In 2018, the European Commission launched Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange, a pilot project which is aimed at enabling youth in Europe and the Southern Mediterranean to engage in meaningful intercultural experiences online, as part of their formal or non-formal education. It defines Virtual Exchange as “technology-enabled people-to-people dialogues sustained over a period of time” for individuals and groups which are geographically separated and moderated by trained facilitators and/or educators using structured activities. The project targets both academia (professors, administrators, students) and youth (youth workers, young people).

Exchange in this context is different from exchange as in the exchange mobility scheme in the Erasmus programme. Here, exchange is not necessarily related to a formal course or curriculum at partner universities, although some of the Interactive Open Online Courses (IOOCs) are networked cooperations between universities (see below).

Also, in the case of this pilot action for the Youth programme, exchange rather means exchange of ideas and values, while in the Erasmus KA1 context, exchange refers to the exchange of students.

In all cases, learning activities are mainly about:

Recognition for successful completion of all trainings and exchanges is offered through open badges, the value of which depends on the endorsement by universities and employers. Individual institutions determine the number of ECTS students receive for participation in the various activities, ranging from 3 ECTS to 12 ECTS.

EVOLVE (Evidence-Validated Online Learning through Virtual Exchange) is a KA3 project led by the University of Groningen which aims to mainstream Virtual Exchange (VE) as an innovative form of collaborative international learning across disciplines in higher education institutions in Europe and beyond.

The project aims to support higher education institutions in implementing virtual exchange as part of their internationalisation at home offerings. It will do this by providing an evidence-base to support implementation,

The project offers training and support in the design and implementation of this model of virtual exchange, which is in line with Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange. 

A joint curriculum with integrated mobility flows is designed as one single, common program owned by a consortium of universities. Mobility flows for all students are integrated in the design of the curriculum. Individual study programmes (ISPs) are following these mobility flows with some differentiations. In these distributed multi-partner curricula, mobility flows can be organized in a physical, blended or online mode. Joint degrees are delivered.

In joint programmes, online mobility tracks are inherent to the structure of the programme and the pathway to be followed by the student. In joint programmes, arrangements are made between the universities regarding the individual study programme (ISP) for each student, the services to the student on the successive locations, the examinations, the credits and the joint diploma and the registration and the participation fees (main registration, subsidiary registrations).

The purpose of this programme is to enhance students’ career prospects as highly qualified experts in national, European or international organizations. The students will be able to continue their studies in PhD level.

The programme offers basic academic training in the field of welfare management/ social policy development. Students have an opportunity to increase competence and understanding of methodological issues and sociological research methods.

The curriculum for the Master’s Programme “Comparative Social Policy and Welfare” has been designed jointly by three partner-universities: Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania), University of Tampere (Finland) and the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz (Austria).

Teaching and learning methods are intensive programmes (2 weeks IP’s) in all partner universities alternately and distance learning (the online learning environment “Moodle”).

Students complete their studies with a Joint Master degree.

Capitalizing on the experience with the Master in Social Security (KU Leuven) a broader European project has been implemented. The rationale behind the EFESE project is that Social Security in Europe is more important than ever. Its relevance was clear during the recent economic crisis in Europe where social protection systems helped to limit the effects of the crisis, especially for the hardest-hit. Social security itself is above all a truly European field of expertise, traditionally labeled as the European social model and therefore this more innovative exchange of education on this topic is timely and necessary. 

The objectives of the project are: 

The coordination of social security system is a founding pillar of the EU internal market while the European social model is closely linked to European integration. Despite its importance, social security remains a highly national and discipline-specific area (law, economics and social policy) whose study is therefore fragmented. This project created a format that the partners use to virtually exchange their courses. This represents a new approach to education and opens many new possibilities for students currently not benefiting from exchange. The format consists of a set of technical standards which allows the integration of courses in the existing learning platforms at the different participating organizations (e.g. Blackboard or Moodle) and pedagogic/didactic standards that ensure a student-centered approach for virtual learning. In seven blended courses on European Social Security were developed.

The idea is to join forces between top European universities who provide education in the field of social security and to synthesize fragmented approaches, paving the way for a common European curriculum. To attain the objective of a truly European comprehensive curriculum on social security, both teachers and students will be virtually mobile. The project carries out a feasibility study on a fully recognized and accredited Master in European social security by the partners. The selection of the courses covers in a complementary manner the various disciplines and expertise within social security. The project also brings innovation in teaching across the partner institutions as the format will have a strong pedagogic and didactic component. Moreover, the virtual exchange is combined with two residential learning moments. The “Young Researcher School” (summer school) brings together interested participants around their own research proposals and research methodology, thereby also exploring the potential of “blended” education (i.e. the link between on-line and residential learning).

