The context of the DASCHE project was created mostly by the Bologna Process. The framework of the 2018-2020 perspective of the Bologna Process was formulated in the Paris Communiqué of 2018 and the Rome Communique expected in 2020. In the previous perspective educating students for the needs of the labour market was particularly emphasized. The last Communiqués are focused on social responsibility of universities and shaping social competences of students, also referring to the sustainable development goals formulated by the United Nations (UN). The European Qualifications Framework comprised the pillar of “competences: autonomy and responsibility” containing the social competences descriptors.The challenges posed by social life, related to a continuous change, demographic processes and social exclusion, threats to democracy, expected drop in demand for labour and the ongoing digitalisation, migrations and terrorism, and, last but not least, to climate change, require an adequate response from the systems of education; they should shape the competences enabling to face those challenges. Including social competences into curricula and teaching/learning process is difficult. They are multidimensional, involving a variety of learning outcomes concerning ethical, cultural, group and civic- oriented attitudes of learners; they often seem to be meta-competences, which cannot be seen as independent from knowledge and skills. Higher education institutions and national level policy makers need assistance in designing, delivering and validating social competences of students. The systems of internal and external quality evaluation and assurance face the same difficulty, the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) do not provide sufficient guidance. The main objective of DASCHE project was to support national and European learning policy and by it to provide assistance to HEIs in shaping social competences of students.This main objective was divided into two sub-aims: •A detailed analysis of way of forming the social competences by 26 HEIs from 6 countries including: social competences inclusion into the HE qualifications and curricula, teaching/learning methods, responsibilities of HEIs and other institutions for shaping social competences of students, standards and criteria of external and internal quality assurance, ongoing debate on development of social competences. •Based on this analysis identification of ways of introducing and assessing social competences in the formal HE qualifications – teaching/learning process which resulted with the DASCHE recommendations on institutional, national and European levels. Therefore, the purpose of DASCHE was not only to provide a better understanding of the social competences issues but also to gather sets of good practices in shaping and assessing these competences within HE programmes – providing an inspiration or guidance for decision makers, universities and QA agencies, teachers, students and the others. The DASCHE participants were divided into three beneficiary groups of the project results. Group 1 consists of project target group: policy-makers at the national and EU levels, accreditation agencies, HEIs, higher education councils and rector’s conferences involved directly in development and assessment of social competences in HE. Group 2 involves researchers, academicians, learners and other groups interested in HE policies. Indirect beneficiaries formed the group 3 containing the HE learners who could benefit from better HE and LLL policies. The project results are be of interest to participants in other countries. In total the number of participants can be evaluated for about 20 million of people. The project was implemented in partnership of University of Bremen (Germany), Academic Information Centre (Latvia), Centre for Higher Education Studies (Czech Republic), University of Durham (United Kingdom), University of Twente (the Netherlands), SGH Warsaw School of Economic (Poland, leader). Associated partners of the project were: National Unions of Students in Europe (Belgium), European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Belgium), Council of Higher Education of Latvia (Latvia), University of Cologne (Germany), Czech Rectors Conference (Czech Republic), Students’ Parliament of the Republic of Poland (Poland), Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (Poland), Polish Accreditation Committee (Poland), National Representation of PhD Candidates (Poland), National Council for Science and Higher Education (Poland) and the Polish Rectors Foundation – Institute of Knowledge Society (Poland).The activities of DASCHE project were divided into 5 working packages devoted to: methodology of country reports, the country reports themselves, elaboration of results of country reports delivering guidance for development of social competences in HEIs practice, dissemination and exploitation of results and project management. Due to them DASCHE achieved 8 major Intellectual Outputs (IO1 – methodology report, IO2-7 – country reports, IO8 – model solutions. The DASCHE methodological approach based on qualitative case studies method run by the following principles: collecting reliable data, involving participants, applying tailor made dissemination and exploitation strategy to achieve relevant impact and project sustainability, involving associated partners, effective management and QA solutions. As a result of the project 26 case studies given in the country reports were analyzed and resulted with the IO8 – model solution. Since social competences were specific to institutional missions, national contexts and needs of students; a one-size-for-all approach was not beneficiary and not recommended. Also one standardized common definition of social competences has not been adopted in the DASCHE project - the variety of national and institutional social competences characteristics, which were determined both by the tradition in higher education and legislative context was noticed. Nevertheless all of them recognize social competences as an overall meta-competence, built over knowledge and skills, enriched by axiological reflection, enabling an independent and responsible application of social competences, aimed at common social good.In conclusions, the diagnosis of the state of play in domain of shaping social competencies of students expressed by the project associated partners and participants are as follows:−Shaping social competences of graduates is one of the crucial goals of higher education; −There is too little attention paid to what the social competences are and by mean of what didactic methods they are to be shaped; −This situation should be changed starting with a debate on conceptualization of social competences on institutional and national levels; such debates were carried on in chosen countries only; −Higher education institutions are getting too less support from legislation and from decision makers of different levels to implement effective process of designing and implementing the social competences into teaching and learning process; −Only in chosen higher education institutions and countries the activities devoted directly and intentionally for shaping social competences were undertaken. More often it is understood as a side-effect of the teaching and learning process and left to the teachers’ personal engagement; −But teachers are not sufficiently prepared to integrate effectively social competences into study courses; −Achievement of social competences is not well recognized and evaluated by quality assurance agencies. The impact of DASCHE was multidimensional – referring to formulation and implementation of EU policies as well as activities focused on social competences on national and institutional levelsTwo main recommendations of the DASCHE project were formulated:1.To create room to reflect on designing, developing and assessing social competences of students in higher education institutions (HEIs).2.To run continuous debate among HEIs, HEIs Associations, Quality Assurance Agencies, Students’ Associations, employers, NGOs, national and European policy makers about social competences in higher education. The number of selected recommendations addressed to institutional decision makers and academic teachers as well as to national decision makers such as government ministries or quality assurance agencies and to institutions and organizations responsible for EHEA were formulated. Methods of dissemination adopted in the project should ensure both the project’s results availability and that they will be suitable for the project target groups. The project gave the free access to the main intellectual outputs at the project’s webpage on SGH portal including scientific papers and articles. The results of the project were printed in synthetic way in the brochure and discussed during two international conferences: in Bremen and in Warsaw.