Erasmus politikos nuostatos

Erasmus Policy Statement

Institution’s international (EU and non-EU) strategy

Internationalisation is one of the key horizontal strategic priorities of Vilniaus kolegija / University of Applied Sciences (VIKO). Leading position and high reputation of VIKO at national and international levels oblige to rise ambitious goals of becoming an internationally recognised player and transforming into meeting the 21st century challenges and stakeholders’ expectations. The institution is strategically oriented to the development of multicultural environment, which should encourage students and staff to reach for the professionalism, academic advantage and competitiveness, and – equally important – to constantly develop generic competences based on human values.

The main VIKO internationalisation goals:

To further develop internationalisation of the study process via ensuring the contemporary curricular content and innovative methods of learning and teaching with focus on work-based learning, flexible learning pathways, blended and online teaching and learning possibilities, recognition of prior learning, automatic recognition of learning outcomes gained through Erasmus mobility. To achieve the outbreak by encouraging the creation of multidisciplinary programmes in English and attracting significant numbers of foreign students, broadening study accessibility paths through digital systems, enhancing access to higher education for students from less traditional, disadvantaged and vulnerable target groups.

To further develop students and staff competences via international mobility, Internationalisation at Home (IaH) activities, including temporary or permanent employment of foreign experts in teaching and learning, organisation and active participation in the international events, constant development of foreign language and intercultural competences. To achieve the outbreak by developing students and staff competences in the context of the 21st century challenges and stakeholders’ expectations.

To further develop the efficient strategic partnerships via participation in the joint international projects, international HE and professional networks, innovation and development through user-oriented research. To achieve the outbreak by sharing expertise of the developed areas, such as creativity platform, project management, teaching and learning, etc., among European and non-EU partners in particular.

To further develop the multicultural study and research environments via friendly organisational culture and financial resource investments in the physical and electronic environments. To achieve the outbreak by digitalising the study support services and the mobility management.

To achieve significant international visibility, recognition and reputation of the institution via orientation to sustainable development in all institutional activities, addressing world of work needs through regional engagement.

Those strategic internationalisation goals are in compliance with the universal educational goals of the contemporary higher education institution (HEI) and leading to the modernisation of higher education, economic growth and social cohesion.

VIKO internationalisation strategy is an integral part of the institutional development pathway and reflects the institution’s aspirations to further consolidate its strengths, minimise the weaknesses and achieve the outbreaks in the strategic activity areas. The new VIKO internationalisation strategy for 2021-2025 has been discussed with the community on different levels and approved by VIKO top management.

Erasmus Programme is one of the most important mechanisms enabling to achieve the above-mentioned strategic internationalisation goals. Erasmus Programme funding is one of the most important financial sources to establish and develop international partnerships, which, in turn, allows the modernisation of the study process, transfer of innovations and further development of applied R&D. Besides, participation in Erasmus Programme helps academic institution to create study and research culture based on human values, to seek for the holistic approach by ethical education, social responsibility, sustainable development, human rights, multicultural awareness, which hardly can be imagined without the internationalisation. Students and staff mobility help to develop comprehensive personalities who enrich both institution and society on local and international levels. VIKO appreciates Erasmus Programme as an opportunity to increase social inclusion encouraging students with fewer opportunities from different social backgrounds, from less traditional, disadvantaged and vulnerable target groups as well as a chance to improve and develop our non-discrimination policies. The challenges of the digitalisation of the mobility management coming along with the new Erasmus Programme period, also comply with VIKO strategic priority – ICT implementation in the management of all VIKO activity areas.

Erasmus Programme has always been a valuable indicator of how any HEI is functioning. It gives better understanding of strengths and shortcomings of all the aspects of the activities of a HEI: quality of study programmes offered, professional competencies of the academic staff, quality of management of the whole study process at the HEI, and, equally important – readiness to embrace any student, whole-school approach to internationalisation – how is the whole community prepared for international collaboration.

During all participation years in the Programme, VIKO successfully followed fundamental Erasmus Charter for Higher Education principles as well as managed to demonstrate successful inter-institutional cooperation in the international projects.

