NEOLAiA Project

• Aligning and setting in motion within the alliance a set of common D&I values and principles based on European directives, by establishing a common framework (Task 3.1 NEOcharter);
• Bringing the NEOcharter to life within the alliance in a sustainable manner through continuous improvement, reflecting on the current best practices, by mapping current NEOLAiA D&I practices towards tackling barriers in different dimensions, as defined by EU policies (Task 3.2 NEObest);
• Enhancing the skills of NEOLAiA stakeholders (students, researchers, faculty, and staff) on tackling barriers to participation and inclusion, through training to empower primarily underrepresented (student) groups suffering from these barriers (Task 3.3 NEOstaff and Task 3.4 NEOmentors);
• Bringing D&I to life in on our campuses and beyond, by reaching out to our communities through a combined offer of lifelong learning content on sustainable D&I principles and practices for underrepresented groups suffering from regionally identified barriers to participation (Task 3.5 NEOlife);
• Advising all alliance stakeholders on how to sustain effective D&I practices (D&I NEOad) in the various WP activities and throughout the project lifetime by offering D&I orientation and implementation practices, training and certification (Task 3.4) as a cross-structural commitment of the alliance (Task 3.6).
• Educate users on the importance of D&I in the metaverse and on promoting a culture of respect and tolerance within the digital realm.

• Ensuring effective decision-making and well-coordinated functioning of the project’s Governing Bodies, by maintaining regular meetings and exchanges with the most senior leadership (Rectors and Vice-rectors) and operational leaders within the alliance (Work Package Leaders and specialists) (Task 1.1);
• Striving for an inclusive governance, by adopting Consultative Bodies that assure a full participation of all stakeholders with regular bottom-up initiatives, more streamlined and inclusive cross-border administrative processes (Task 1.2);
• Supporting the daily management of the project by setting up a common Project Management Framework and assuring a quarterly internal reporting on management (Task 1.3);
• Sustaining the highest quality assurance and risk management throughout the project’s lifetime, by assuring quarterly discussions at EC meetings and by developing a Quality Monitoring Plan (QMP) based on partner and third-party input (Task 1.4);
• Supporting the enhancement of institutional cooperation, by addressing and reducing existing cross-border administrative barriers and obstacles to cooperation, promoting all types of mobility within the alliance, and particularly, streamlining common provision of shared human resources. This will be accomplished by experimenting with legal entities such as the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) or other future cross-border legal personalities, under which the Key and Human Resources Hub would be founded with a view to a future full-fledged NEOLAiA integration as a fully-transnational legal-entity-based European University (Task 1.5);
• Monitoring, managing and evaluating processes and outputs throughout the project’s lifetime, by building an ecosystem of governing and consultative bodies, as well as project management and risk assessment tools (Task 1.1 to Task 1.5).

Lead: University of Jaén (Spain)

• Promoting a sense of European identity and cooperation in HEIs for a common economic and societal development strongly rooted in a regional perspective, by creating joint collaboration structures that promote institutional cooperation in teaching and learning (Task 2.1 - NEOLAiA Pedagogical Hub);
• Facilitating international mobility and student-centric teaching and learning activities, by setting-up and deploying international joint degrees (Task 2.3 - NEOLAiA joint degrees) and short programmes (Task 2.2 - NEOLAiA Focus Academy and Task 2.4 - NEOLAiA Summer Schools);
• Reaching out to society and “strengthen the European dimension in higher education and research”, as argued in the European Strategy for Higher Education by promoting the use of inclusive and barrier-free digital research dissemination content (Task 2.5 - NEOTeAch) and;
• Promoting and instilling a mind-set for lifelong learning in its regional communities aimed at future-proof and market-oriented employability, in line with the Council of the European Union (EU) 16 June 2022 recommendation on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability, by deploying flexible and stackable upskilling/reskilling education micro-credentials and certification (Task 2.6).

Lead: University of Tours (France)

• Reducing barriers to mobility by providing increasingly frictionless international experiences to all NEOLAiA students (Task 4.6, Task 4.7), teachers (Task 4.5 COIL), researchers (Task 4.8), and staff (Task 4.3), through a shared recognition of international mobility outcomes in Task 4.1 and Task 4.4;
• Ensuring that both physical and virtual mobility contribute effectively to the development of cultural awareness and intercultural skills among NEOLAiA students, teachers, researchers, and staff by providing tools to monitor, sustain and continuously improve processes, results and their positive impact. Integrating this intercultural awareness in the competency and career plans for students, researchers, teachers and staff (Task 4.2);
• Fostering inclusive, resilient and sustainable modes of mobility and networking at home, through the NEOLAiA Virtual Mobility programme offering (Task 4.5);
• Laying solid foundations to build international cooperation among NEOLAiA teams and harmonizing processes essential for a) educational and research collaboration, as well as for b) student, researcher, teacher and staff mobility (Task 4.1, Task 4.3).
• Facilitating the implementation and continuous development of innovative and inclusive mobility formats (Task 4.3), with a comprehensive NEOLAiA virtual mobility study and training offer for students, researchers, teachers, staff, as well as welcoming citizens to benefit from the international NEOLAiA lifelong learning offer and activities in virtual mobility formats (Task 4.5).

