"The key objective of the TICRUZ consortium is to enhance capacity for international cooperation between universities in Latin America’s least developed regions and HEIs in EU countries, by facilitating transfer of knowledge and best practice in transparency and credit recognition. Furthermore it aims at promoting the exchange of knowhow and good practices among the partnership HEIs, thus creating IT’s tools in the management of mobility programmes as a part of a future internationalization strategy that may positively contribute to their development. This project will capitalize on the strengths of existing partnership, Erasmus Mundus CRUZ DEL SUR. It consists of 10 full member HEIs, targeting a total of 6 countries, 3 in Latin America: Honduras, Panama and Argentina; and 3 in Europe: Spain, Latvia and Portugal. Most of the Latin American HEIs (4 from 6) are situated in vulnerable areas (Less Developed Regions), into which the project intends to make a big impact. EU HEIs will play an extremely important role in the mobility implementation considering the experience gained during the last 30 years within the scope of Erasmus. The internationalization and modernisation of the Latin American HEI's for the comprehensive development constitutes the project backbone through the stenghthening of the International Relations Offices by means of training seminars focused on ""Academic Recognition"" and ""Informatics Tools for Mobility Management"". The transfer of know-how will be essential, in order to achieve a credit transfer system and to facilitate the study recognition in this Region. This project responds to the necessity of finding new and innovative solutions for the reinforcement of internationalization strategies of higher education institutions individually and potentially at national and regional level."

The objective is to establish a global network of remote controlled pendulum experiments for science education purposes and capacity building in higher education.The project main innovation will consist in the deployment of a network of pendulums distributed across the world.These pendulums are therefore remote experiments will allow students/general public to directly collect data from distinct points of the globe and study the physical characteristics of our planet on their own.The pendulum experiment has always been used transversely in different school levels and contexts, due to its simplicity yet rich in scientific information, making it a great experiment to provide diversified objectives, encompassing various educational levels and for developing a project able to promote cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices between the involved actors.Experimental apparatuses will be accessed remotely via a public web portal, enabling real-time access to the pendulums and experimental data collected, watching live videos stream and provide access to digital quality educational content, seamlessly integrated with the experiment.The main outcomes are: Establish the 1st global scope scientific remote experiment (Collecting experimental data in real time at a planetary scale; Students will be able to measure and conclude about one of earth’s physical characteristics on their own; Accessible to all students/general public via a dedicated web portal).Improving Science Education (Deliver high quality on-line remote experiments: serving education anytime, anywhere.Supporting scientific promotion by providing a modern, state-of-the-art educational asset Deliver open e/b-learning activities and supporting content); Capacity building in experimental learning (Promoting the professional development of staff and youth workers in ICT methodologies;Achieve a low-cost maintenance network, which operation and evolution can be supported sustainable by its participants)

The Free Network project is a Joint Action to be implemented in Central America. Its general objective is improving business opportunities for research-based entrepreneurs, promoting spin-off services in Higher Education Institutions and strengthening the innovation ecosystem in Central America. The FREE Consortium identified a lack of institutional regulations supporting the creation and development of spin-off, and the absence in most of the Central America universities of specific units with qualified and skilled staff. As consequence there is a very limited capacity to exploit the research results coming from academic/research staff and students. In this context FREE proposes facilitating the creation and development of spin-off companies. The project specific objective is the creation and modernisation of spin-off support services within 12 CA Higher Education Institutions through institutional and capacity building and the use of a regional network and platform.The FREE Network activities, implemented by 12 CA HEIS and 3 EU HEIs, will include: - in-depth needs analysis on research-based entrepreneurship in PC will provide a good insight of the situation of the CA HEIs in terms of spin-off regulations and units supporting research-based entrepreneurs;- capacity building for Innovation Support Offices (ISO) staff;- creation/adaptation of ISOs with appropriate institutional legislation, qualified HR and relevant infrastructure for providing spin-off support services;- creation of a regional platform for transferring good practices and exploiting synergies at regional level; - an ambitious disseminating and exploitation strategy of the project outputs;

Latin American countries face the challenge of transforming into knowledge-based societies. Adaptation to these challenges has prompted universities to revise their traditional functions and assume a proactive role in contributing to economic and social development of the society. TETRIS general objective is to enhance to building trust in academic research and in university-industry collaboration by improving the effectiveness of Technology Transfer activities at the Partner Country HEIs. The project aims to improve the level of institutionalization of the ‘third mission’ of the partner universities from Latin America. The development of innovation schemes at institutional level will facilitate and encourage university-industry partnerships. More systematic efforts are required to unlock the potential of research and innovation results. The project will address the regional priority by a carefully designed set of capacity building actions targeting two intervention areas: i) institutional policies on IP and technology transfer and ii) institutional set-up and mechanisms for technology transfer and innovation. The project has three phases: the initial phase is about detailed assessment of Technology Transfer performance and will result in individual development needs. The next phase is the design and development of organisational, operational models and technology transfer mechanisms. The last phase is dedicated to the implementation: universities will adopt and implement elements of the previously developed models that suits best the institutional strategy and capability. Upskilling professionals and improving the knowledge transfer function together will allow them to actively engage with the innovation ecosystem and will have a multiplier effect on research and education. The project will contribute to increase openness and transparency by developing a technology transfer innovation scheme.