Further participation would contribute toward modernization of studies and research and development activities conducted by the institution, thus contributing to the common program goal of building European Education Area.

Institution’s strategy for the organisation and implementation of international (EU and non-EU) cooperation projects in teaching and training in relation to projects implemented under the Programme

VIKO is planning to further take part in all Erasmus activities where the institution is eligible to participate:

Key Action 1 – Learning Mobility, providing mobility opportunities for higher education students and staff, is strategically important for VIKO as a chance to improve and develop intercultural competencies of the community as well as strengthen professional skills and partnerships between higher education institutions.

Key Action 2 – Cooperation among organisations and institutions – gives VIKO a chance to develop strong partnerships between European HEIs. Key Action 2 funded projects are internationally recognized strategical opportunity for VIKO to strengthen collaboration between the institutions in the R&D area, contribute to solving social problems at national and European level as well as improving teaching and learning.

The only programme of this action – Partnerships for Excellence – Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees – is not applicable for VIKO, as according to the Law of Higher Education in Lithuania, the institution can provide only 1st cycle, bachelor level studies.

Key Action 3 – Support to policy development and cooperation – enables the institution to take an active leadership role in the policy development area, contributing to the new policy development and readiness for its implementation. It coheres with VIKO strategic aims of seeking effectiveness of studies and research, sharing expertise, visibility and sustainable development.

Over twenty years of its existence VIKO has gained experience in all three Erasmus Key Actions’ activities and achieved significant results in the international mobility and project expertise: a stable network of foreign partners has been set up, the institution is actively involved in several key international organisations, uniting higher education institutions; by itself organises these organizations’ and other international conferences; cooperation agreements with the Programme and Partner countries’ institutions of higher education have been signed; VIKO annually manages numerous international projects, and participates in students and teachers’ exchanges.

VIKO international mobility implementation procedures have been developed, tested and approved since VIKO started participation in Erasmus programme. Mobility administration structure covers clear distribution of organisational activities among VIKO central administration and departments. Smooth mobility implementation indicates that procedures were planned in a proper way. Transparency of activities is ensured via publication of the main information about the procedures, activities and results online for the internal and external usage.

In 2020 VIKO joined the European Universities alliances initiative project, which in case of success will result in establishment mechanisms of mobility without interference and with automatic recognition among alliance partners and will lay the foundations to ensure mobility fluency with the rest of our old and new partners.

The project administration procedures and the strategic partnership recommendations have also been developed at VIKO. The internal procedures and documentation serve as a framework which support fluent project and partnership management. Clear roles distribution lead to the successful collaboration among the central administration and project managers at VIKO and helps to ensure adequate support system for all projects participants. R&D is regulated by the separate institutional regulations. VIKO researchers’ groups have been established. R&D projects’ indicators are constantly reviewed and compared with the other Lithuanian and European institutions’ data. E.g., VIKO joint the U Multirank” project which is the first HEIs performance evaluation tool including both research universities and universities of applied sciences. VIKO is a partner of the COST programme, which actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and beyond and enable researchers and innovators to grow their ideas in any science and technology field by sharing them with their peers. In 2018 VIKO joined United Nations Global Compact – a voluntary United Nations pact that aims to encourage businesses and organizations worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. All together those actions help to realize fluent and purposeful implementation of VIKO strategic plans.

Nevertheless, along with the enumerated achievements, VIKO aims at the further fosterage of mobility and diversity of international projects. More flexible Erasmus mobility opportunities will allow to achieve the outbreak in the foreseen VIKO internationalisation activities: readiness for blended and online, short-term mobility, academic and non-academic staff mobility, strategic cooperation with foreign HEIs and enterprises, resulting in effective educational and research projects, thus contributing both in achieving the objectives of your institutional strategy and building a European Education Area.

Expected impact of participation in the Programme on the modernisation of the Institution

In the context of globalisation and internationalisation, mobility undertakes a key role in all the HEIs performance. The most important individual gains for the students and staff are new knowledge and skills, increased foreign language and intercultural competences, improved communication, career competences and higher employability, etc.

