From the 6th to the 8th of March, the University of Porto will welcome around 20 participants from European, Brazilian and Argentinian institutions to launch the project "Rec-Mat: Recognition Matters". The Kick-off meeting marks the start of the project funded by the European Commission for the next 3 years (until 2020), through the Erasmus+ programme’s action 2 Capacity Building Higher Education.
Partners will work in the field of academic recognition, with the objective of contributing to facilitate the mobility of students between Latin America and Europe and reduce barriers related to the process of academic recognition. The 648,228 thousand euros of funding for the project will support activities and joint work of the partners, so as to enable Higher Education Institutions to implement fairer and more transparent processes in these regards.
The Rec-Mat project is based on the vast experience of partners in the LA region, and the challenges identified over time, in relation to different Educational Systems, principles, practices and tools to support of academic recognition. The project brings proven innovation through its activities, linking the political and practical dimensions inherent to the recognition of academic training, during student mobility (teaching staff training activities, piloting of case studies and policy debate activities).
Rec-Mat’s methodology is also original in the proposed target audiences and actors involved: not only the International Relations and Academic departments, but also professors (coordinators and programme directors), authorities identified as key decision makers in the process of recognition, as well as IT technical staff involved in developing support tools/information systems.
Through the project’s implementation, partners also intend to raise awareness among teaching staff for the importance of full academic recognition as well as for the relevance of the internationalisation of HE, through a peer approach. These objectives will be achieved through the project activities, such as the Rec-Mat blended training with a physical and online component (MOOC) which aims to bring together Latin American professors who are ‘resistant' to the reality of international mobility and distant from the bologna rationale - with more experienced and ‘pro-internationalisation’ colleagues of its institutions as well as of the European partners. In addition to training activities, in the context of the project real mobility pilot case studies will be promoted, with the goal of evidencing successful practical examples.
The partners intend to so build capacity of the involve institutions, to prepare them to frame formal academic recognition, at institutional level as well as to develop concrete technical solutions (tools/systems), to facilitate this process.
Through the publication of a final compendium and the organisation of national and international public events, partners intend to also bring the topic to a wide discussion by encouraging other institutions to adopt more transparent procedures and to share the innovative results of the Rec -Mat project (namely the MOOC, the compendium and its conclusions paper).