PusH - Precarious Housing in Europe, aims to collect and discuss evidence on this growing European-wide phenomenon and make it available for teaching and dissemination in our partner institutions and beyond. The lack of decent, affordable housing and the occurrence of informal, illegal, or unsafe housing across all member states poses a threat to social inclusion in the EU, and hinders the mobility of EU citizens and the integration of third-country nationals. However, so far the issue has not been systematically taken up in curricula in HEIs across Europe. PusH addresses this gap by uniting seven partners from both older and younger EU member states enthusiastically committed to higher education and research that actively engage with societal needs, promote the co-creation of knowledge across disciplines, and bridge the research-practice divide. The consortium comprises HEIs involved in undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate education (Durham, Utrecht, Venice and Leuphana), the Danube-Krems University as a provider of continuing education for working professionals, as well as two partners from Bulgaria and Hungary as those countries where informal and precarious housing is a long-standing phenomenon. The Centre for Economic and Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (CERS HAS) in Budapest and the Open Society Institute in Sofia as a non-governmental, non-for-profit organization, have an established reputation for providing scientific evidence and policy advice on precarious housing and will facilitate the exchange, flow, and co-creation of knowledge on precarious housing within the PusH consortium and beyond.In order to reach its goals PusH will result in four textbook chapters on cross-cutting issues around precarious housing that will be used for teaching within the partner institutions and will be published open access for both students and teachers beyond this project. Each chapter will be made available as a corresponding e-learning module to reach a wider audience of students, lecturers and multipliers. All chapters and modules are going to be presented at separate multiplier events, in order to discuss and engage with associated partners such as local authorities, policy-makers, CBOs and NGOs. Moreover, PusH is going to organise two summer schools for students and lecturers from within our institutions. Apart from learning about the reasons for, and challenges of, precarious housing more generally, the first summer school in Bulgaria is going to allow students and lecturers to get first-hand impressions of informal housing of the Roma community, while the second summer school in Italy will draw from our partner’s experience and networks in the field of refugee migration and integration, both encouraging students and lecturers to engage with local practitioners.The PusH Strategic Partnership will therefore bring together a wealth of international expertise on precarious housing, migration, and urban change in Europe, along with partner third sector organisations, to co-create accessible and engaging resources for students and practitioners across Europe and to promote widespread understanding of precarious housing as an urgent political issue of our time.

The current pandemic crisis has changed the way in which we think and participate in our social relations, demanding for creative solutions and for rapid improvement of technologies.This new condition has had an effect on many different fields and contexts; however, it is undeniable that the spread of the COVID-19 represented a major challenge in the way in which teaching and learning are conceived and performed. The Higher Education sector has been hit heavily for the quick pace of the adoption of solution for blended and distance learning and the unpreparedness of the majority of lecturers and educators.FuturAbilty - Digital and Transversal Skills for online Teachers” gathers a Strategic Partnership of organisations - Universities, Research Centres and Cultural Enterprises - working with Visual Methods and Digital Learning tools willing to investigate, produce and share Open Educational Resources(OER) to make online teaching more attractive and accessible, in reference to the European Frameworks DigCompEdu and LifeComp. The main challenge is the development of pedagogies and digital tools that could enable teachers and trainers to transport the content of their lessons in participatory and engaging on-line forms.The broad scope of these materials is to provide university lecturers with key digital and transversal competences and to improve online teaching methods and tools through effective use of innovative solutions with a special attention to visual methods .The project focuses on the development of digital and transferable competences so that lecturers and educators become more resilient, increase their creativity and efficiency and acquire career adaptive competences. It will enable Higher Education Institutions to offer enhanced experiences, by up-skilling and re-skilling their lecturers/educators, thus raising the quality of life of the general publicAt last FutureAbilty wants to prepare lecturers, educators but also students to become true factors of change.The OERs will be piloted in six Countries, Particular attention will be given to the promotion of gender equality.The project will consolidate the results through the establishment of a Community of Practice.