Students and staff point out a number of professional, social and generic competences acquired and improved during the international mobility: gained and/or shared knowledge in new subjects or in teaching methods, improvement of foreign language and ICT knowledge and skills, personal, professional and academic development, future transferable skills, creativity, teamwork and leadership, flexibility and adaptability, critical thinking, possibility to broaden horizons – physically and mentally, development of cultural awareness and open-mindedness, enhancement of self-confidence. Intercultural experience helps to develop the cultural intelligence which in turn, stimulates global mindset leading to the strong leadership, organisational commitment and active citizenship. Mobility also supports the extension of institutional partnerships and networks, thus aiming at increasing internationalisation in the institutional level and complying with the institution’s strategy.

VIKO is one of the leading professional higher education institutions in Lithuania in students and staff mobility. The statistics of VIKO student’s mobility during the 5 recent years indicate that the percentage of mobile students is quite stable – around 3-4% of the total VIKO students’ population and is slightly increasing every year. Based on the previous years’ statistics, it is expected that VIKO mobile students’ number will annually increase by around 0,5% and will reach 7% of total VIKO students’ population during the next Erasmus Programme period. It is expected that the flexibility and wider accessibility principles of new Erasmus period such as blended and virtual mobility will serve as a main tool to keep at least stable VIKO students mobility numbers, as the country’s population projections, e. g. according to the Eurostat, will continuously decrease and shrink up to more than 20% in 2050. As VIKO is a university of applied sciences type higher education institution, and more attention is payed to the high-level practical knowledge, Erasmus internships take higher percentage of all mobility and is constantly increasing. VIKO graduates’ interest into Erasmus internships also increase.

Incoming mobility composes around 1/3 of VIKO outgoing students’ population, with a slight increase during the last years. Having huge potential to increase those numbers, referring both to the programmes in English offer increase, and new flexible mobility modes in the new Erasmus Programme period, VIKO expects the outbreak in the incoming students’ population increase. Strategic aim is to achieve the ratio of 1:1 of incoming and outgoing students during the next Erasmus Programme period.

Staff mobility is also constantly increasing. During the last academic year 27,7% of VIKO staff participated in the international mobility, the number is annually increasing by 10-15% and the demand is still higher than the financial possibilities. The further challenges associated with staff mobility are related to strengthening of partnerships, evaluation of the short- and long-term staff mobility impact into the institution’s internationalization processes. Referring to the previous years’ VIKO staff mobility statistics, total application number and institution’s policy to increase staff competence, it is expected that VIKO mobile staff number will annually increase by around 15-20%. The strategic aim of VIKO for the coming 5 years is to achieve the participation of every academic staff member in international mobility at least once.

Strategic aims in staff mobility also include active attraction and increased numbers of foreign academic experts whose shared knowledge would support VIKO IaH, strengthen cooperation and institution’s performance outputs.

The main risks, associated with students and staff mobility and international cooperation in general, are unforeseen, e. g., recent pandemic, which therefore can be mitigated by the new flexible cooperation forms. VIKO already has experience in application of the virtual and blended mobility and cooperation thus it is expected that will be able to minimise the influence of possible risks.

KA2 projects are an important opportunity for the faculties to develop and strengthen international cooperation, teaching/learning materials and intercultural competence in the academic community. Ensuring long-term impact of the projects is based on the transparent project management procedures and shared responsibility between participating departments and central administration. Referring to the previous years’ statistics on VIKO involvement in projects’ and R&D activities, and the budget gained, it is expected that VIKO will maintain the similar projects quantities and strengthen the content and outputs, especially oriented to the strategic cooperation, sustainability and user-oriented research.

KA3 projects enable the institution to take an active leadership role in the policy development area. It is expected that VIKO will contine and increase the activeness in those projects thus reaching the strategic aim of seeking effectiveness of studies and research, sharing expertise, visibility and sustainable development. As the KA3 projects are related to the policy development area exclusively, the strategic aim is related to the gualitative but not quantitative indicators.

The outputs of the Erasmus Programme activities, as all the other outputs of VIKO institutional performance, are constantly measured conaring with the agreed indicators. The measurement is performed in the form of the annual self-assessment, which is prepared and discussed at all institution’s levels.