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EUCLIDES INTERNATIONAL WEEKS: A FORMAT FOR SHORT BLENDED MOBILITY
The Euclides network is one of the EU partner networks the Faculty of Engineering Technology has been active in. Since 2021, the International Weeks have opened new chances for international experiences for students and staff. In this way, they contribute to the main aim of the faculty’s international policy: offering an international experience to every graduate.
Fast forward to 2020, in the middle of one of the pandemic lockdown periods, some members of the EUCLIDES network were brainstorming on a way to offer an interesting international learning experience for students who were unable to participate in regular student exchanges. This resulted in a first format of an online short “intensive programme” in March 2021: during the same week four online courses on topics such as digital transition, biotechnology or energy efficiency were offered by a team of international staff of different Euclides partners. Students were working together in international teams to solve cases put forward to them. The enthusiasm of both staff (meeting peers from other universities to exchange expertise) and students (working together in international teams on problem solving cases) inspired the EUCLIDES network partners to continue on this path. The EUCLIDES international weeks were born.
Sustopia
The breakthrough for the new format came in 2022 when EU funding (via the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme projects) gave a boost to activities. Blended mobility with an online preparation phase and a short physical mobility, working in international student teams, challenge based learning all came together in one innovative format for post-covid internationalization. In 2022, the Ghent Campus hosted a very successful programme ‘Sustopia – Sustainable energy in an IoT world’ with prof. Liesbet Vander Perre and prof. Simon Ravyts as organisers. More than 50 students from 8 Euclides partner universities travelled to Ghent to join the first real-life edition of the EUCLIDES international weeks. In other Euclides partner universities, the enthusiasm was equally high with a total of almost 300 students participating in the event.
Energy
Prof. Peter Arras from De Nayer Campus hosted the next editions of the EUCLIDES international weeks in 2023 and 2024. In both editions, students and staff from seven participating universities were offered key-note presentations, guest lectures, field visits, student challenges, focused on the theme of sustainable energy transition. Energy awareness, energy efficient mobility were the topics that were explored in the two editions.
Says Peter Arras, looking back on two successful editions: “The format of a student challenge in multidisciplinary teams gives extra flavour to the intensive course. Working on a case in international student teams, with a physical prototype as a deliverable is a motivator for teamwork and intercultural collaboration.”
Record
Campus Diepenbeek sent a record of 62 participating students in March 2024 to seven different BIP programmes, with topics such as digital manufacturing, transitions in the automotive sector, circularity of polymers, technologies for biological systems, embedded systems etc.
Not only students, but also staff from Diepenbeek engaged actively in the Euclides international weeks, with prof. Anton Ginzburg teaching at Wroclaw University of Technology in the theme of ‘Circularity of polymers’. Prof. Kristel Sniegowski was one of the co-organisers and keynote speaker in the intensive programme ‘Technologies applied to biological systems’ at the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena.
Prof. Johan Baeten, Campus Chair, looks back at the large-scale mobility of his students in the 2024 edition. “The feedback of the students was unanimously positive, both from a social and intercultural point of view as for the academic aspects. The numerous elective courses in the curriculum promoting ‘lifelong learning’ offer them the ideal mobility window to get easy recognition for their participation in the EUCLIDES international weeks.”
Hilde Lauwereys
