OeAD: Three million euros for ten digital innovation projects
Digitisation is one of the most important topics for the future of European and international higher education cooperation. At the same time the Austrian educational institutions continue to show an unbroken interest in internationalisation. The European Commission has responded to the challenge posed by COVID-19 and made additional funds available for Erasmus+ projects dealing with "digital education". The additional call offers a wide range of opportunities to prepare education and training systems for the shift to online and distance learning. Educational institutions can also learn from each other by means of Erasmus+ projects across Europe right now and especially as regards their digitisation efforts.
"Digitisation is an essential tool to address the current challenges. The additional funds can be used specifically to invest in new creative digitisation projects," emphasises the Minister for Education and Science, Heinz Faßmann.
In Austria the call has generated great interest; 46 project applications have been submitted, 22 of which by higher education institutions. However, the EU funds earmarked for higher education (680,000 euros) would only suffice to support a small number of projects. As digitisation is a major focus in the future Erasmus programme as of 2021 the OeAD provides an additional 3 million euros to support as many eligible projects as possible:
"The OeAD will redeploy an additional 3 million euros from mobility funds to support some ten additional digital innovation projects. With this we want to continue to strongly promote the expansion and further development of digitisation at the Austrian higher education institutions as is also provided for in the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF)'s higher education mobility strategy," explains the OeAD’s managing director Jakob Calice.
The interest in the call reflects the high demand on the part of the higher education institutions: In terms of content the topics range from the development of new teaching and learning modules to interactive teaching and learning platforms, new evaluation formats and the development of manuals to ensure a rapid transition from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. All potential projects are carried out by consortia consisting of at least three international partners. Many of the applications have, besides the Commission's priority of "Innovative practices in a digital era", taken up the topic of "inclusive education". In doing so, they also focused on Erasmus+’ new programme generation’s second priority – "Inclusion". The evaluation process of the projects is currently underway. The decision is expected in mid-January 2021.
Erasmus+ Education in Austria
The OeAD as national agency is responsible for the implementation of "Erasmus+ Education" in Austria on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and the European Commission.