The project aims at finding a mechanism and a structure for co-creating educational programs/courses where the different stakeholders take part in the co-creation process. The stakeholders define the courses objectives together with the academics and the wider society. Academics work together to setup the contents of the courses.
As a case study to test the mechanism, the team of the Inspiring the Minds will develop cross-disciplinary course that includes two end-members of knowledge:
- Inclusion and diversity in society
- Green skills that required to take climate actions
Why these two topics?
Inclusion, diversity & climate action represent a high priority for a sustainable, resilient & just Europe. These topics are interconnected in a complex way. Consequently, addressing these topics is a challenge that requires building competencies across the academic sector and society at large.
One of the major objectives of the European Green Deal is to leave NO one behind – inclusion and diversity, therefore, play an important role here.
The “Inspiring the Minds” will address the lack of these competencies by building a new framework for curricula co-creation with input from the business & nonprofit sectors. All stakeholders will play an essential role to define the curricula´s objectives based on society’s needs. An interdisciplinary course will be developed on climate action, diversity & inclusion to test the framework. Stakeholders will acquire missing competencies & strengthen collaborations through the co-creation process.
Who are we?
We are five institutes representing different stakeholders from five European countries who shared the vision to build such missing competencies in the academic sector through the “Inspiring the Minds” consortium.
The consortium is led by UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Alicante University, Istanbul Kültür University, G-Force (a business partner) and SolCo (NGO).
Impact on society
All partners & stakeholders involved in “Inspiring the Minds” will benefit at both the national & European levels. Gaining competencies related to inclusion, diversity & climate action will help students to overcome skills mismatch and meet employment needs. Academic, business & nonprofit sectors benefit from knowledge exchange among them. The use and transfer of the newly developed framework will impact the academic sector in Europe. Over time, this will have an impact on European society.
The co-creation platform will be available as open access platform, allowing other institutes to use the developed method to create other course.
CloudEARTHi Initiative
The Inspiring the Minds project is a project under an umbrella initiative called CloudEARTHi, led by UiT the Arctic University of Norway. The initiative aims at transforming our society to be more sustainable, greener, resilient and inclusive by building innovation capacity using big data, AI and Deep Technology. This will enable understanding and analyzing the different social challenges. The initiative aims to unlock the potential of higher education institutes as engines of change.
CloudEARTHi initiative is the extension of the “CloudEARTHi” project which is funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EIT HEI Initiative and co-funded by the European Union.
CloudEARTHi initiative includes so far 20 partners representing the different stakeholders (e.g., HEI, business, NGO and governmental institutes). These partners come from 13 European countries. The initiative includes 4 EU projects which are: Inspiring the Minds, SEEDplus, BOOSTalent and CloudEARTHi project.
Acknowledgment
The Inspiring the Minds acknowledges the support (administrative and financial support) that the project got from the “Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills” – Direktoratet for høgare utdanning og kompetanse.
The project is funded by the Erasmus+ – KA2 Samarbeidspartnerskap (Key Action 2: Cooperation among organisations and institutions). Project number: 2022-1-NO01-KA220-HED-000087789