Thessaloniki 2020

LEO-NET Annual Seminar

Thessaloniki April 1-3, 2020

Seminar Program

April 1^th (12.00 – 20.00)

12:00 – 12:45: Registration
Introduction seminar and host

12.45 – 13.15: Introduction: Welcome & introduction to the seminar

13.15 – 13.30: Presentation host: Welcome by the University of Macedonia

13.30 – 14.00:
Presentation of the Greek situation about youth employment, traineeship possibilities University of Macedonia, EL – Mrs. Anna Kiriakidou

European Administration

14.00 – 15.00:
Session and Q&A about ERASMUS+ “Mobility for all, taking the ERASMUS + programme to the next level” – Current state of play
European Commission – DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, BE – Mr. Johannes Gehringer

15:00 – Coffee break

15.30 – 16.30:
Session and debate about European statute for trainees “The student view on internships: Useful practical experience or underpaid labour?”
Traineeships play a very valuable role in the (study) career path of young potentials. Their traineeships, however, may be overshadowed in a number of cases as trainees find themselves in between the world of education and the world of labour, entangled by divergent country regulations and sometimes by the lack of guarantees for their safety and well-being. Clear issues of concern for the European Students’ Union (ESU), the umbrella organization of 45 national unions of students from 39 European countries.
European Students’ Union, BE – Mrs. Nina de Winter, Executive Committee member

17.30 – 18.30: Guided city walk

18.30 – 20.00: Meet & Greet your international trainees

April 2^th (09.00 – 17.00)

Project presentations / partner search

09.00 – 10.30:
Sprint project – “Creation of European Criteria and Tools for Quality Internships”
SPRINT, “Standardize best PRactices about INTernships” is a three-year project that started in September 2017. Main goal is a list of quality criteria and good practices for (international) internships, including practical tools, in order to improve young people’s integration into the labour market. Learn more about the project approach, challenges and quest for good practices and project results so far.
French ministry of higher education and research, FR – Mrs. Stéphanie DEVEZE-DELAUNAY

ErasmusJobs project – “Bridging the skills gap of the Erasmus Generation”
ErasmusJobs aims to bridge the skills gap and enhance the transition from education to the labour market. Building on the core principle that a mobility experience reduces long-term unemployment
(Erasmus Impact Study, 2014), the project aims to clearly identify the skills gained during a stay abroad and make those more understandable by employers. In order to achieve that, ErasmusJobs brings together many stakeholders to ensure a future of employable Erasmus+ alumni: students, universities, employers.
University of Applied Sciences & Arts Western Switzerland Valais-Wallis HES-SO, CH –
Mrs. Line Pillet

10:30 – Coffee break

Inspiration

11.00 – 13.00:
Workshop: “Apply design thinking to embrace education challenges”
This workshop demonstrates a concrete example of how Design Thinking was applied to bring a vision into practice. THE vision ‘TEC for Society’ of Fontys University of Applied Sciences is that Technology should serve the needs of society. Fontys believes that they should prepare their students for a meaningful place in society. Not only to get a good job and earn a nice income but in combination with sustainability topics and challenges. For this the students need to develop a broad set of skills.
TEC for Society wasn’t concrete enough to ring a bell. SDGs on the other hand are known worldwide and people do understand what it is about. SDGs offer therefor a framework that has both an internal (e.g. a point of departure for education, a compass to bring the needs of society to the university so that education can be streamlined to what society needs and a quality check in order to not only look if things are done rightly but also if one is doing the right things) and external (one universal language) function. The seminar participants will learn about tools that are used to: * inspire students, staff and the ‘outside’ world, * discover personal affinity with some of the SDGs and the opposite for others and * how to gain visibility. The importance of bringing students on board and give them a serious role in this all will be shown as well.
HES-SO, CH – Mrs. Line Pillet
Fontys University of Applied Sciences, NL – Mrs. Elke van der Valk

13:00 – Lunch

14.30 – 17.00
Session: “Company views on international student traineeships and examples of Business-University collaboration to support the employability of graduates”
Higher education is now more than ever influenced by employers. In the quickly progressing world of business, the required skills of graduates change adequately, Higher education should collaborate with business to adapt to current trends and prepare the graduates to be employable now and in the future. Employers realize that traineeship programs are a win-win collaboration and necessary to keep up with the current fast changing nature of jobs. The global company IBM offers in this session an overview of different ways to connect the educational world and the world of work in order to offer young graduates the best possibilities to acquire necessary competences for sustainable careers.
IBM International Services Centre, SK – Mr. Martin Martinkovic

Session: “Erasmus programs and KA107 traineeships from the perspective of an Erasmus partner country University”
In a time when the whole Western Balkans region strives towards joining the EU, our students could only benefit from the successful international experience. One of the saddest realities of youth today in Bosnia-Herzegovina is that the best, brightest, hardest working, most talented are leaving in droves, to other shores, not just to the EU, but anywhere from China to the US. What we at IUS hope to achieve, through our programs, extracurricular activities, scholarships and exchanges, is to foster a sense of entrepreneurship in order to motivate our students to engage in regional entrepreneurship once graduated. By following the example of countries that recently joined the EU, we hope to kindle this flame among our students.
International University of Sarajevo, BA – Ms. Zuhal Guvener

19.00: – Social programme – Cooking workshop on the Greek Kitchen and dinner

April 3^th (09.00 – 13.00)

09.00 – 10.00: Leo-Net member meeting

Future education, employment, society

10.00 – 10.30:
Session: “All we need is give inclusion a chance!”
One of the main focus of the new program 2021/2027 is inclusion. All the main HEI are preparing roadmaps for inclusion while most of our partner companies where our students do their training period are not prepared to leave the common bias. They should be “educated” to settle to new challenges about differentiation.
Focus on the experience outside their comfort zone and in a company the concept of externalization within the internationalization is important to better understand the differences that trainees will undoubtedly find on their path.

We’ll work on an “ideal” working place, using all the tools that we can think about that will help the company to accept the difference both psychological and physical so that the companies engage on these changes- shared activities knowing the existing differences help to achieve better results.

“More diverse companies, we believe, are better able to win top talent and improve their customer orientation, employee satisfaction, and decision making, and all that leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing returns.” McKinsey & Company.
Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, PT – Mrs. Ana Boa-Ventura

11:00 – Coffee break

11.00 – 12.30:
“E- traineeships – current and future potential of online work experience”
In the current world of fast progressing digitalization and virtual collaboration touching every sector, work experience is not an exception. As an alternative to traineeships as we know them and thanks to modern technologies, E- traineeships open wider opportunities to students, graduates or unemployed people to gain practical skills. The best prove is the UKs leading online work experience programme. Is it the future of gaining work experience?
Amnick – Social Enterprise, UK – Mr. John David, and Ms. Julia Chiperi

12.30 – 13.00: Wrap up and closing