<< Background >>The partnership for this project was formed because we firmly believe that by creating state-of-the-art curricula, communication skills, which are significant in all areas of our lives - from personal development to progress in business and economic growth (many research support this statement), could be enhanced and consequently, contribute to higher quality of HEI (upgrade of teaching), improved inclusion of impaired students, and to more successful students, who will be more successful professional contributing to a better and more sustainable economy. The Republic of Slovenia participates in international research that verifies the education of students according to internationally harmonized standards (research TIMSS66, PIRLS, PISA, ICCS67, ICILS68, TALIS69 and the like), and the research show that literacy and thus communication skills in Slovenia are decreasing (as in many other European countries). In Addition to that, the education sector, which is importantly dependent on communication competencies, has suffered substantial damage during the Covid-19 crisis. The same applies also to the business sector. Not only in the economic sense, but much wider, especially when it comes to communication skills and their usage in everyday life and in the business sector, where positioning, re-positioning and branding of various services and products require mastering of communication skills. The latter are significant in personal life, identity development and self-actualization and in creating careers, business success and economic growth. The main idea of this Erasmus+ project is developing communication skills curricula for students so that they will be more successful in inclusion on the job market - also in sign language since according to the research by Marschark et al. (2006) and some other researchers, the performance of deaf students is below that of their hearing peers. Thus, by developing state-of-the-art curricula by including sign language could significantly increase the performance of students with hearing impairments (the focus is on the communicative approach to learning the English language as lingua franca, which includes sign language, rhetoric skills, reading, movement and travel writing). Especially travel writing, which is an old method in literature studies, is an innovative method in business communication, branding and marketing. The 2020 spring, summer, autumn and winter experiences in online teaching have shown that many curricula need re-engineering, re-thinking with new goals, competencies, required knowledge, and methods; especially, since the main objective of higher institutions is to maintain quality and teach students to analyse, evaluate and create, which are the most important abilities according to Bloom. Thus, one of the possible ways of achieving that is to include more student-oriented methods, and give a more important role to problem, project, and active learning in curricula – also when it comes to (intercultural) communication, social, digital, language and writing skills, which are essential for (future) business professionals. Special attention will be devoted to students with hearing impairments as they have felt even greater exclusion during the online teaching than their hearing peers. Besides inclusion, another important focus of newly developed curricula for enhancing communication skills, is on students' health, healthy way of living, movement while learning and taking responsibility for one's own health. Also modern businesses demand responsible employees who enable high quality services, well-communicated products and display professional communication skills, which include not only proper language skills in the mother tongue and in foreign languages, especially in English, but also awareness of cultural place specifics, and climate. All these skills are essential for successful business practices and for identity development in EU citizens.<< Objectives >>In line with the Republic of Slovenia, Strategy 2030 and the University of Maribor Strategy 2021 -2030, our project has the following objectives:-one of the objectives of the project is developing literacy and communication skills through an innovative method of travel writing and through movement,-our next goal is to develop communication skills curricula by employing sign language for online/classroom communication skills courses at European universities,-to enhance writing skills as writing skills are the core of successful education and business, and if they are developed and enhanced successfully, this is beneficial for the overall development of the communities, especially underprivileged rural communities, for the individuals included into the developed modules and for the universities which, by developing and offering communication skills modules, connect further with the local environment, local businesses and interested stakeholders;-our goal is also to further develop reading, writing, social, digital and intercultuar skills by employing travel writing and learning through movement (walking, hiking, biking),-developing various communication skills curricula (for various groups and specific purposes),-to create a partnership, whose partners will disseminate the results of the project successfully on the local, regional, national and international levels;-to support individuals in the vertical frame (BA, MA, PhD students, teaching and research staff) of Higher Education organisations,In line with this background, the project is focused on internationalised education, growing use of digital and online learning, and supporting the creation of flexible and active learning pathways in the field of business in line with users’ needs and objectives. Referring to this, the objectives of the project are to build an open access students/teachers/administrative staff centred guidance tool for further developing various types of literacy and communication skills knowledge and supporting the acquisition of language knowledge, with a growing archive of online resources and digital assets, which will have an open-access and will be implemented in the teaching curriculum.