its role. The partners were fully cooperative and supportive of the beneficiaries and the activities agreed upon, under good circumstances, while following the principles and conditions as presented in the EEA Grants guidelines. All the efforts were made to maximize the results. As Nordic countries are performing very well related to innovation, students benefited from this perspective and disseminated their experience through the community.