ErasmusPolicyStatement

Erasmus Policy Statement

Erasmus Policy statement (EPS): our strategy

Institut Tecnologic de Barcelona (its acronym is ITB) is a public centre located in Barcelona.
ITB is a new technological HEI, specializing in technology training, teaching robotics, information technology (IT) and computers, and focuses on the development of the digital skills of students and answering the new challenges that the industry 4.0 poses and developing the hard and soft skills required by the emerging labour markets and the economy.

It is an Integrated Vocational Educational and Training School that offers basic vocational training, Intermediate Vocational Training and advanced training cycles. At the same time, it has an inter-institutional agreement with Barcelona Council and it offers 3 professional courses. Its aim is to help young people without training and sometimes with a clear risk of social exclusion, to find a new vocation and to rejoin the academic world.

From the beginning, ITB has been aware that International mobility will be a fundamental part of our institution given that main objectives are to help the entire educational community to increase their professional, digital, social, intercultural skills and their employability. 

Exchanges offer to participants the opportunity to enhance their understanding and ability to cooperate with other lifestyles and ways of thought, developing active and committed citizenship and promoting European values. In summary, they are a fundamental way to improve the quality of education and the curricula offered.

Looking at its technological profile, internationalization constitutes a vital part of the Educational Project of the Centre for the coming years. Our modernization and internationalization strategy is based on the high quality implementation of the Erasmus+ programme. ITB is determined to focus on establishing high-quality, sustainable, mutually beneficial strategic partnerships. ITB wants to express its wish to take part in this program by applying for the ECHE, which will benefit the whole education community in an environment of modernization and European values. 

ITB is committed to validate the necessary actions to allow the mobility of students and staff and to promote and participate (as partner or coordinator) in European projects and to comply with the European principles and requirements linked to the ECHE for the 2021-2027 program. Participating in the Erasmus+ Programme, ITB has the following objectives aligned with the institutional values:

• To foster the digital skills and knowledge within the whole education community in three aspects:

• Developing digital technology for teaching and learning to improve the quality of our studies and sharing thDem with other HEIs.
• Implementing digital systems in order to create a paperless administrative procedure fostering the effective and efficient management of our institution with a commitment to implement the European initiatives for implementing digital mobility.
• Acquiring up-to-date knowledge in the fields of cybersecurity, big data, artificial Intelligence and analytics in order to improve the quality of the curricula and collaborate in the modernization of the technological degree that we offer.
• To develop and participate in international projects with respect to the environment in different ways:
• Eco-friendly practices in all the phases of development of mobility projects.
• Promoting projects whose results, intellectual outputs and so on help the educational community and citizens in general to minimize the in carbon footprint.
• To ensure equal opportunities for mobility beneficiaries (non-discrimination and inclusion)
• Inclusion is one of the pillars of the management project and our institution is committed to giving equal opportunities to all groups and to implementing measures to encourage the participation of people with fewer opportunities. In addition, as a technological institution we will participate in project in the fields of IT or robotics that can aid some groups like those with disabilities.
• To develop multicultural awareness and a stronger sense of European belonging:
• The context of Erasmus+ presents a valuable opportunity to create added value for projects by organizing and promoting activities that engage participants from a civic perspective, on a voluntary basis, such that they take an active part in our local organization for incoming and outgoing participants, linked with the ITB's inclusion strategy.
• To adopt the established systems (ECTS, ECVET) and simple methods to recognize and validate in transparent way the skills and qualifications which participants acquire during their mobility, in formal and non-formal education as well as in the labour market and via other kind of learning experiences.
• To improve the linguistic competence of incoming and outgoing participants, promoting the language learning  and respecting the linguistic diversity of participants.
• As an IT centre we strongly believe that foreign languages have a prominent role in enhancing the employability of our students and staff.
• Language support will make mobility more efficient and effective and will contribute to meeting the objectives of Erasmus Programme.

In order to achieve these objectives we will employ various strategies:

• To set up and consolidate lasting partnerships with European and non-EU institutions whit values aligned with our institution and the Erasmus+ Programme.
• The procedure to select candidates for mobility will respect the principles of non-discrimination, transparency and inclusion as will the procedure for the award of related scholarships.
• To use the technological tools at our disposal to bring the experience and benefits of mobility to as many participants as possible by encouraging not only physical mobility but virtual collaborations of exchange and recognize them. Also, we are aware that dissemination and making use of the project’ results can help to maximize the effect of the mobility not only for the participants but also for the whole educational community.

