First-year students in the Physics Teacher Training program at Hogeschool Rotterdam face a systemic lack of goal-orientation and motivation during independent study. Addressing this challenge, we developed a gamification approach last academic year, drawing inspiration from the role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons." In this project, we employ a design-oriented approach to optimize and evaluate our gamification, expecting that the game will contribute to enhancing the self-regulated learning of our students—a crucial aspect of their development as future educators.

Freight transport is one of the major causes of CO2 emissions and congestion globally. For the past thirty years, policy attempts and research initiatives have been carried out to create modal shift to rail and waterborne transport. However, we still experience a system that is predominantly truck-based, and that does not exploit the full potential of the well-connected network and the deployed capacity. By aligning business models, operations, regulations, behavioural incentives, data management, and AI, we lead the transition to a sustainable and fair “matching platform” for composite services, defined as Freight Mobility as a Service (FMaaS).

The construction sector produces an excessive amount of construction and demolition waste, which could easily be re-used instead and thus lead to a more circular construction sector. This requires a significant change in the systems, behaviors, and economies present in this industry. The UPSCALE project aims to make these changes. It builds a peer-to-peer network of circular supply chains, in which contractors, engineers, and house owners can re-use products of each other. This is tested in three demonstrator sites across the Netherlands, aiming to bring highly needed change in circular behavior and business models for the built environment.

Poor social experiences with peers, such as peer rejection or peer victimization, and with teachers, such as receiving low support or having conflictual relations with teachers during elementary school impede children’s self- and stress-regulation. The affected self- and stress-regulation places these children at risk of developing similar troublesome relations with teachers and peers after the transition to high school. We propose to develop a serious game named A.L.I.B.I. to help children make a successful transition from elementary school to high school. In A.L.I.B.I. children play in a virtual high school environment. The objective of A.L.I.B.I. is to uncover an alien, who is disguised as a teacher or peer. By engaging in prosocial interactions with teachers and peers, by taking the perspective of others, by learning to overthink multiple response options before acting, and by valuing long term perspectives over short term goals, children will receive clues that will help them to uncover the alien. The advantage of A.L.I.B.I. is that through the use of a virtual school environment, it provides children a realistic yet safe environment to learn and rehearse prosocial behaviors, to prepare them for the new social environment. In addition, A.L.I.B.I. is intuitively attractive for children, through its use of game elements and presentation on a tablet computer. The proposed ERC PoC grant has the goal to (1) develop A.L.I.B.I. into a stand-alone serious game that will be ready for implementation, (2) to test the effectiveness of A.L.I.B.I., (3) to integrate A.L.I.B.I. in ongoing school transition trainings as provided by three school counseling organizations in three regions in The Netherlands, and (4) to develop a marketing strategy for broader Dutch and European implementation.

Context and objectives of the project:Intercultural competences are crucially needed in our globalised world because of the increasing diversity and the pressing global challenges we face in our societies. In the year 2015 while planning the project there was the sudden flow of asylum seekers to Europe. We found an urgent need in the adult education sector to learn new ways and methods of how to teach newcomers in intercultural settings.This project aimed at promoting intercultural learning by developing arts-based and action-oriented methods and by producing new material for intercultural teaching and learning. Moreover, the project’s objective has been to enhance educators’ capacities to shape intercultural awareness and teach intercultural competences in culturally diverse settings.Participants and activities:During the project, we created, tested, taught and evaluated a variety of methods in the six adult education institutions in Finland, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Italy, Romania and Poland. Each partner piloted different arts-based and action-oriented methods in their local groups. These pilot groups were culturally diverse and there were learners from a variety of backgrounds. For example, participants included deaf people, minorities, refugees and people with different socio-economic backgrounds.As intercultural competences consist not only of knowledge but also skills and attitudes such as empathy and active listening, learning beyond the book is vital. That is why we were exploring how different kinds of arts-based and action-oriented methods can be effectively applied in multicultural settings. By combining creative practices with theories on intercultural competences, we developed new insights on how to create spaces for intercultural learning.During the last quarter of the project the partners implemented dissemination events with different kinds of themes for representing the variety of content of the guidebook. All the outputs collected to the guidebook are so comprehensive that they need an own event or own workshop in one event. All partners have also made the dissemination work by informing their stakeholders in their newsletters, web sites and social media channels Results, impacts and long term benefits:The project results brought new approaches to the choice of the methods for intercultural learning activities. The main output of the project is a digital guidebook for teachers, facilitators and educators, which contains all the materials developed through the project. The book provides new theoretical approaches on intercultural teaching and learning as well as practical methodological tools for educators. It also introduces an innovative reflection method to be applied by the educators and how to use game-like elements in intercultural learning. In addition we created the e-book for all people who are interested in intercultural learning. It is an interactive online tool that can be interesting for anyone to “challenge” their own intercultural competences and learn new point of view.The results of the project are available for all who are interested of intercultural learning and ways of promoting it. The guidebook and the e-book are open for everyone and easily accessed since it is published in a digital format. Guidebook is published in PDF format and it can easily be printed entirely or partly for present needs. The books can be benefitted by all kinds of educators, facilitators, instructors, social workers, community pedagogues and youth workers. In addition to the adult education field, the project results are useful for other sectors working with culturally diverse groups, such as NGOs and cultural organisations.Investing in educators’ capacity building yields long term benefits because they play an in important role in fostering enlightened, creative and interculturally competent global citizens. The project has brought new perspectives to actual and important themes, as intercultural competence is a prerequisite for community dialogue, civic engagement and inclusion, community building, problem solving, celebrating diversity and finding common ground.