Are you part of the EELISA Communities ecosystem and have ideas that would promote and sustain innovative learning practices, boost the recognition of challenge-based learning experiences, or increase transnational mobility and cross-sectional exchange? Then, this is your chance to turn your ideas into reality!
This second call brings the first EELISA Joint call to the next level by covering two main topics: challenge-based learning activities and multiskilling learning and teaching activities to foster interdisciplinarity.
In the following interview, members of the committee in charge of its development share with us a summary of the framework and content of the call.
Q. What are the major objectives of this second EELISA Joint Call?
A. (Ignacio González, Coordinator of EELISA Work Package 1) The major objective of this joint call is to achieve sustainable and systemic collaboration between the people from the EELISA institutions. We make some resources available for the EELISA community to help bottom-up initiatives flourish. Each grant given by the EELISA Alliance should be understood as seed capital for limitless collaboration. So, we will work together on new steps to generate new opportunities for our university setting.
Q. What is new in this call compared to the first one?
A. (Ignacio González, Coordinator of EELISA Work Package 1) This new call builds on the first one. However, in a formal way, we have learned from our previous experience so we have tried to simplify the process and make it more accessible. Regarding the scope, we have kept two important aspects in mind: 1) we want to make further progress in the establishment of EELISA Communities as our shared ecosystem and the EELISA Credentials as our flagship recognition tool of challenge-based learning; 2) we aim to boost collaboration on both international and multidisciplinary levels
Q. Regarding the challenge-based section of the call, what type of activities are you looking for?
A. (Eike Trost, EELISA Project Manager at FAU) We are looking for learning and teaching activities that create a sense of urgency, that spur the need for action to collaborate on the SDGs – activities that foster team spirit or independent, self-efficient working styles in which students can apply their academic learnings to real-world problems. Overall, these learning and teaching activities can be embedded in different formats, e.g. in a seminar, summer school, or in a blended intensive program (BIP) for example. We would be happy if activities involve external stakeholders from our EELISA partner institutions’ ecosystems, or the partner universities themselves, as challenge owners. A good challenge should be an exciting task that is manageable and defined in time, but at the same time broad enough to discover opportunities for new, innovative, and improved solutions. Once worked on or even solved, challenges should be awarded by EELISA Credentials, and if adequate maybe also other awarding options.
Q. What do you envision for the multiskilling pilot proposals in terms of content and targets?
A. (Rossella Rasso, EELISA Project Manager at SSSA) We wish for a mass effect to motivate the EELISA network towards the design of multiskilling pilots suitable for the hybridisation of engineering education with non-engineering skills and competencies. And vice versa, for the hybridisation of professions that increasingly require the absorption of some knowledge from engineering. We encourage a blended bottom-up/top-down approach where the target audience of the pilot (students, Ph.D. students, etc.), namely the mature beneficiaries of the didactic pathway, actively participate in the educational and didactic plan of the pilot.
Do you want to learn more about the call? Join the Info session!
On 14 April 2023 from 10:00 to 11:00 CEST (GMT/UTC+2), members of EELISA organised an information session on the two Topics of the 2nd EELISA Joint Call. In addition, the session included an important update on the new general data management and reporting system for EELISA activities as well as the latest on the EELISA Credential. Click here to watch the video.
To participate, please register via this link.