The present “NORTEXCEL2020” proposal is the response of the Portuguese Norte region to the call “WIDESPREAD 1-2014: Teaming” for creating or upgrading centres of excellence, building on partnerships between leading scientific institutions in Europe and low performing countries and regions, in terms of research and innovation performance. This proposal is sponsored and coordinated by the Norte Regional Authority and comes as a direct follow-up to the region’s Smart Specialization Strategy, being born from the entrepreneurial discovery process at the origin of the RIS3, and intended to build on and expand the specialization paths selected for the region, that will be supported under the new regional Operational Programme. The consortium is highly complementary and aligned with the challenges placed by the TEAMING call. The three organizations coming from the low performing region in Portugal (CCDR-N, IPP and INOVA+) have previous experience of working together and perfectly complement each other, creating the necessary conditions for the sprouting of a new, successful, innovation initiative in the region, under the guidance of a very experience partner from a high performing region: JOANNEUM RESEARCH. The Vision for the new centre of excellence is to create a world-leading centre in the Norte region of Portugal, contributing to the regional competitiveness of the research, innovation and business contexts through activities of excellence in applied research, technology development and innovation of an international dimension, becoming the leading regional organization in terms of participation in H2020. NORTEXCEL2020 will develop research and innovation activities integrating core requirements and scenarios from the medical technology application domain (focusing on medical devices, assistive technologies and wellbeing solutions). This application domain will explore new results and research in the areas of health technologies, advanced materials and ICT.

Beyond teaching history, science or languages, teachers guide our children… shaping the attitudes, skills, & values they will use in the world beyond the classroom (Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah)Early Childhood Education is considered an important base for life-long learning & whole person development & the most important & most vital of all stages in the proper development of a child whether is in the emotional, behavioral or cognitive domain. Early years of child life are crucial as it is of the utmost importance in the child's physical, emotional & intellectual development.In line with the current digital era, teachers are required to integrate ICT in their daily teaching &replace their traditional methods with modern tools &facilities. (ICT4EDU) proposal addresses the need in Jo-HEIs for newly graduated student teachers to be able to teach using ICT, & for improving teachers & students digital competence, especially when dealing with children with special educational needs or disabilities, ICT plays a key role to facilitate their education process. Carrying out (ICT4EDU) project trans-nationally is essential for under-setting practices, & impacting policies & curricula in school of educational sciences & the integration of ICT teacher education to meet the requirements for digitally competent youth & children. The Main objective of (ICT4EDU) project in to enhance the quality of ICT competencies of early childhood teacher’s educators in the (8) higher education institutions in Jordan, Palestine and Egypt in line with advance EU practices, thereby enhancing the quality of the education in pre-schools in Jordan, Palestine and Egypt.

<< Background >>Most of the students that finish their courses at HEIs get the technical skills. But, do they know the purpose of such skills? Are they prepared to apply them to their jobs? And, the technical skills do not represent the full story. Businesses live in a global digital connected world. Although actual students are digital natives do they get the necessary digital competencies, like do collaborative work using digital technologies?The aim of D-PBL project is to combine digital teaching-learning with project-based learning, applied in an international context. PBL focuses on problem solving and solutions seekers, providing students with a rich learning path, given that the job market increasingly demands transversal skills in teams to achieve a better collective intelligence effort. D-PBL promotes outcomes-oriented learning while integrating transdisciplinary approaches with innovative active pedagogic practices.Students, mainly, and lecturers, jointly, are the target groups to be addressed in the project. The former benefit from increasing their digital competencies, above all those that will be structural when they enter into their jobs, and also benefit from a recent, but effective, pedagogical learning process that focus, both on the technical competencies, and the transversal ones. The latter benefit from actualization of digital competencies and improving their pedagogical skills, likewise becoming more effective while lecturing, and, at the same time, establishing a mutual communication platform with their students. Together, all benefit from the inclusion in Europe, exchanging learning experiences and progressing with other European mates, but avoiding the awkward traveling costs, time consumption, and settling.Collaborating in the creation of methodologies and tools aimed at developing specific students’ competences will enable teachers/lecturers to act in correspondence with the HE institutions’ strategy and better respond to the actual societal needs. Developing core competencies in higher education graduates has become an actual and trend issue due to the greatest concerns of students, governments, and employers about the quality of higher education outcomes.