Among the main challenges European cities are facing today, new patterns of social and spatial inequality are among the most pressing. Furthermore, the impacts of exclusion, displacement, gentrification and other processes associated with urban change are most visible at the neighbourhood level. The main purpose of the present project is to help empower citizens to more effectively influence local development processes that directly impact on their environments. All over Europe, citizen participation is often hindered by a lack of information, a lack of communication and cooperation between affected stakeholders as well as limited access to knowledge of the options available for voicing local interests. Citizens and stakeholders therefore require tools that can help them overcome barriers to participation. Our project involves the creation of a game based tool simulating neighbourhood participation to be used in training and teaching activities targeted at empowerment of citizens. The main target group of EUrbanities project is therefore composed by trainers and teachers who are actively working in different fields of education, related to empowerment of citizens and citizen participation: trainings of people working “on the field” as social workers, local development agents, etc; trainings in adult education or for youth for active citizenship. In order to achieve this main product EUrbanities project will follow a three years long project cycle organised in three main phases:1. construction of the knowledge: experience evaluations on neighborhood level development programs2. creation of the game tool: identification of scenarios of participation and the creation of an interactive online game facilitating the simulation of these scenarios 3. promotion and sustainability of the game tool: development of a list of pedagogical recommendations and of a Product Dissemination Plan. Along these three main phases, the main outcomes of the project will be as follows:1. An ebook and a printed booklet presenting the experience evaluations and the methods used 2. An ebook and a printed booklet presenting the identified scenarios of citizen participation and the methods of simulation games3. An online game tool facilitating the simulation of participation in training4. A list of pedagogical recommendations for the use of the game tool in trainings and teaching5. A Product Dissemination Plan identifying the activities needed for the sustainable extension of the use of the tool EUrbanities will be built around different types of interactive transnational meetings and training sessions: transnational meetings for the presentation and exchange of experience evaluations, transnational meetings for the practical simulation of scenarios of citizen participation, two training courses and transnational meetings for the experimentation of the tool. The project will be closed by a large multiplier event. Teaching and learning activities will be continuously present in the project via non formal and formal training. The lead consortium partner consists will engage 7 members. As a common background, they are all engaged in urban and social issues, with a particular focus on questions of locality, civil participation, social aspects of urban development.. However, the consortium’s various approaches, activities and organizational forms reflect different remits and approaches:1.institutional (basic) research (higher education); 2.locally embedded action research (vocational, primary and secondary education); 3.intercultural dialogue activities and trainings (non-formal and adult education)as well as further special focuses on e-media, web development and game producing.The project lead partner, Comparative Research Network has a sound experience in multidisciplinary research as well as in the organisation of international workshops and trainings in intercultural dialogue, digital storytelling, action research on bordering processes.EUrbanities will have a direct impact on approximately 4000 people including participants of meetings and trainings, visitors of the project web site and the project’s sites on the social media, readers of articles on the project and of course those who consult the project’s results. As the main indirect effect played by the project is on urban neighbourhoods where local development projects take place (or will take place), we may presume that the indirect impact of the project have long-term relevance for a large section of the EU’s population. The sustainability of the project’s results and the extension of its use on further stakeholders in other countries is at the core of the dissemination plan of the project. The Product Dissemination Plan will identify the main actions needed for the extension and sustainability of the game tool and all stakeholders will be invited to sign it and to commit themselves in some of the identified actions.

Schools are on the frontline in developing basic skills and key competences related to STEM education. However, the latest results of the OECD assessment programme PISA for 2015 show that the issue of under-achievement of 15-year olds in STEM is more pertinent in South and Eastern European countries, which score below the OECD average. Moreover, further studies reveal a gender gap regarding STEM education, where boys seem to be more engaged and perform better than girls.The European Commission has recognized that STEM subjects cannot be viewed in isolation, but need to be combined with environmental and socio-economic developments, and has adopted two policy documents on schools and higher education that expand STEM into STEAM, adding an “A” for “Art”. The WaterSTEAM project proposes the development of an innovative and integrated learning methodology for secondary school education, adopting an inquiry-based student-centred and interactive STEAM approach integrated with social and civic awareness, encouraging students to fully participate in social and civic life. The proposed methodology requires STEAM subjects to be embedded into their social and cultural context, incorporating students' experiences with global issues like environmental concerns, developing their critical thinking skills and social responsibility. The theme chosen for pilot-testing and refining the proposed WaterSTEAM methodology is European Landscape and the role of Water in shaping it. As a reflection of European identity and diversity, the landscape is our living natural and cultural heritage. The European Landscape Convention (2000) stimulates the European states in active participation in improving the knowledge about landscapes, their characteristics and the forces transforming them. The project focuses on how water can transform the landscape, applying a multidisciplinary methodology of investigation, consistent with the Convention. The theme provides a most suitable context for STEAM learning by relating it to global issues (e.g. climate change, green economy, renewable energy).The objectives of the proposed project include: -to help teachers acquire skills and competences necessary for applying an integrated STEAM methodology, through an inquiry-based approach combined with AR tools. Teachers will be trained in using the learning methodology, AR tools and a collaborative implementation framework, and pilot-test it in school.-to develop a teaching and learning methodology for secondary school educators, adopting the STEAM approach and linking it to promoting active civic engagement, integrating Art creative learning and citizenship education to other major school subjects, addressing at the same time the gender barrier in STEM education. -to enhance the above methodology with features of experiential learning, by bringing the student out in nature and providing the appropriate tools for the identification and documentation of real-world phenomena. -to develop and test Augmented Reality (AR) tools necessary for implementing the methodology, adding valuable elements to promoting civic awareness and dialogue between different groups in the community-to encourage teachers to collaborate with their colleagues from a wide range of disciplines (science, technology, math, engineering, art, languages) and develop a well-rounded interdisciplinary approach in teaching -to raise the teachers and students’ awareness about the importance of European landscape as natural and cultural heritage, the value of water and the importance of global environmental issues on a local level- to create a practical Handbook for teachers of secondary education with step by step guidance on applying the proposed methodology and tools, and recommendations for its optimal integration in different educational systems The target groups to be addressed are teachers and students in the secondary education, including school ages between 12 and 18 years. Stakeholders include organisations of the education community, decision makers at local, regional and central level, higher education institutions, and the civil society active in the fields of education and the environment.The transnational dimension of the project has many advantages and creates added value: The proposed methodology and tools will be tested in different educational systems, producing insight on how to best meet the needs of the curriculum and learning methods in each country. The partners will contribute innovative elements that pertain in the education system of their own country or region, and cross fertilize the products of the project with the best features of these systems. Finally, by testing the proposed methodology and tools in 3 different learning environments, disseminating them and promoting their integration to different educational systems through policy recommendations, the mainstreaming potential of the project products in educational systems throughout Europe is enhanced.