Successful previous LA and EU HE cooperation revealed differences between HESystems, academic recognition principles and practices. A long path is still ahead in terms of streamlined mobility recognition with fair credit transfer and grade conversion. Most LA countries have no credit system nationally applying to HEIs and the majority has regulations to frame mobility abroad, but handles recognition on individual basis and equivalence without grading is very common, negatively impacting students. RecMat joins partners from AR, BR and EU with the core aim of contributing to promote mobility between EU and LA, by reducing barriers related to academic recognition and building LA HEIs capacity to implement a fairer recognition process. Partners will work at two levels, linking the policy and practical dimensions behind academic recognition. Unlike previous initiatives, RecMat targets not only International Officers, but teachers who are the main decision makers in LA HEIs in what recognition is concerned, who are distant from Bologna rationale and usually show high resistance to recognition. This will be achieved by involving teachers in blended-training and in piloting concrete case studies, to evidence practical successful processes. Through a peer-to-peer approach, RecMat will raise teachers’ awareness about the importance of ensuring full recognition and stimulating fair grade conversion. RecMat activities will capacitate HEIs to formally frame recognition and build a linkage with IT teams by providing training to IT staff and enabling LA HEIs to outline concrete technical solutions to ease recognition. Through the organisation of public (inter-)national events and policy forums, RecMat will bring the topic to wide discussion, encouraging a high number of HEIs to adopt similar processes and sharing with them the project's innovative outcomes (MOOC, Digital Compendium and Conclusions Paper) towards the improvement and transparency of academic recognition processes.

Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC) represent a progression of how cities apply digital technology to serve their populations, pursue sustainable socio-economic development, and transform themselves. The urban development that leads SSC requires a growing number of competencies to work together in order to plan, design, implement and manage the ongoing transformations of the city, enabled by technological innovation. Considering the great attention the concept of SSC has reached in Latin America, our project aims at integrating it into various university courses using new teaching and learning tools, as well as developing new curricula in all levels of education process. Given the increasing number of competencies needed and its interdisciplinary characteristic, the curricula for SSC will be implemented in areas such as ICT, Business Administration, Computer Science, Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism, Urban Planning, Political Science, among others, using a collaborative and international network of selected academic institutions in Latin America and Europe. The main outputs of the project include the development, evaluation and implementation of new courses and programmes on SSC to reach students, policy makers, public managers and other members of the city administration, professionals, managers and entrepreneurs, as well as university faculty that will be trained to apply the developed ICT-based tools to their classes. Besides academic curricula and specialization programmes, the project will provide an e-learning platform filled with a Massive Online Open Course on SSC. The main impacts of the project are to improve the quality of learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches in the Latin America region, increase the employability and competitiveness of the students, and for the faculty members to increase the quality of their classes by using new learning and teaching tools and new content, as well as promoting life-long learning.

The main objective of the PONCHO project is to encourage the process of internationalization of Latin American Universities partners in the project, with special focus on the Universities of peripheral areas of the region, whose geographical position or the volume of students have been unable to develop their internationalization in the same way as capital universities or major universities in the region. The PONCHO consortium is then composed mainly with universities having no experience in project of capacity building (former Alfa) and only 4 Latin American institutions have experience: Asuncion, Goias, San Simon and Nacional del Sur. Hence the exchange of good practices from the more experienced partners to the not so experienced partners is highly valued in order to increase, not only EU-Third country cooperation, but also Third country-Third country cooperation.To develop its objectives, PONCHO will work at three levels: at technical level: through the training of the IROs staff; at academic and students level: through the organization of Info days and Students Camp where academics and students will receive training and awareness session to approach them to internationalization, intercultural and integration using non-formal training tools; and finally at institutional level: through an online platform and the organisation of International Fair where the institution will be able to develop on one side their support process for a good internationalization and on the other side, through international marketing and network, to increase their international presence. The focus of active participation and collaborative decision making of the project will be implemented in the preparation, management, dissemination and optimization and quality control and through the PONCHO platform the consortium will not only be able to work together but also to develop new collaborations with other universities of the region.

In Latin America, especially in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico the automotive industry represents between 9-17% of the manufacturing GDP focusing on manufacturing and being employment industry number one. All countries are manufacturing countries – very little development is conducted as the qualified human capacities are missing. Therefore, big OEMs identify ARG, BRA and MEX as little attractive for development as skills are lacking.ASCENT will close the current lack of skilled labour on automotive engineering (AE) to increase the positive impact of the automotive industry on regional development through the execution of expert trainings for academic staff, students and companies interested in AE and sales management to be also able to sell developments. Further, the installation of testing bays will lead to increased knowledge on AE, higher standards in teaching and will also create higher employability of graduates and more university-business cooperation through the operation of the 6 competence centres on AE in ARG, BRA and MEX attached to the testing bays.Through the expert trainings the target groups are going to receive upgraded knowledge on AE and sales to reach the following aims:• to spread the knowledge of AE during the counselling sessions of the competence centres • to increase the number of projects on AE with companies and • To increase the employability of students due to upgraded knowledge on AE and sales To expand generated knowledge a network for AE and sales will be established. It´s promoted through cross-border conferences and it´s important to add value to the automotive industry in Latin America.Through the cooperation with companies, associations and governmental bodies, the university-business cooperation will be improved. This leads to three advantages: • increased employability of students in the automotive sector• increased teaching standards• strengthen cooperation uni-business

Young universities share particular challenges when it comes to research capacities: poor resource bases compared to that of traditional universities, they operate outside important research networks and national policy and funding mechanisms are usually unfavourable and tend to reinforce institutional imbalance. However, young institutions usually play an important role in their own local contexts and have the advantage of more dynamic and flexible structures, which favours the relationship with external actors, particularly those located in the same region.I2LATAM will focus on the development of R&I capacities in young Latin American HEIs, through the generation of knowledge-sharing spaces to stimulate the relationship with key regional socio-economic actors. The quality, size of the consortium and the participation of four of the largest countries in Latin America (Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Argentina) give this project a unique reach and impact portential.The project will result in the development of tools and methodologies to systematically map and match institutional capacities with regional opportunities, as well as in the creation/reinforcing of knowledge-sharing spaces, using succesful European models as example. Additionally, I2LATAM will develop R+D+I capacities in young researchers and R&I managers by launching an open access training package focused on key skills to promote regional and international collaboration. The ultimate goal of I2LATAM is to strengthen capacities for strategic management of research and innovation in Latin American young Universities by taking advantage of the potential local/regional impact, while fostering collaboration between Latin American and European HEIs for the development of innovative research initiatives and projects. In the long term, it is expected that the exchange of knowledge, experience and good management practices will contribute to the region's insertion in the global dynamics of research and innovation.