Context/background of the projectIn the light of the 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda's key policy issues providing guidance to Member States and HEIs on how to support modernisation efforts of HEIs in order to maximise the contribution of the higher education sector to Europe’s growth and jobs. The Modernisation Agenda states that enabling better working conditions including transparent and fair recruitment procedures, introduction of incentives for HEIs to invest in continuous professional development for their staff, and better recognition and reward of teaching and research excellence is essential to ensure that Europe produces, attracts and retains the highly competent and motivated academic staff it needs. Thus adapting internal quality assurance mechanisms at the HEIs to include evidence-based human resource management processes would contribute to the efficiency of the governance of the HEIs which will help them to fulfil their role in society and contribute to Europe's prosperity. ObjectivesObjectives of the project are aligned with the following horizontal (sectoral) priorities of the Erasmus + programme in 2016:Supporting the implementation of reforms in line with the 2011 EUStrengthening the recruitment, selection and induction of EducatorsSustainable investment, performance and efficiency in education and trainingIn the light of the mentioned policy priorities at the European level, the project has aimed to achieve four general objectives: • To improve the organizational development, efficiency and effectiveness of HEIs as well as to increase its global competitiveness. •To encourage and improve Higher Education Institution’s contribution to economic growth and social development by enhancing the quality and relevance of human capital development in higher education. • To stimulate excellence of European HEIs staff through appropriate academic human resources management. The benchmarking tool constructed as an Open Educational Resource (OER) will enable European HEIs to use it as a mean of continuous improvement of their HRM system and increase of their competitive ability. • To foster further development of EHEA by adding to existing communication channels and mutual exchange of sound practices. Number and profile of participating organisationsThe project has been carried out by five partner organization from three countries – Croatia, Austrian and Finland. The choice of academic partners from three countries was motivated by their significant role in the international and national higher education systems and in policy or strategic developments (Danube University Krems, Austria and University of Tampere, School of Management, Finland, both of which are providers of Master’s Degree Programme in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE)) and by the criterion of substantial expertise in the field of HRM as well as international project-based experience and good practice (Croatian partners - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of University of Rijeka and Algebra University College).Description of undertaken main activitiesThe main project activities have been grouped into 5 working packages (WP) as will be explained in detail in section 5.1Results and impact attainedThe project have achieved immediate impact on the project partners and participants from other HEIs as its target group in terms of enhanced awareness of the significance of the HRM function for the internal quality system of the HEIs, which is also a requirement of the Part 1 of the ESG standards. At the system level an increase of the understanding the importance of human resource management in HEIs has been observed in all three countries during multiplier events as well as following the events as a number of HEIs informed the ASHE to have institutionalized a function of vice dean for human resources. Also, the results of the project our complementary to the policy measure Program financing of public higher education institutions in 2018/2019. - 2021./2022. instituted by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education with the aim of achieving a result-based funding of teaching, scientific and artistic activities. Furthermore, creation of benchmark tool that enables all HEIs to evaluate their HRM processes has been widely disseminated among HEIs and the results collected will be a source of evidence-based position for developing policy measures at both institutional and sectoral level.

"In the recent years, regional, national and European policies have stressed out the crucial need to increase cooperation and synergy research between stakeholders in the fields of education, training, employment and entrepreneurship, in order to deliver better services in lifelong guidance. To do so, the Cités des métiers International Network (RICDM) wants to launch a new project in strategic partnerships about the development of “multi-partnership management” in Cités des métiers and other lifelong career guidance centres. Indeed, we need to go further than the traditional fields, as publics’ needs are evolving and the lifelong career guidance approach is not addressed enough. In that sense, the project would be a continuation of the European project COCADE ""DEveloping CAreer COunselling services in integrated spaces"", during which good practices within lifelong guidance services were shared. The Keep In Pact project “Keep INnovation in multi PArtnership CooperaTion in lifelong guidance services” led by RICDM will gather 6 organisations working the fields of education, vocational training and employment; covering 5 countries. The other partners of the consortium are Universcience-Cité des métiers de Paris (FR), Learningdigital (IT), Municipio do Porto-Cidade das Profissoes (PT), the Agency for Science and Higher Education (Croatia) and the LifeLong Learning Platform (BE).Main purposes of the project are to :-up-skill the ""multi-partnership management"" function among professionals working in lifelong career guidance services,-develop an innovative ecosystem approach of multi partnership management This would lead to the adaptation of services to the needs/expectations of clients and increase the use of the digital in lifelong career guidance services, while building-up new multi partnership cooperation in the field. Also, the projects aims at the gathering of different actors to provide lifelong career guidance services, the mutual added value among stakeholders, and the contribution to local and regional public policies to reach consistency of initiatives among stakeholders.The partners aim at the fulfilment of these objectives thanks to the innovative tools and contents that will be implemented, as the topic has never been addressed yet : learning materials, virtual reality, a repository of skills for the non-formal competences validation process of the partnership management function, etc…The project will be organised in particular around 4 activities of intellectual production :-A practice analysis regarding stakeholders cooperation in lifelong career guidance,-A toolkit for mutual learning and training activities -The non formal validation of skills,-The building of a European Community of practitioners.The project includes as well 2 training activities for trainers, 2 dissemination events, and 5 transnational meetings.For activities such as intellectual outputs, project committee and training sessions, the consortium’s partners have identified two target groups: -a first target composed of around 30 professionals among partners’ staff with a diversity of profiles such as partnership managers, directors, career counsellors, facilitators, teachers/trainers, project officer, communication assistant, etc.