UNAVEX

 

Una Europe for Virtual Exchange (UnaVEx) in Higher Education
UnaVEx for Sustainability is co-designing and implementing international, interdisciplinary and intercultural online bridge between European and African students for sustainability education.

UnaVEx is a 3-year ERASMUS+ project (2024—2027) funded by European Union where high education institutions from Europe and Sub-Sahara Africa from Una Europa¬—African partnership, co-design and implement transversal and intercultural virtual exchange, on line workshops, for every student interested in global sustainability education, without physical mobility.

General objective

  • UnaVEx main objective is to offer accessible, affordable and sustainable international on-line exchange opportunities to all students interested in Global Sustainability education. UnaVEx aims to increase environmental awareness, knowledge of the green transition and skilled in sustainability transformation of young generations and societies both in Europe and Africa. UnaVEx builds on the UnaEuropa on-line MOOC and virtual exchange workshops.

UnaVEx Ambition

  • To educate, during a three year project, 2500 ‘Global Sustainability Advocate’ with European and African leading scholar´s keynotes and critical thinking activities on economic, socio-cultural, technological, political, legal and scientific contexts of sustainability.
  • To educate 10-15 early-career researcher as moderators to host the virtual exchange periods, to keep active and fair discussion forums for all participants.
  • To create an active UnaVEx alumni online community with Global Sustainability Advocates for continuity discussions and networking on sustainability transformations beyond UnaVEx project lifetime.

UnaVex Main activities

  • UnaVEx project is build on UnaEuropa collaboration & on-line courses (MOOCs)
  • UnaEuropa established as a non-profit association under Belgian law (vzw) in Krakow on 1 Feb 2019; is an alliance of 11 European
  • a leading European University Alliance that brings together leading research-intensive universities from all corners of Europe

Specific objectives

  • Equipping students with high-quality sustainability education
  • Design of virtual exchange framework for sustainability education
  • Training international facilitators for sustainability education in a European and African context
  • Educating the future generation of students and young academics about sustainability
  • Scaling virtual exchange concept and lessons learnt to various partnerships across the world

UnaVEx project Implementation and Networking

UnaVEx project is based on Una Europa Micro-credential in Sustainability five MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) courses, which cover environmental, economic, and social aspects of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). UnaEuropa is a leading European University Alliance that brings together leading research-intensive universities from all corners of Europe

Under knowledge received through Una Europa Micro-credential in Sustainability courses, and using state-of-the-art and pedagogical tools, students will participate in Virtual Exchange (VE) workshops co-design by UnaVEx HEIs partners. VE plenary sections will be from keynotes speeches by leading European and African scholars in the field, and students will be able to actively participate in discussions on Global Sustainability topics, moderated by expertise. Following VE students will dive in one or several sustainability topics, choosing from ecological, social to economic perspectives, by Climate University .

Upon completion of all steps participants will received a ‘Global Sustainability Advocate’ certificate, equipped with sustainability topic expertise, and critically analyse and soft skills developed during UnVEx period.

The project will be implemented on a 50/50 gender and geographical balance of both students and moderators. For that 50% of university students will come from the European countries and the other 50% from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Working packages

  • WP1: Project Management and Quality Assurance led by UH
  • WP2: Design of virtual exchange framework for sustainability education co-led by KUL, UNIBO and UNIKIN
  • WP3: Training international facilitators for sustainability education co-led by KUL and UH
  • WP4: Sustainability education for the next generation via virtual exchanges co-led by UJ and UoN
  • WP5: Communication, Dissemination and Sustainability co-led by UoN and UNIBO

Major Outcome

is nurturing the generation of young Climate Messengers competent in building climate awareness and sustainability strategies in their home organisations and future work life. The project has a high momentum in the post COVID19 situation, where we do not know how soon face-to-face communication will be normalised and sustainability of travelling is questioned in a world aiming at carbon neutrality. Thus, the VE cooperation complements the ongoing physical mobility opportunities in the field of climate change research and the ensemble of political decisions and issues, where Neighbourhood East has an especially important role in a global scale and new Climate Messengers could be much needed expertise in labour markets.

At the end of VE on-line workshops, students will received a “Global Sustainability Advocate” certificate and they will be encourage to continue discussions in UnaEuropa alumni community beyond UnaVEx lifetime.

 


 

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