Aspira College of Management and Design was a partner in the Erasmus + Program project called BuildPHE, which was implemented from 2015-2018. The total value of the project was €220,294.00. The goals of this project were:

• encourage higher education institutions to analyze their internal policies for cooperation between education, research and business,
• implement improvements and reforms of policies and practices regarding cooperation with the world of work,
• support the exchange of best practices regarding interventions to strengthen the knowledge triangle,
• design a set of support tools, especially framework policies and/or implementation guides, to strengthen active cooperation between higher education institutions and partners outside the academic community.

The project involved policy makers and decision makers from 15 institutions of professional higher education, working with their structures set up by their national associations for PHE, which are members of the consortium. Through their participation in the project, each of these institutions analyzed their overall connection with the world of work, formulated improvements with the help of best practices in the field, and introduced these practices into the institutional strategy.

 

The main results of the project were:

• Self-evaluation reports produced by 15 institutions, describing the extent and quality of their links with the world of work;
• Implementation plans outlining proposed improvements to policies and strategies to better engage with the world of work created and supported;
• Peer-learning meetings attended by representatives of institutions across Europe;
• 70 best practice cases were collected and published, with at least 5 cases published for each HAPHE criterion;
• A set of supporting tools for collaboration in PHE-business, especially framework policies, published as a best practice implementation guide for higher education institutions.

 

At the local and regional level, the project is:

• encouraged better collaboration between PHE and businesses;
• increased the choice of learning paths available to students, especially the strengthening of ‘dual’ options (eng. Dual) which include a mix of study and work experience such as apprenticeships;
• contributed to addressing skills gaps in key employment areas;
• improved the quality of professional experiences provided by institutions of professional higher education.

 

At the national level, the project provided recommendations to policy makers on measures to improve collaboration between academia and business. The adoption of such recommendations should primarily facilitate the provision of apprenticeships by companies. Evidence suggests that this would in turn lead to lower levels of youth unemployment. At the EU level, the project facilitated the exchange of practice and increased cooperation between institutions and associations of professional higher education.