Partners are: KU Leuven, Universiteit Kopenhagen, Universiteit Ljubljana en CECL Athene and furthermore Masaryck University Brno, Mykolas Romeris University Vilnius, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Université de Luxembourg, University of the Peloponnese, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, University of Zagreb, University of Gothenburg, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Observatoire Social Européen en the European Institute of Social Security.

This project aims at educating a new generation of chamber musicians within an innovative international learning environment based on a student-centred and research-led curriculum, which includes direct feedback from professional

This is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA, a network of European music universities, conservatoires and festivals in the field of chamber music). ECMA is dedicated to promoting young aspiring chamber music ensembles of the highest

Higher music education institutions have been slow in adapting their curricula to new pedagogies and technologies. The project sees chamber music as a tool to modernise higher education in classical music through blended mobility, g.:

These activities will lead to improved curricula in the partner institutions that are informed by the latest teaching and learning approaches and the expertise from professional partners and are therefore better tailored to the current reality of the music profession. Teaching staff will be updated or re-trained with information on innovative teaching and learning methods, leading to higher quality teaching.

The primary partner is The Norwegian Academy of Music. The consortium consists of a total of eight partners throughout Europe. 

The main objective of the EUTEMPE-RX project European Training and Education for Medical Physics Experts in Radiology (FP7, 2013-2016) was to provide an education and training scheme that allows a medical physicist in Radiology to reach EQF level The learners that were targeted by the project are medical physicists with typically 2 years of practical experience in radiology in hospitals, medical device companies or nuclear authorities, PhD students in radiology physics and biomedical engineers working in radiology. The European training scheme had to address physicists from all over Europe and especially also from the New Member States and even beyond.

In the end, the network has developed 12 modules at EQF level The module leaders use a variety of modern educational tools and a blended learning scheme: each course aimed at 80 hours of active learning by the participants, divided between a preparation phase at home via online learning and onsite training in the institution of the module leader. The major part of the theoretical knowledge is communicated upfront by means of an e-learning platform, guiding at least 40h of learning. The online phase is then followed by an interactive and practical face to face phase in the institution of the module leaders.

To familiarize the teachers with techniques of online teaching, e-learning, interacting with small groups and EQF8 assessment methods, educational workshops were organized. All modules were run as planned, with the quality survey among participants confirming the high level of the courses, the expertise of the teachers and the appropriateness of the e-learning preparation phase. The teachers reported that a very motivated group of medical physicists participated in their modules. The consortium partners have decided that they will repeat their course modules every two years.

NordBioMed is a collaborative network between the universities of Bergen, Southern Denmark, Eastern Finland, Turku and Karolinska Institutet. It supports both student and teacher mobility, organises intensive special courses and it develops a virtual teaching and information platform, NordBioMed Moodle. 

OERCompBiomed delivers five intellectual outputs in the form of three OERs/courses (Biomedical Ethics, Translational Digital Pathology and Introduction to Computational Biomedicine and Machine Learning), and in the form of an intensive course (Summer School in Computational Biomedicine) with blended learning and virtual and physical mobility between the partner institutions. Learning analytics evaluates the design, implementations and evaluation of these activities.

Using OERs and web-based courses changes teaching, learning and assessment. 

The virtual summer school supports both virtual and physical mobility between the partner institutions. A blended learning environment is created for an array of learning activities as well as blended group work (face to face and virtual). It gives the students the opportunity to apply and combine knowledge they acquired online and in their respective home universities. 

The courses will attract different groups of students and professionals both regionally and on a global Within the participating academic institutions alone, the OERs are relevant for 250-300 students each year, and will be mandatory for subgroups of these students.

From a European and global perspective, 2000 participants annually are envisaged. In addition to this, the OERs will attract professionals from various health care disciplines and from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. 

UNIGE-inZone develops cooperation agreements for specific learning pathways with partner institutions in refugee-hosting countries (e.g. the BA in International Relations with Kenyatta University in Kenya which integrates a package of blended courses with research components provided by the University of Geneva-InZone). Refugee students do not pay for the UNIGE-InZone package of courses but need to pay regular tuition at Kenyatta University for the balance of the BA course of studies - tuition is donor funded for a specific number of students.

UNIGE-InZone developed the details of the BA degree with KU faculty, then designed the learning pathway in terms of coursework and joint research through establishing equivalences with KU's regular BA degree, and then worked with KU's Digital School to start the implementation in the Kakuma refugee camp.