The URV-coordinated project has trained almost 260 staff members at 6 European universities in the skills they need to attend to an international public and to open their institutions up to the world

The President’s Award of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) is given annually to an individual or institution directly chosen by the EAIE’s president in recognition of work of particular merit and dedication to higher education. For the first time, this prize has been awarded to a project, namely the SUCTI project (Systemic University Change Towards Internationalisation), which is led by the International Center of the URV and funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.

Marina Casals, head of the International Center and project coordinator, received the award from the EAIE on 24 September during the inauguration of the EAIE’s 31st conference in Helsinki (Finland).

For the last three years, the six member universities of the SUCTI project have been training their own staff and staff from other institutions so that they can better attend to the needs of an international public and open their institutions up to the world. The project has improved the knowledge and competencies regarding the internationalization process of close to 260 members of the administrative and services staff. Moreover, the training materials can be found on the project website and have had more than a thousand downloads.

The SUCTI project will continue in the form of a new project called SUCTI-Academia, which will apply the same training model to academic staff. This time it will be coordinated by the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), and training for other institutions in the region will be provided by the Fundació URV.

In addition to the SUCTI project, in 2019 the EAIE has given awards to other individuals and institutions in a further three categories.