The project aims to provide academics and professional staff with holistic skills in intercultural competence (IC) that will allow them to enhance internationalisation and improve social-educational delivery across the higher education sector. TICKET responds to the increasing diversity of higher education, by generating opportunities for staff to develop the requisite IC skills to take advantage of the benefits and confront the challenges arising from the expanding number of intercultural encounters and collaborations that take place within the classroom and workplace.
TICKET also seeks to foster social inclusion through promoting diversity by developing social, civic and intercultural competences within staff communities. The project will tackle discrimination, segregation and racism by equipping staff with relevant intercultural competence skills and helping them to engage with under-represented and disadvantaged student and staff groups such as BME, refugees, LGBTQ and persons with disabilities.
Specifically, TICKET will create a modular Training Programme to support staff in their IC skill development, flexible ICT Tools which can be tailored to varying institutional contexts, a Toolkit aimed at supporting all staff as they engage with IC related professional development and a Handbook and Framework for Policy Makers. HEIs will be able to use the TICKET outputs to enhance their own internationalisation initiatives and CPD programmes for staff.
Seven universities will participate as Partners in the project – University of Edinburgh, University of Amsterdam, University of Granada, Jagiellonian University of Krakow, University of Bologna, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Freie Universität Berlin. Additionally, the Coimbra Group network, European University Foundation and Complutense University of Madrid will act as Associate Partners to help the consortium ground and disseminate the project results.
The project will meet a series of specific objectives:
• Develop IC pedagogical content in a virtual resource bank and toolkit specifically aimed at equipping staff with IC skills.
• Improve transversal skills, social and civic awareness, digital skills and media literacy in staff which in turn will support their interactions with students.
• Develop innovative learning approaches such as gamified reflective tools focussing on cultural adaptation and immersion, intercultural competence and introducing cultural intelligence into the classroom environment.
• Create effective learning pathways for a diverse group of staff needs to foster inclusion. In particular seek to target staff from disadvantaged and under-represented groups.
• Design a holistic and transferable model for supporting IC skills in staff through an innovative learning technology environment, which can be replicated in other institutions.
• Develop a virtual support environment to provide a platform to facilitate joint efforts at sharing, teaching and learning using technologies, including opportunities for module sharing, buddying and mentoring, using ICT to provide a rich seam of opportunities for interaction across borders.
The project outputs will be shared with the wider higher education community and public through the following events: a Training Programme Design and ICT Tools event (hosted by University of Bologna in Italy), a Toolkit for Staff event (hosted by Jagiellonian University in Poland), a Handbook and Framework event for policymakers (hosted by University of Edinburgh in Brussels) and a Final dissemination event (hosted by FU Berlin in Germany). Additionally, there will be three Train the Trainer staff weeks where each partner will send staff champions from their institution to be trained to train other staff and disseminate further information about the TICKET Training Programme and Toolkit for Staff within their own institutions.
The project will directly impact 210 staff participants (30 per institution) and 70 (10 per institution) local stakeholders, including minority groups, policymakers and other HEIs. The portfolio of Multiplier events will attract 230 local participants and 35 international participants who will be encouraged to join the project’s ‘Community of Practice’ which will help practitioners to adopt, modify and embed the project results, tools and resources in their own institutions.
The primary impact for staff participants will come in the form of improved intercultural competences through the development of a Training Programme, delivered virtually through ICT tools and physically through Train the Trainer staff events, for uniquely supporting students in a variety of contexts relating to mobility, internationalisation and diversity and inclusion in the classroom. The Training Programme, Staff Toolkit and Framework will be made available as open educational resources and therefore accessible to HEIs and other stakeholders throughout Europe and beyond.