<< Objectives >>The objectives of D-PBL project ground on three dimensions: give sense to the technical skills by providing a real context to the learning path, give effective business-useful digital competencies, and integrate students in real multi-national teams. Partial specific objectives include: assess lecturers digital skills (as lecturers digital skills should be solid in order to teach them to students); train the lecturers with the necessary blend of digital and pedagogic competences; conceive the space (room) where students and lecturers will work on their projects, enabling both the technical context and digital apparatus, i.e. create the D-PBL cell; organize multi-national teams working on business problems, finding solutions, while communicating over digital technologies.Students will gain new competencies in distant project work based on real problems, combining and using the benefits of new technologies. Disadvantaged students, as well as those already employed, will have an opportunity to engage and benefit from international mobility despite the barriers they may face preventing them to go on physical mobility. Teachers/Lecturers will get the opportunity to explore new methodologies. All the intervenient will get involved with digital technologies, getting used to participating in digitally mediated work sessions, acquiring skills in the use of specific hardware and software, internalizing the best practices in virtual environments in such a way that their levels of productivity in such environments will get increased and their motivation and readiness to participate in virtual mobility and exchange will lift. This project will contribute to streamlining innovative teaching-learning paradigms and technologies aimed to develop soft skills in different contexts. Multiplier effects will be facilitated since all partners will be able to demonstrate to newcomers the D/BPL pedagogies in practice at their digital cells.During the project implementation, the team will deliver a set of Outputs (Results) developed, mostly, to train and empower HE lecturers in the usage of EAD and PBL methodology for the benefit of the students, as well as to enhance the adoption of innovative technologies and pedagogies in Higher Education.<< Implementation >>The D-PBL project is scheduled for 24 months. The first stage will be dedicated to diagnose digital skills weaknesses in the lecturers and train them. In parallel, the working environment (the D-PBL cell) will be conceived, assembled, evaluated, and replicated among the six participants. In the final activity, the cells and procedures will be tuned in real working multi-national PBL student groups and all the emerging knowledge will be recorded.The project's sequence of activities towards the main results starts with the assessment of the lecturers/teachers' digital literacy levels, and for that the project will deliver the EAD Digital Competencies Survey (R1). The project will then develop the EAD Training Toolkit/Course for Teachers (R2), which will include user manuals (in video and e-book format) in technical, pedagogical, and behavioral features. By the same time the project will be designing the Architecture of Digital D-PBL Cells (R3), considering that most of its building blocks already exist in the university partners. Next, happens the Piloting phase that will follow a 2-stage format: 1st) training the trainers, and 2nd) the application in real context with students carried out through experimental courses. Finally, a set of Guidelines for Digital Problem-based Teaching-Learning (R4) will be conceived.The D-PBL project encompasses four main groups of participants, being the main targets students and lecturers. Their involvement in the project activities is planned as follows: A) Students: students will come from the six HEI partners and will be integrated in the piloting phase; they will work on the real projects proposed by companies (PBL) under the advising of the lecturers. B) Lecturers: like students, lecturers will come from the six HEI partners; they will also participate in the piloting phase, as they will be advising the PBL student groups, and the more proficient lecturers on digital technologies will also participate in the preliminary training phase, teaching their colleagues according to the EAD Training Toolkit/Course for Teachers. C) IT support staff: each HEI partner will select the respective IT staff that will support students and lecturers and maintain the IT systems purposefully working for the D-PBL project. D) Companies: actually every HEI partner already has established relationships with companies, but they will call them to action, participating with real problems and challenges suggestions; the real problems and challenges are the core of the work of the PBL groups.<< Results >>The main project results, for which all partners will jointly contribute, will be: ●EAD Digital Competencies Survey (R1) where the actual digital competencies of the academic staff will be assessed;●EAD Training Toolkit/Course for Teachers (R2) where manuals (in video and e-book format) and a training course are produced/designed according to the weaknesses detected in R1;●Architecture of Digital D-PBL Cells (R3) where the working space (cells), respective furniture, decking, hardware, and software are conceived, designed, assembled, tested and replicated;●Guidelines for Digital Problem-based Teaching-Learning (R4) where the D-PBL cells and pedagogical techniques are taken into practice in multi-national student groups working in projects, while all the knowledge and savoir-faire that emerge in the project is recorded; this will work as referential for other HEIs.Developing and piloting the D-PBL proposed model will both allow to introduce pedagogical and methodological novelties in the partners’ study processes, as well as contribute to the development of the new educational models in the EHEA (European Higher Education Area) while contributing to sustainability targets. The most important long-term benefit envisaged by the D-PBL project is the effectiveness of the students’ competence while working in companies, mastering both the technical and the digital skills, after D-PBL had a role during their educational path at the HEI. Then, HEIs’ mission would have been accomplished. In addition, the method of D-PBL project is disseminated and extensively applied, turning HEIs more effective while educating well-equipped citizens, ready for the XXI century. The D-PBL partnership will contribute to further enrich the quality, inclusiveness, digital and green dimension of EU Member States education systems. D-PBL will help shaping the European Education Area based on freedom for students and teachers to learn and work internationally and for institutions to freely associate with one another in Europe and worldwide. The project outcomes contribute to build a high-performing digital education ecosystem with enhanced digital competences for the digital transformation, as foreseen by the “Digital Education Action Plan (2021 – 2027)”.