WIT welcomes Erasmus+ European funding across multiple disciplines including Health Sciences and Humanities
Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) have achieved considerable success in the recent 2020 call of the ERASMUS+ programme. ERASMUS+ is the EU's programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Started in 2014 and concluding in 2020, ERASMUS+ had an overall budget of €14.7 billion to provide opportunities for over 4 million Europeans to study, train and gain international experience.
The four WIT led projects were submitted to ERASMUS+ KEY ACTION 1, which focusses on facilitating students, trainees and young people, as well as for professors, teachers, trainers, youth workers, staff of education institutions and civil society organisations to undertake a learning or professional experience in another country. ERASMUS+ is ideally constructed to address one of the strategic goals of the Waterford Institute of Technology’s Strategic Plan 2018 – 2020, published in May, 2018.
The India project
The academic partners in the ERASMUS+ project with India include WIT, the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group, WIT (TSSG) and India Institute of Technology, Delhi, ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Gwalior, and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (AMRITA University, Kerala, India).
The WIT project with India focusses specifically on mobility of WIT staff members to and from India for training purposes on the formulation of joint courses and research and innovation in areas such as smart agriculture and rural development in smart villages. The funding for the India project is primarily for funding travel for the setting up of training workshops of 2-3 weeks duration at the partner institutions in both Ireland and in India over a period of three years.
According to the coordinator, James Clarke, of TSSG, “The planned ERASMUS+ project with India builds upon our past strong relationships and work in India.. Over the past decade, I had the pleasure to coordinate a number of projects involving India, including the European FP7 BIC project, Science Foundation Ireland Research Ireland India (RII) project and a four year project funded by the Delegation of the European Union to India project entitled EU – India FI-Media. The ERASMUS+ project also builds upon a successful networking session that I organised at ICT 2018 in Vienna entitled EU & India Clustering on IoT technologies for Smart Agriculture, and the strong relationships established in these projects and initiatives”, said Clarke.
The USA projects
In addition to the India project, WIT are partnering on three ERASMUS+ projects with the USA.
Coordinated by Dr Niamh Murphy, senior lecturer in the school of Health Sciences at Waterford Institute of Technology, the first project builds on a global teaching project entitled TEACH Colab (Transnational Education and Community Health Collaboratory). This project will connect staff and students across disciplines in WIT and the University of Washington, Bothell in Seattle (UW with vocational community health partners. This project engages community health partners as active teachers and learners in the partnership and allows students undertake vocational training in real world settings. The timing of the international visits will allow for maximum exposure of non-travelling students to the opportunities provided by the partnership through UW’s COIL (collaborative Online International Learning) initiative. Dr Murphy said, “We have established strong connections with our colleagues at UW Bothell, which are built around themes of health equality. We are very excited to be able to offer this opportunity to our students of Public Health and Health Promotion at WIT, which we feel will expand the societal impact of our work. All going well, the first group of students are due to travel to the USA in 2021”.
Dr Don O’Neill, senior lecturer in the School of Humanities at WIT, is partnering with Johnson and Wales University, in Providence, Rhode Island. This partnership will enable two students from the WIT’s BA (Hons) Culinary Arts programme to spend a semester studying at WIT’s partner university in Rhode Island.
Dr O’Neill commented, “Students on our four-year culinary programme spend the third year of their studies on international placement, comprising a semester studying at a partner university and a semester working in an international culinary setting”. Dr O’Neill added, “We are particularly pleased to collaborate with Johnson and Wales University as it is one of the leading institutions in North America in the area of culinary arts and offers exceptionally rich and varied learning opportunities for our students.
Dr Alan Davy, Head Of Department Of Computing And Mathematics at WIT, is the winner of the third project with the USA. Dr Davy said, “International partnerships are core to the programmes that are offered by the Department of Computing and Mathematics. During the student’s flexible semester, they are provided an opportunity to study abroad at an international partner. The ERASMUS+ project focuses on specific areas of competency within the department including Cloud Computing and Virtual Reality technologies. The collaboration with Georgia Southern University will, therefore, support student placement both outgoing and incoming to develop new programmes of study and also student lead research projects in the identified disciplines.”
Multidisciplinary in WIT
Sinead Day, International Affairs Manager in WIT, commented on the success, “We are delighted with the success and wish the ERASMUS+ projects well. The office for International Relations has been actively encouraging all areas of WIT to apply for ERASMUS+ funding for student and staff mobility, as this is a key objective in internationalisation, and is an area in which we have made significant progress in recent years. In addition, we are particularly delighted that this ERASMUS+ funding has been granted for WIT and TSSG collaborations with the partner countries in United States of America and in India, as these are priority international education nations for WIT and Irish higher education.
On behalf of all of the coordinators, James Clarke concluded by saying, “the WIT applications to ERASMUS+ are coordinated overall by the office for International Relations in WIT and their help, encouragement and support is greatly appreciated in the submission process.”
With the current COVID-19 restrictions, it is likely the projects will fully commence in the first quarter of 2021.
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