| Project site | hecsos.eu |
| Programme | Erasmus+ | KA2 |
| Lead Contractor | University of Torino |
| Partners | SYNTHESIS Center for Research and Education |
| S-nodi | |
| University of Thessaly | |
| Caritas Community Work | |
| Mind2Innovate | |
| University Politehnica of Bucharest Universidad Carlos III de Madrid |
| Project Duration | 01/01/2022 to 31/12/2024 |
HECSOs - Higher Education institutions and Civil Society Organisations together for community engagement
The project aims at improving Universities’ capacities to cooperate with CSOs systematically and continuously on community engagement as an innovative and impactful way for socio-economic inclusion of people in need. The project will establish a trans-disciplinary and collaborative research group and develop international and research-based learning approaches to develop and disseminate innovative and evidence-based models of intervention and related implementing tools.
Project’s objectives:
SO1: To develop innovative and evidence-based models (and related implementing tools) for impactful community engagement interventions by setting up a trans-disciplinary and continuous collaboration between Universities and CSOs, analysing existing innovative practices on the ground all over Europe and adopting collaborative and research-based learning methodologies.
SO2: To widen the academic offer of Universities by identifying specific professional roles that make community engagement approaches more effective and impactful, by generating skills and competency frameworks related to these professional roles, by developing corresponding training courses curricula and implementing a first experimental course addressed to master’s students.
SO3: Fostering civic engagement through jointly-organised (Universities and CSOs)multi-stakeholder policy workshops at local levels to brainstorm with local stakeholders and citizens on how to design more effective and inclusive initiatives in their territories and to develop local policy recommendations to enable and support community engagement approaches at local, national and European levels.
Erasmus + Priorities in HECSOs
The project has the priority and purpose of working on common values in order to increase community participation and citizen engagement through reaching synergies between the academic world and the third sector. The values of sharing and European solidarity will be at the centre of the project through the activities already mentioned.
Stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices is one of the specific priorities to which this project responds, which will allow students and researchers to integrate sustainable development in their university and extra-university CVs.
Doing research and modelling promising practices of community engagement will reinforce the interaction between research, projects and local policies in order to develop and institutionalize new methodologies and practices in teaching and learning.