Objectives
The project has been carried out with the financial support of the Erasmus+ programme. The project was contracted for a duration of 36 months, covering the period from 01/08/2022 to 31/07/2025. The main quantitative objectives of the project are the implementation of 34 exchanges between D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics and 7 HEIs from Albania, Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, and Russia, located in 3 regions (Region 1, Region 3, and Region 4). The total number of exchanges implemented during the project period is as follows: with HEIs from Region 1 – 4 incoming student exchanges for study, 1 incoming and 1 outgoing staff mobility for teaching; with HEIs from Region 3 – 10 incoming student mobilities for study (4 Morocco, 3 Egypt, and 3 Palestine), 3 incoming staff exchanges (1 Morocco, 1 Egypt, and 1 Palestine), and 2 outgoing staff mobilities (1 Egypt and 1 Morocco); with HEIs from Region 4 – 6 incoming and 2 outgoing student exchanges for study, and 3 incoming and 2 outgoing staff exchanges.
Additional qualitative objectives of the project are related to creating opportunities for improving the linguistic, social, cultural, and transferable competences of students and doctoral candidates, as well as for enhancing job satisfaction, improving linguistic, cultural, and social competences, introducing new practices in teaching and learning, adopting good practices in developing and delivering educational content, and expanding staff professional contact networks. At institutional level, the project aims to broaden cooperation through other projects and initiatives beyond Erasmus+ KA171, as well as to attract some HEIs as associated partners of the KreativEU alliance.
Implementation
Within the framework of the project, a total of 29 mobilities of students and staff were carried out, of which 21 student exchanges for studies and 8 staff mobilities for training. The distribution by region and type of exchanges is as follows: Region 1 – 3 incoming and 2 outgoing student exchanges, 2 incoming staff exchanges; Region 3 – 12 incoming student exchanges, 4 incoming and 1 outgoing staff exchanges; Region 4 – 4 incoming student exchanges and 1 incoming staff exchange.
Geographically, exchanges were conducted with 5 HEIs from 5 countries: Albania (7 exchanges), Morocco (9 exchanges), Egypt (4 exchanges), Palestine (4 exchanges), and Russia (5 exchanges).
The implementation of the project was accompanied by a number of challenges, mainly caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Palestine, which resulted in limited travel opportunities, rising air ticket prices, supranational, national, and institutional travel restrictions (by gender and age), etc. Another challenge was the internal approval system applied by Suez Canal University for every incoming and outgoing mobility, as well as the requirement for an exit permit for young men who had not completed military service.
Results
The project achieved underperformance of the planned quantitative objectives by 14.71% (29 reported out of 34 contracted mobilities). By categories, the following results were achieved: Region 1 – overall overperformance of mobilities by 16.67%, including 25% overperformance in student exchanges and 100% achievement in staff mobilities; Region 3 – overall overperformance of 13.33%, including 20% overperformance in student exchanges and 100% achievement in staff mobilities; Region 4 – overall underperformance of 61.54%, including 50% underperformance in student exchanges and 80% underperformance in staff mobilities. 6 of the academic exchanges (20.69%) were carried out using sustainable transport, with student mobilities achieving a 23.81% sustainability rate and staff mobilities – 12.5%.
High participant satisfaction was reported: 100.00% of incoming and outgoing students and 100.00% of staff involved in outgoing and incoming mobilities were satisfied with their Erasmus+ experience.
Some qualitative spin-off effects were also achieved, incl. joint publications, work on the design of a joint master’s programme in Economics, and discussions on the possibility of expanding the network of associated partners of the KreativEU alliance.