• Offering participants the linguistic, cultural and technological preparation to successfully carry out the mobilities, providing the mobility coordination team and the tutors with the necessary support to carry out the tasks successfully.

In our strategy mobility plan we reflected what Erasmus action we would like to take part in:

Erasmus Key Action 1:

• Promoting the mobility among the students of our advanced training cycles so that they can complete their compulsory training period abroad. ITB believes that this kind of mobility increases student employability with a cross-border real work experience that will help them to improve their professional and linguistic skills and to develop personal and social skills during a stay in a different labour market and socio-cultural environment. These mobilities also will improve their sense of European identity.
• Promoting the mobility to staff so that they will participate in training activities, especially in job shadowing in IT enterprises, as well as accomplishing these activities in HEIs of a similar profile. After mobility, ITB would like to share participants’ experiences with the academic community and encourage them to introduce new knowledge in their lessons as much as possible. We strongly believe that these kinds of project improve the quality of the curricula that we offer.
• Receiving incoming students for studies or traineeships in the technology companies which we are in contact with. Also, teachers and non-teaching staff who would like to take part in job shadowing activities or other kind of training activities contributing to our modernization and giving us a strong international dimension.

Erasmus Key Action 2:

• We are in contact with another HEI in Barcelona and two partners (from Holland and Italy) and together with them we are designing a project for students and teachers based in project based learning. In addition, we will implement virtual mobilities in order to promote the participation of the vast majority of students and to give the experience of internationalization, improving their linguistic skills, improving the non-formal learning and foster in civil engagement.
• During the programme, ITB would like to take part in project of sector skills alliances. As an IT HEI we must adapt the curricula to the emerging profiles and detect what the markets need. Drawing on evidence regarding skills needs, these actions support the design and delivery of transnational vocational training content, as well as teaching and training methodologies for European professional core profiles. It is an important key for the modernization of our institution.

Erasmus Key Action 3:

Although our institution is not a policy-maker we can contribute as a technological centre as a stakeholder, supporting and promoting and implementing public initiatives to improve the quality and relevance of education especially in the field of IT. We are keeping in very close touch with the international unit project of the Department of Education and the mobility coordinator has experience in working in the KA3 project (REFRAME 585162-1-2017-1-IT-EPPKA3-VET-APPREN)

ITB is currently part of different mobility networks and has signed up to some collaborations in the framework of Erasmus+ programmes (in other education levels) with entities and institutions to promote internationalization actions.

• Youth Exchanges Erasmus+ with the Association Mundus for VET students
• KA102 Consortium coordinated by the Fundació BCN Formació Professional through Xarxa FP: This consortium proposes and develops mobility for traineenship for VET students.
• KA102 Consortium coordinated by the Lopez Vicuña School of Barcelona and five other HEI centres the metropolitan area at Barcelona.

Undoubtedly, the internationalization of the ITB will make our training cycles more attractive, fostering increased quality of teaching and relevance of curricula and contributing to their promotion, modernization and excellence by offering opportunities to acquire soft and hard skills. 

This will improve employment opportunities for participants with different backgrounds and enhance the competitiveness of the European economy, preserving cultural heritage and fostering a sense of a European identity and culture.

Together with the mobility coordinator, we have elaborated a long-term strategic plan. 

In addition, ITB quality team will incorporate the mobility procedures into the quality project of HEI for the next academic year in order to adapt them to the ISO 9001 standard. 

For ITB it is very important to collect information about the whole development of the project to monitoring the compliance with agreements and Charter principles, improving the next project in order to raise the quality of the process and measuring the impact and the sustainability of the project in order to innovate and modernize our institution and incorporate good practices.We will collect qualitative and quantitative information about the main steps of the project (before, during, after). 

We are aware that during the implementation of the Erasmus+ programme we will need to develop additional or more accurate indicators. EU survey will be a tool for collecting data along with and other ones that European commission may make available for this purpose. 

LINK TO ITB ERASMUS CHARTER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION 2021-2027