This Work package is addressing the challenge of finding the right balance between educating the future leaders of Europe (elitism) and the obligation to integrate European societies through education (inclusion). European Universities must be inclusive, without sacrificing excellence, and without giving up the current system of minimal control on the admissions level (bearing in mind there are admission differences among the 8 partners of EPICUR).
In other parts of the world, especially in the US, universities base their excellence on controlling the academic quality of students at entry level. The challenge for European universities is therefore to combine both this research for excellence (Nobel prizes, the best teachers and researchers) inside global competition on the one hand, and the societal request (and legal obligation), on the other, to open up universities to all students. With such a policy of openness, universities have to develop the concept of “inclusive excellence”. To tackle this issue, we will set up the tools and guidelines towards a common framework, both procedural and technical for a new educational approach based on inclusive excellence. This framework will be developed and tested on two pilot course cases.
Activities
Therefore, the main activities of the WP4 are:
To elaborate procedures towards an Inter-University Campus including procedures for student admissions as well as procedures for evaluating courses and monitor mobility
To design and develop technical platforms for an Inter-University Campus including a Virtual Campus Learning Platform (VCLP) and a Virtual University Registrar System (VURS)
To design teaching processes and create teaching modules on Sustainability Research
These activities will develop the structure for the creation of an Inter-University Campus of the future for supporting seamless and virtual mobility.
