Last week, our IDEA Center hosted the bi-annual transnational partner meeting of the European Union funded project IDEA-net, where Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam is the coordinator.
The IDEA-net project stands for Expanding the network of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) practitioners in higher education through institutional capacity building. The consortium is composed by Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, University College Dublin (Ireland), University of Belgrade (Serbia), University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), University of Zadar (Croatia), ECHO, Expertisecentrum Diversiteitsbeleid (The Netherlands) and KIC - Knowledge Innovation Centre (Malta).
The project aims to address the gap in the institutional culture of European universities, where diversity and inclusion have not been fully embraced and integrated within daily operations, standard practices, processes and initiatives. This is mostly addressed to universities’ leadership and support staff, as well as stakeholders such as other educational institutions, national and regional authorities, and research centers.
For that reason, the project is producing:
1) A database of good practices of IDEA offices and approaches;
2) Guidelines on how to set up IDEA offices and infrastructure;
3) Capacity building peer-learning activities;
4) Community of practitioners centered around knowledge-sharing, future trends, and cooperation.
The project’s outputs will be piloted in partners’ universities and will later on serve as a role model/strategic package for other universities and institutions, extending its impact to other countries and regions around the globe.
During our three days meeting, we had the opportunity to go through all the working packages’ deliverables, go on an historical tour about the colonial past of Delfshaven, a tour on our campus. And we celebrated Dutch culture with - of course - some bitterballen at the end of the day.
If you are curious to read more and see some of the cases and best practices, please visit our website: https://idea-net.eu/. Stay tuned, we will soon produce a newsletter with upcoming activities.