The European project inHERE to ease access to higher education for refugees is set

The project aims to improve the response of European universities to the specific needs of refugees through staff training and exchange of good practices.
The project aims to improve the response of European universities to the specific needs of refugees through staff training and exchange of good practices.
Institutional
(04/10/2016)

The University of Barcelona, through the UB Solidarity Foundation, is one of the European institutions associated to the project Higher Education Supporting Refugees in Europe (inHERE), launched on September 26 and 27 in Rome, with the main aim of helping the refugees and ease their integration and access to European universities.
 

The project aims to improve the response of European universities to the specific needs of refugees through staff training and exchange of good practices.
The project aims to improve the response of European universities to the specific needs of refugees through staff training and exchange of good practices.
Institutional
04/10/2016

The University of Barcelona, through the UB Solidarity Foundation, is one of the European institutions associated to the project Higher Education Supporting Refugees in Europe (inHERE), launched on September 26 and 27 in Rome, with the main aim of helping the refugees and ease their integration and access to European universities.
 

Only over this last year, Europe has received more than a million refugees, transferred people and migrants. Lots of these people are students, researchers or university staff that, when trying to re-take their professional tasks, have to face obstacles and specific needs.

Apart from financial aids, they find themselves with lack of information, advice, or sensitive orientation to their reality, as well as difficulties for the recognition of credits or qualifications without documents or lack of intensive language courses with academic purposes.

In particular, in this project, the University of Barcelona will lead the action Living Lab, which aims to favor the knowledge, exchange, depth and assessment of initiatives, activities and projects aimed at the promotion of the access to higher education for the refugee students. Among other activities, there will be several activities assessed carried out by the University of Barcelona, and particularly in the supporting program for the refugees and people coming from conflict areas, coordinated by the UB Solidarity Foundation.

The initiatives which are part of Living Lab will be those chosen by the good practises identification tool of EUA-European Universities Association (the “Refugees Welcome Map”), which collected more than 200 initiatives from 31 countries. With the identified good practices and results of the Living Lab, there will be a guideline for the university staff, coordinated by Sapienza University, and the elaboration of a series of recommendations, led by Campus France.

inHERE, a 2-year long project, is co-funded by the European Union, through the key action on the strategy associations of the Erasmus+ program, and coordinated by the Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED). Apart from the University of Barcelona and UNIMED, other partners of this project are EUA, Sapienza University and Campus France. The High Commissioner of United Nations for the Refugees (ACNUR) is an adjunct member.