During the week 6–9 June a training programme was held on international inclusivity at the university

The Inclusive Comprehensive Internationalisation (ICI) project, led by the URV, spent the week of 6 to 9 June holding training sessions for its core teams on Catalunya Campus.

During the week, each participating university was responsible for one of the modules. They each had one day to present their part and provide information and tools to the other institutions. The purpose is to explain concepts to partner universities and receive feedback on the new methods they propose. In addition to presentations, interactive activities have also been included.

The project aims to promote equality among university students so that everyone can access, without distinction, internationalisation opportunities and improve their interculturality. This can be done by learning new techniques from other international universities to understand what inclusive internationalisation is and how changes can be made within the institution to ensure implementation.

Eva Haug (COIL specialist at AUAS) talks about the benefits of giving these training sessions: “One of them is awareness, because the participants have different roles at their universities […]. This morning we talked about the so-called hidden curriculum, which is a new concept for some. These workshops help to establish a common understanding so that we can then facilitate training and apply it”.

The Core Teams of the ICI project represent each university. They consist of an internationalisation leader, an academic coordinator, an educational developer, a member of the administrative staff, an ICT/BIP learning expert and two students.

Given this diversity of profiles, Marouane Laabbas (URV predoctoral researcher and part of the URV team) comments that, from his perspective as a student, “We are part of a team in which each of us has a particular task to do and we are all necessary. [I feel] that people listen to me and that I am part of the project”.

This project also includes the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań (Poland), the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Italy), the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and the Gregersen-Hermans Consultancy (Netherlands).