Higher education student and staff mobility project (2017)

Unipi Team Leader: Francesco Marcelloni, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation and Relations

Pursuing its internationalisation policy, the University of Pisa has been particularly committed to disseminating and promoting the various opportunities related to Erasmus mobility, not only with its students but also at territorial level.
In particular, within the framework of the Internet Festival 2017, organized by the Municipality of Pisa in collaboration with the University of Pisa, a meeting open to citizenship on the theme "Pisa and Erasmus: 30 Years of history together", was organized with the participation by Prof. Sofia Corradi, known as "Erasmus Mom", because she is one of the founders of the program itself.
The University of Pisa, thanks to the synergy with all the local authorities, has also hosted the fifth edition of the National Erasmus Games in its University Sports Centre (CUS), becoming for three days the capital of international sport.
Finally, the photographic contest "My Erasmus 2018 " was organized for Erasmus students both outgoing and incoming, to tell their Erasmus experience, sharing the sensations, places and people that most have characterized it. The best photos were exhibited in a photographic exhibition inaugurated with the awarding of the winners of the competition, event inserted among the official European events for the celebration of the Erasmusdays 2018.
As regards the number of participants, 808 student mobilities (both for study and traineeship) were carried out, with 11% increase as compared to the total mobility of the previous year, mainly due to an increase in the mobility for study
The University of Pisa encourages Erasmus + mobility by adhering, as usual, to the Mobility Consortium project for traineeship known as Consorzio "ILO: Increasing Learning Opportunities in the job market", coordinated by the University of Padua, to which the Universities Iuav and Ca ' Foscari of Venice and the Universities of Catania and Trieste are also participating.
This year, an agreement was also signed for a further partnership for traineeship as part of the Project "Universities for EU Projects ' Culture" coordinated by the SEND organization and consisting of 15 Italian Universities, the Ffoundation Garagerasmus and the ARCA consortium.
In order to promote mobility and allow more and more students to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Erasmus+ Programme, the University has been funding for several years now to integrate the Erasmus community contribution.
In addition, the ErasmusManager Portal for the management of Erasmus mobility, which communicates with the management Program of Student careers (ESSE3), has been further implemented to simplify the administrative procedures related to Erasmus, carried out both by incoming and outgoing students and by the area Coordinators for internationalization (CAI).
Moreover, the University offers a service dedicated to students with special needs to encourage their mobility by providing personalized support according to specific needs, thanks to the collaboration between the Central Erasmus office and the Services Office for Integration of students with disabilities (USID).
The main goals of our university are to increase the mobility of teaching and non-teaching staff, whose training is particularly important to provide the appropriate administrative support for internationalization.
Our University organizes every year a Staff Training Week. The last one carried out on june 2018, was focused on “How to be international: benefits and challenges” attended by 16 colleagues from different european countries. This experience was really useful to enhance comparability and develop good practises and best governance in the internationalization sector.
The University has implemented its policy to integrate refugees. In this framework, throughout the academic year 2017/18, has continued to use the OLS for Refugees tool, applying for 7 licenses, which were assigned to students singled out through collaboration with local actors involved in their hospitality. Furthermore, the University applied for 13 OLS licenses available for operators directly in contact with refugees, to accompany, support and guide them through the OLS platform. The operators have been identified both within the university institution and the other organizations in direct contact with refugees.
The collaboration between the University and the local reception system associations has enhanced and strengthened. Specific meetings were organized with refugees and volunteers to disseminate the language learning opportunity offered by the Universit through the OLS, and to overcome the logistical / technical difficulties associated with the actual use of licenses. Some of such difficulties have been overcome, thanks to the fruitful collaboration with the University Language Center (CLI), which made available its staff and laboratories.

Coordinator:  UNIVERSITÀ DI PISA  (Italy) 

Start date: 01-06-2017

End date: 30-09-2018

EU Grant: 1.484.743 €

Project website: https://unipi.erasmusmanager.it/studenti/