The Policy Recommendations will be provided for a better understanding of actual skill mismatches, fostering smoother business cooperation with universities and increasing the relevance of education. The recommendations will summarize the way feedback could be gathered from employers, analyzed and eventually implemented by universities.
Main focus of the Policy Recommendations will be the following categories:
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Courses and curricula offered at universities meeting the existing and emerging needs of labor market respect to the relevance of education.
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Defining the most effective cooperation including provision of placements, guest lecturers, on-going cooperation activities, knowledge exchange …
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The way information could be gathered from employers and used systematically to improve the course offer and overall curricula.
Eventually, the Policy Recommendations will be based on:
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Existing experience and suggestions of former projects such as the first edition of #EuropeHome.
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Outcomes of #empl-oi and its impact on the different partners and local authorities (reports delivered by project partners, results of the Intellectual outputs as project activities carried out in Local Hubs).
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Surveys and analysis carried out by EUF-CE and ESN.
EUF-CE in close cooperation with ESN and University of Naples Federico II, will coordinate with universities in gathering the opinions of the employers and academics (the opinion of local authorities will also be taken into account). This will allow in-depth feedback and concrete suggestions regarding the effective cooperation models and methods/ways to gather information. The skills students already have or need to practice more will show the desired improvements in the curricula delivery.
Policy Recommendations will be finalized and coordinated by EUF-CE, before the final conference in Brussels which will be held in 2018. This final conference will be the main dissemination of the project results to relevant stakeholders and policymakers at a local and international level.
#empl-oi can be only achieved by having transnational cooperation through student mobility and respective part-time placements. It is an opportunity for students to get international experience, even for those who remain non-mobile since they will be working with exchange students during part-time placements.
The other main challenges the project may encounter, is fostering entrepreneurship in higher education, in particular in programmes which are not related to business. It has become clear that entrepreneurial education is not yet sufficiently integrated in university curricula. That is why, academic staff will have the option to implement and potentially integrate the online course on social entrepreneurship in their respective curricula. This answers the question of mismatched skills in particular transversal and entrepreneurial skills. Eventually, the cooperation across borders will benefit from knowledge exchange and a better understanding of common challenges on a European scale. The guidelines will be a way to collect data about the opinions and suggestions of employers and the feedback about areas where students lack skills or underperform. The project also intends to create a sustainable local network of companies around the respective universities.