From 16 to 18 December 2024, the Erasmus+ SuMoS project kick-off meeting, fully titled Strengthening the ecosystem for sustainable student mobility, was held, organized by the project coordinator, the University of Zagreb Faculty of Organization and Informatics. The meeting was held in a hybrid format – live at FOI and online, and was led by the project coordinator, Assoc. Prof. Katarina Pažur Aničić, Ph.D.
The Erasmus+ SuMoS project has a total value of 400,000.00 euros, is implemented with the co-financing of the European Union, as part of the KA220 Collaborative Partnerships in the Field of Higher Education call, and its duration is 3 years (01.10.2024. – 30.09.2027.). In the aforementioned category, this project proposal was awarded the highest number of points and was the only one awarded in that amount in Croatia.
The kick-off meeting of the project was attended by members of all partners coming from 5 European countries. The coordinator of the project is the University of Zagreb Faculty of Organization and Informatics, and the partners are ESIEA - Graduate Engineering School from France, the University of Maribor, the Faculty of Organizational Sciences from Kranj from Slovenia, the University of Žilina, the Faculty of Management and Informatics from Slovakia and the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences from Belgrade from Serbia.
On the first day of the meeting, bilateral meetings were held with representatives of project partner teams from Slovakia and France, on the second day a meeting was held with all partners on the project, while on the third day there were meetings of the project management body and bilateral meetings with partners from Slovenia and Serbia. In addition to partner meetings, a coordination meeting of the team working on the development of the institutional student mobility ecosystem was held. The Erasmus+ project SuMoS consists of 5 work packages, and the goal of the project is to strengthen the institutional ecosystem for strategic, structured and sustainable cooperation between higher education institutions in the field of student mobility through the development and purposeful use of green practices, digital tools and curriculum comparison approaches.
The expected results of the SuMoS project are:
- Recommendations for the further development of the institutional ecosystem of student mobility that includes green and sustainable practices, along with the development of an innovative digital solution to raise students' awareness of their ecological footprint
- Recommendations for the comparison of courses and curricula at partner institutions, and the development of a course quality label, supported by the innovative solution of the Balanced Learning Design Planning tool (https://learning-design.eu/) developed as part of other FOI projects (RAPIDE : https://rapide-project.eu/, iLED: https://iled-project.eu/, TRUELA: https://lalab.foi.hr/truela)
- Designed, tested and validated innovative platform supported by artificial intelligence to support student mobility
The project coordinator and head of the UNIZG FOI team, Assoc. prof. Katarina Pažur Aničić, Ph.D., said: “At FOI, we are well aware that student mobility is one of the aspects of student life that greatly contributes to the personal and career development of students, and consequently to positive changes in society. Therefore, with the SuMoS project, we want to further strengthen the existing cooperation between partner institutions in in the field of student mobility through the development of solutions based on green and innovative practices, including the potential of artificial intelligence, covering all elements of the student mobility ecosystem. However, the aim is for the project results to be widely applicable and accessible to other higher education institutions to strengthen their capacities for improving and increasing student mobility, in order to ultimately contribute to the achievement of goals of increasing the number of students with mobility experience at national and EU level.“
More information about the project and project activities can be found on the official SuMoS project website.
Photogallery (Flickr) is available below...