Lead: University of Ostrava (Czech Republic)

• Facilitating access to a comprehensive account of synergies across the NEOLAiA partners' research groups and centres in order to form new transnational research teams and projects, producing high-impact and meaningful research addressing societal challenges of regional relevance (Task 5.1)
• Fostering transnational research collaboration via the launch of the NEOLAiA Research Framework, outlining the principles for sharing research resources in an efficient, sustainable and quality-enhancing manner, aided by digitalization, to strengthen research quality and applicability (Task 5.1).
• Supporting research regional relevance and inclusion built on the combined strengths of NEOLAiA universities by establishing a detailed map of infrastructure and resources (e.g. technical equipment, databases, cohorts, staff, regional collaborative networks, and living/social/impact labs) that can be shared across NEOLAiA universities (Task 5.2).
• Creating expert support teams specialising in external research funding, academic career development and general research support for the benefit of regional engagement and the prevention of researcher brain-drain (Task 5.3).
• Providing enhanced quality and regional relevance of NEOLAiA research by offering targeted activities for Early Stage Researchers, leading to successful transnational networks and research projects through mobility and mentoring (Task 5.4).
• Constructing open digital platforms for co-creation of knowledge among stakeholders, resulting in, and based on, innovative regionally relevant and high-impact research linked to societal needs (NEOLAiA Living Lab Programme, and WP OpenScience) (Task 5.5).

• Mapping and fostering synergies (Task 6.1 Taskforce for Entrepreneurship - TAFE) and best practices (Task 6.2) among alliance partners, identifying the internal strengths and regional needs;
• Improving the quality of entrepreneurial competencies (among entrepreneurs and alliance partners) via best-practice sharing and a training toolkit (Task 6.3);
• Increasing the ability of partner universities to provide better entrepreneurship training by creating joint training curricula and a toolkit that will provide additional support for trainers,students and entrepreneurs from NEOLAiA regions (Task 6.3);
• Fostering connections between alumni-entrepreneurs from all countries with students at partner universities by creating a framework for cross-national entrepreneurship internships, organized as shadowing programmes with mentorship support  (Task 6.4).
• Providing increased opportunities for students to participate in mobility, testing and analyzing business ideas among partner universities, by creating international/multicultural entrepreneurship bootcamps such as the Summer Entrepreneurship Challenge (Task 6.5).

Lead: “Ștefan cel Mare” University of Suceava (Romania)

• Ensuring that the implementation of this WP will be consistent with the values for a plurilingual, intercultural European University that also addresses NEOLAiA’s region-specific barriers, by fostering the continuous improvement and sustainability of its initiatives through a best-practice approach based on regular exchange fora among partners throughout the lifetime of the alliance (Task 7.1 Symposium on language policy).
• Promoting plurilingualism and interculturalism in university programmes, by enhancing the linguistic and intercultural competence of all NEOLAiA internal stakeholders (teachers, researchers, students and staff - Task 7.2), as well as by targeted initiatives specifically for teachers (Task 7.3), researchers (Task 7.4), and students (Task 7.5), equipping them with the optimal skillset for their academic and professional future.

Lead: University of Jaén (Spain)

• Increasing researchers’ early knowledge-sharing practices with all relevant stakeholders across academia, industry, public authorities, citizens’ groups, non-governmental organisations, and society at large;
• Supporting widespread stakeholder participation in knowledge-sharing in order to increase trust in science;
• Contributing to the growth of Europe’s community of digitally-empowered citizens;
• Designing appropriate rules, internal procedures and strategies to enable the NEOLAiA alliance to understand and implement Open Science principles and practices (Task 8.1);
• Developing and sustaining a NEOLAiA Open Science Policy that will be embraced by all alliance partners and stimulated through training, dissemination, and exploitation activities (Task 8.1) ensuring that data on research results is fed into this WP so that open science is connected with concrete research activities throughout the NEOLAiA alliance, by working closely with WP5 Research Excellence and Regional Impact through joint remote annual meetings (Task 8.2);
• Engaging and stimulating all partners in co-creating Open Data on their teaching and research activities, by collaborating with citizens and citizens’ groups (Task 8.2).

Lead: University of Salerno (Italy)

• Embracing digital transformation through the effective use of new technologies aiming to reinforce Europe’s global position and leadership in digital transition;
• Empowering technology knowledge, research, and digital skills to support all universities in shaping the future of education towards a shared virtual world, by developing and adopting an analytical digital framework (Task 9.2);
• Becoming a leading European University in metaverse access across NEOLAiA campuses, in line with the European Commission’s declaration on digital rights and principles for the digital decade: “Technology should unite, not divide, people” (Task 9.3).
• Leading by example in digital education as a European University by offering courses to NEOLAiA partners on the metaverse, using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) metaverse Living Labs at each partner’s campus (Task 9.2);
• Fostering frictionless mobility through digitally-based academic recognition among NEOLAiA partners by creating a Shared Identity Mechanism (Task 9.1).

Lead: University of Nicosia (Cyprus)

• Developing a plan for dissemination and communication activities (PDC) (Task 10.1).
• Facilitating communication among NEOLAiA alliance members (researchers, faculty, students, alumni communities) and society as a whole, focusing on the alliance’s mission statement, activities and achievements (Task 10.2).
• Raising awareness towards society at large, businesses and regional governments on the pace of ongoing projects and collaborations through the use of inclusive communication channels (digital fora) with a particular focus on a strong digital presence and branding (Task 10.3).
• Ensuring the continuity of the NEOLAiA alliance beyond the European Universities funding, through a periodical and transparent financial and sustainability reporting (Task 10.4).

Lead: Šiauliai State University of Applied Sciences (Lithuania)