-A second target group will be gathered during the dissemination events, with participants such as policy makers, representatives of companies, clients or end-users of services and citizens. A total of 170 persons is expected: 70 in the first event and 100 in the second one.Around 50 other external participants are expected during the project, including experts working in the fields of education, training, employment and entrepreneurships policy; and staff of local partners among Cités des métiers via the RICDM and CISOK centres via AZVO.The project will have longer term benefits, in that sense that the practices and the tools will be carried out and useful after its end, as they will be transferable to other territories and countries, in order to sustain lifelong guidance services partnerships. Then, the contents and outcomes of the project will be useful for the European community of practitioners created. Finally, the attractiveness of already existing lifelong guidance structures such as Cités des métiers and one-stop shops centres such as CISOK centres in Croatia and Ohjaamo in Finland will be increased, as they will benefit from a better services quality and offer for their clients following the project. In addition, as the LLLP is involved in the Europass Revision Advisory group, the project could have an impact on this Europass revision and thus help Euroguidance improve their work."

European Quality Assurance (QA) in Higher Education has been at the core of the project. Learning outcomes (LO) have been described as a fundamental building block of the Bologna process reforms, and LO now feature in the quality assessment and accreditation procedures for HE programmes in several countries. Nonetheless, the degree of implementation and embedding of LO varies widely among and within countries.Building on evidence from a selection of HE programmes, the MEHR project has intended to investigate the formalisation and assessment of LO on human rights (HR). The aim was to enable quality assurance agencies (QAAs) to undertake a self-assessment of their performance regarding the assessment of LO on HR in their accreditation practices, and to obtain a more faithful estimation of their activities in relation to LO assessment, in a comparative European perspective. The project consortium gathered three QAAs and three HEIs from three European countries (Sweden, Portugal, Croatia) of different size, educational traditions and structures of higher education systems as well as different levels of development on LO assessment tools and procedures, and one international student organisation located in Belgium (ESU, former ESIB). This variety allowed gaining new knowledge from comparative analysis. The core of the partnership consisted of a selection of accreditation and quality assurance agencies, with the Swedish Higher Education Authority (Universitetskanslersämbetet, UKÄ) acting as project coordinator. The partnership joins different kinds of institutions and stakeholders with a common feature: all of them have former experiences in the topic – LO assessment – and have been involved in the development of theoretical research or/and implementation tools, as users or target groups. Previous projects focused on, and were targeted to, higher education institutions exclusively. In contrast, the MEHR project adds value and innovation by targeting both QAAs, and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); particularly through the insight the project has given into how these employ LO in their everyday practices.Through its focus on LO assessment on HR within specific areas of education leading to a profession (medicine, health sciences, social services, teacher education, geography and law) the project is relevant both from a broader employability perspective strengthening recognition and stimulating mobility, and from the perspective of singular HEIs who might use the project results to benchmark and further develop their educational activities on HR.From 2016 to 2019, the MEHR partnership carried out country specific surveys related to LO assessment of human rights in the above higher educational areas, resulting in three country reports. Each report was produced as a joint venture involving a quality assurance agency, a higher education institution, and the European Students’ Union. Questionnaires were sent to all higher education institutions in a country with the right to award degrees for the selected programmes. In addition, a number of programmes were self-selected as examples of good practice and focus interviews were carried out. In relation to the publication of each report, a workshop and a conference were held, where the results were disseminated and discussed with representatives of higher education institutions, students, and other stakeholders. Finally, the project results, together with a final comparative report and a selection of student vox pop videos, were presented at a dissemination conference in Brussels.The MEHR project has strengthened the skills of the participating organisations in the field of LO assessment on HR. Thus, for the research and teaching institutions, the project has contributed to an advance in the state of the art in the field of LO; for the QAAs the insights gained and made available for member agencies and others represent a significant step forward in the development of their mission. The project has also promoted the dialogue between national agencies and HEIs, enabling the exchange of best practices across cultural contexts, as well as developing suitable methods for comparing practices of LO assessment across Europe, building a better understanding of how QAAs and HEIs can improve LO assessment methodologies. The project results have also reached a wider audience through presentations at external conferences and events. Through mutual learning between different educational programmes, between HEIs, QAAs and student organisations, and between the different countries in the consortium, the MEHR project has thus had the benefit of spreading knowledge and strengthening HR across Europe.

