Project HEIDA

Some members of EDO, in collaboration with the office of International affairs of UAB, participate in the development of HEIDA’s project, carried out by the University of Koç (Turkey), and with the participation of ISSBS (Eslovènia) and British Council (United Kingdom).

The aim of the HEIDA Project is to respond to two needs: on the one hand, the need to generate a tool or platform that can collect and share data for the internationalisation of higher education and, on the other, the need to have a bridge that permits fluid communications between management, academic staff, administrative personnel and students at institutions. To respond to these needs, the two objectives that will be developed over the course of the two-year period of the project are:
1: create awareness and train senior management, academics and administrative personnel so that they understand the value of internationalisation, using data for overall improvement.
2: design, validate and implement a tool/platform that can be employed to internationalise IES activities, creating an accessible and user-friendly space that contributes to understanding institutional improvement through interconnecting activities and internationalising at a European level.

The present project will contribute to casting light on issues related to internationalisation that are not normally taken into account by higher-education institutions, which are centred primarily on research and mobility. In this regard, the new tool will help understand internationalisation from a multidimensional and comprehensive standpoint, bearing in mind the multiple challenges that higher-education institutions must attain and activities they must conduct, as well as the internal and external stakeholders to whom relevant information must be provided on their activities.

In line with the above, project development will include an initial stage to collect data and perform an in-depth analysis of the actuality today, as well as the specific needs to which the tool must respond. Then the platform will be designed and, in parallel, training activities will be implemented for the main stakeholders, seeking their complicity for the later adoption of the platform designed. Finally, general actions are planned to promote and popularise the end product generated.

Project’s website: https://heida.ku.edu.tr/about