<< Implementation >>Our project will use a result-oriented methodology to prepare and develop state-of-the-art communications skills curricula for higher education institutions and business industry. The objectives will be achieved jointly in several monitored stages/phases of the project as follows: Within the project activities the partners will jointly develop a common methodology for the preparation of guidelines focused on communication skills for various educational and business purposes. The first step will involve developing a common methodology of research; secondly, the project units will analyse curricula and develop curricula for communication skills modules; thirdly, the developed curricula will be uploaded to open-access websites. The following steps of the project will include a testing phase, where the target and control groups will be involved. All stages of the project will be monitored, evaluated, partial results will be disseminated and also the overall project results. According to the proposed project results (PR), the following activities will take place:PR1Involves all project partners and is oriented towards the preparation of a common methodology that will be used for developing curricula and innovative methodology based on travel writing and movement employing sign language. By developing methods and guidelines for inclusion of sign language, we wish to increase the possibilities for inclusion of students with hearing impairments and consequently performance of students with hearing impairments (the focus is on teaching students and staff with no impairments to acquire sign language and to become more aware of the needs of students with impairmentsthe, teaching and learning will be based on the communicative approach to learning the English language as lingua franca, the focus will be on learning rhetoric skills, reading, health, movement and travel writing). Along with that, we want students increase their intercultural communication skills as well as broaden their understanding of inclusion and social diversity. PR1 activities are:-background research-data collection-analysis of curricula and available methodologies-sign language inclusion-write partial method guide-quality control-developing a module (6 to 8 ECTS, 2 semesters, 2 contact hours a week)-employing elements of the local sign language and/or international sign -apply the new skills to break communication barriers and contribute establishing a basic workplace communication with Deaf and hard-of-hearing peo-discussion-proofreading-disseminationPR2Involves all project partners, is oriented towards the preparation of curricula for targeted groups:- preparation of a common methodology employing travel writing that will be used for the preparation of curricula for acquiring literacy and communication skills in English through travel writing and interrogating place (usage of autoethnography),-collecting materials, focusing on topics for developing communication skills-developing curricula for BA and MA modules-IT support-website creation-testing teaching-evaluating teaching-writing papers, publishing-dipreparation of texts for the monograph,-disseminationPR3Involves all project partners and is oriented towards developing and testing curricula in targeted groups:--preparation of a common methodology employing travel writing and physical activities that will be used for the preparation of curricula for acquiring literacy and communication skills in English -collecting materials, focusing on topics for developing communication skills through movement- teaching- workshops-upgrading curricula and guidelines-evaluation-creating new networks with universities and businesses/stakeholders-dissemination of resultsPR4Involves all project partners and using of existing technology and results:-usage of curricula developed in PR1, PR2, PR3-finalising monograph-dissemination<< Results >>We believe that our project will significantly contribute to the enhancement of communication skills at higher education institutions, to improved inclusion of students with hearing impairments, to promotion of sign language, to improved quality of teaching, to improved understanding among different groups of students. Besides that the developed communication skills module will be open to students from all European countries (it is necessary to emphasize that the University of Maribor has a very strong and diverse network and that the proposed curricula are not limited only to some study disciplines) and across the globe, since it is vital not only to maintain goos collaboration within the University of Maribor network, but also to create new partnerships through the project, share knowledge, become acquainted with new cultures and languages, develop creativity, create new opportunities across Europe. In line with this background, the project is focused on inclusive internationalised education and supporting the creation of flexible learning pathways in the field of business. Sustainability of the project will also be achieved through developing further national and international networks with HEI and business sector stakeholders, through the preparation of teaching sessions and workshops for targeted groups and through various publications and open access materials. With the proposed curricula, which will become part of study programmes, to Slovenia this project will bring desperately needed good foundations for further development of teaching and learning communication skills through innovative and inclusive methods that will also promote health and healthy lifestyle. Besides improvement of communication skills that will lead to enhanced literacy, personal growth, improved competencies, better employment possibilities, critical thinking and economic growth, the project will contribute to better cooperation with local communities, interested associations, HEI policy-makers and quality-assessment bodies. These positive impacts are expected also in partnership countries as well as beyond our partnership on the European and global levels. The knowledge and results from this project will be shared further not only through developed modules that will be part of study programmes but also through dissemination of results on conferences, symposiums etc. After the end of the project when the curricula will already be implemented inside the partnership, the developed curricula will also be monitored and evaluated, and thus, the curricula will be further tailored and developed according to the needs of specific groups. The curricula will be designed in such ways that their further tailoring in various directions will be possible.