The project aimed to increase the quality of the connection of Professional Higher Education (PHE) with the World of Work (WoW). The main objectives were to encourage Professional Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) to analyze their internal policies for cooperation between education, research and business, implement improvements and reforms to policies and practices as regards cooperation with the WoW, support the sharing of best practices for strengthening the knowledge triangle, design a set of supporting tools, such as framework policies and implementation guides, to strengthen active cooperation between HEIs and external stakeholders.The project consortium consisted of two PHEIs (PWSZTAR, (PL) and TTK (EE)), three national associations of PHE (AZVO (HR), CASPHE (CZ) and VIVIS (SI)), EURASHE as the European umbrella organization for PHE and Knowledge Innovation Centre (MT). All partners were involved in former EURASHE projects and initiatives. Besides PWSZTAR and TTK, thirteen other PHE institutions from PL, CZ, HR, SI and EE were also involved in piloting. PHE associations from PL and EE were taking part in dissemination activities.Two sets of activities were running in parallel during the project and informing each other:1: Development of self-assessment and improvement methodology for PHEIs (data-collection framework, methodology for identifying improvement strategies to policies for cooperation with the WoW) and running self-assessment and improvement processes within pilot PHEIs (self-improvement cycles, creation of self-assessment reports and improvement plans). 2: Collection of best practices, and design of tools to stimulate best practice. The framework policies were created in the form of a checklist which can be used by institutional leaders to assess their compliance with each of the criteria of the PHE Quality Framework. An online self-assessment and benchmarking tool was developed and made available at https://buildphe.eu/assessment/. The main results of the project are: Methodological framework and set of self-assessment tools, Database of best practice cases, Publication “Tools to Support Quality in Professional Higher Education“. Additionally, on the basis of project outputs, Self-Assessment Reports were produced by pilot and Implementation Plans describing proposed improvements to policies and strategies to better cooperate with the world of work were formulated. The most important immaterial output are new competences of staff acquired during a peer-learning training event and later developed in the framework of project activities: an international group of “PHE agents of change” was created. At local and regional level, the project fostered collaboration between PHEIs and enterprises, strengthening 'dual' options involving a mixture of studies and work experience such as apprenticeships, contributed towards addressing skill-shortages in key technical areas of employment and enhanced the quality of the 'professional' experiences offered by PHEIs.At national level, the project made recommendations to policy-makers as to measures to improve and enhance cooperation between academia and enterprises. At EU level, the project facilitated exchange of practice and increased cooperation between Institutions and Associations of PHE, with EURASHE WG Quality as a platform to support such cooperation.The project promoted a holistic approach to considering quality of all activities and processes within PHE institutions and from this perspective fed into a strategic priorities of EURASHE. The findings and experience from the project served also for policy discussion on the development of PHE across Europe, its quality assurance and enhancement as reflected in EURASHE contributions to EC policies or EHEA documents. From this view a synergy effect with the EQUIP project, mapping implementation of European Standards and Guidelines was quite beneficial.The most important longer-term benefit of the project is the possibility to use optimized tools and methodology in self-assessment processes by a wide range of PHEIs in Europe and beyond. HEIs from Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Latin America have already expressed their interest in adopting BuildPHE tools in their national environments and two EPP CB projects were just submitted. The fact that the master version of tools is elaborated in English brings supplementary added value to institutions in non-English speaking countries – international dimension of internal QA (possibilities of comparison and benchmarking) and thus better preparation for external QA (in many national regulations international dimension of QA is appreciated by accreditation bodies). The international experience will likely enhance readiness of PHEIs to engage in cross-border activities, should it be joint programmes or benefitting from cross-border QA, both being strongly supported by European policies as a tool of strengthening European added-value and identity.