News

On December 17th, 2020, took place the 1st On-line Conference of the ANTENA project entitled Internationalization of Research, coordinated by the University of Alicante. This activity is the beginning of a series of conferences whose objective is to present topics of interest to the partners within the framework of the project, as well as to open a space to share good practices and enriching experiences of the consortium. This initiative arises to keep learning active and temporarily replace the project's training plan until global mobility is activated and ANTENA's face-to-face workshops and activities are resumed.

This on-line conference was in the hands of Dr. Roberto Escarré, Research Management Service Director of the University of Alicante, where he shared the theory, motivations, measurement as well as institutional and individual practices in the matter.

The University the Alicante participated in the Erasmus+ INNOVA project virtual pre-Kick Off Meeting on 11th December 2020. Led by the Coordinator, the University San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca from Sucre (Bolivia), all INNOVA consortium members partaked with representatives from Bolivia, Paraguay. Ireland and Spain. This was a first-time reunion organized through an online platform and with the goal to introduce partners to the main objectives of the project.

Partners also had the opportunity to discuss next steps, preliminary strategies  and tentative schedules to implement project activities. INNOVA partners agreed to celebrate the face-to-face Kick Off Meeting in Sucre (Bolivia) from 21^st  to 26^th February 2021. It will become a crucial opportunity to devote hands-on work on project issues and get to know each better for future cooperation.

Víctor F. Climent, UA Employment Center Technician and Associated Professor of the University of Alicante -Department of Sociology, together with representatives from OGPI-UA, participated on 26^th November 2020, in the INSPIRE Online Final Conference, which was hosted online by Parahyangan Catholic University from Bandung (Indonesia). Víctor F. Climent delivered a summary presentation on the Best Practices examples from EU partners on social entrepreneurship support within the context of Higher Education, which has contributed to enrich Indonesian exposure to this topic and study adaptation to their own context.

The virtual event was attended by all INSPIRE consortium members from Austria, Poland and  Indonesia with an outstanding turnout of more 250 participants from all relevant stakeholders groups: students, higher education management, private sector and international agencies, including  Vincent Piket, EU Ambassador to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam. During the conference, partners dialogued on the concepts on social entrepreneurship and its applications to Indonesia as well as reviewing the main outputs of the INSPIRE project. The conference was adorned with inspiring audio-visual material from students involved in project activities and traditional performances from Indonesia which helped to reinforce project ownership and appropriation of the results. This final conference represent a crucial milestone for the INSPIRE project, pushing towards sustainable promotion of the interplay of business-university policy within the field of social entrepreneurship in Indonesia.

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, ACCESS continues moving forward with project actions. While the impact of Universities closures and lockdowns in Costa Rica, Cuba and Dominican Republic has been felt on projects activities, ACCESS partners renewed their commitment on tackling inclusion, accessibility and disability through project actions. In September and November 2020, ACCESS consortium organized 2 on-line coordination meetings to outline priorities for intervention and shift project activities to an exclusive virtual modality until the COVID-19 pandemic recedes globally.

Through intense exchange ACCESS partners agreed upon conducting project activities online focusing on the following areas of intervention: resume data collection for the Needs Analysis, progressing with the establishment of the Support Centers in each partner country  and intensifying online dissemination actions. The consensus reach between all members of the Consortium is been confirmed via bilateral meetings conducted to provide personalized support to partners in order to overcome the struggles that they are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic.