"The purpose of this project is to address topics that are rarely covered within the usual training frameworks: the use of electroacoustic and audiovisual techniques for educational purposes, the use of recording tools in musical education, the question of the soundscape we live in and, principally, listening training through familiarisation with new technologies, not to forget the issue of hearing risks. Five organisations – GMVL (France), TEMPO REALE and Amici Della Musica di Cagliari (Italy), AFEA (Portugal) and EPHMEE (Greece) – are involved in this project. They work in different and complementary areas, such as centres of musical creation, universities and musical education establishments, and regularly provide training courses at conservatories, music schools, publishers and art schools.The project draws on a large number of learning activities. It is based on exchanges of experience and numerous meetings concerning methods of education and knowledge transfer, all leading to the creation of new documentation using digital resources. The main aims are to: • Respond to needs and requests for training on listening and sound production, in an appropriate manner, by providing tools to the widest possible audience at European level, as well as to establish as many links as possible with major educational establishments, in each of the countries concerned, including national education institutions, universities, and organisations providing initial and ongoing training for adults. • Learn to become aware of sound environments around us, know how to analyse them, and be able to identify their sources; extract constituent elements forming the identity of each soundscape, understand the acoustic signature of a place, a space or a culture. Natural and urban soundscapes are given equal importance. • Encourage and promote artistic creation through the use of sound materials recorded by numerous participants, and exchange the materials gathered. Find relevant modes of sound creation for the various types of soundscape studied (sound installations, compositions for concerts, radiophonic creations, multimedia productions, online media, etc.). • Focus on the question of 'acoustic ecology'; raise our awareness of the idea of ""sound pollution"" and of the impact of noise on our behaviours. Here, it is important to draw attention to the important issue of hearing risks by promoting knowledge of how the ear works. • The main objective of this website is to provide the above-mentioned users at European level with a corpus of documentation: visual and sound documents, experience reports, activity reports, artistic productions that can serve as examples and provide a basis for further work, purely educational documentation and specific tools developed within the framework of the partnership. Use of digital tools must be simplified as far as possible in order to make them easy to access for all users.By providing training tools and a major database of free documentation online, accessibility will be ensured for very different audiences, including teaching staff in particular, as well as young composers and anybody interested in sound.To achieve these many objectives, a program of activities was set up during the three years of the project:- Exchanges of experience and skills in the framework of 6 transnational meetings organized in each of the countries concerned plus conferences, symposia, etc.- Several training sessions both technical and artistic around the issues of listening training, sound recording, sound editing and studio creation, and various teaching practices observed during visits in schools.- A large number of dissemination activities have been organized at festivals: concerts, sound installations, etc. in partnership with many cultural institutions or dedicated to training (universities, schools of art or music, conservatories, media libraries, museums, naturalist parks) etc.)- The realization of many ""intellectual productions"" feeding the website, dealing with both pedagogical and artistic issues and providing diverse and numerous resources.Results and impacts correspond to expectations, both qualitatively (quality of production and diversity of target audiences) and quantitatively (number of participants in training actions and public events). However, it is in the long term that the benefits of the project can be assessed, since all the activities and productions of the project were put online at the end of the project. These training tools and the free database (audio, visual and written) are available to extremely different audiences, mainly teachers, but also young composers and all sound lovers."

<< Background >>Traditionally, many European interpreter training institutions in higher education contexts have focused mostly on conference interpreter training to prepare its students and graduates for work in international business, technical, or diplomatic contexts. Spurned by societal changes, which lead to more diverse and transcultural societies, over the last twenty years the focus in some university training curricula has been expanded to also include interpreting in inner-social public service settings (e.g. interpreting in legal, medical, therapeutic, and social service settings), a field, that has come to be known as Public Service Interpreting (PSI), also referred to as dialogue or community interpreting. PSI, however, is still in many countries a field with a low degree of professionalisation and institutionalisation, that is characterised by the use of non-trained interpreters (lay interpreters) or interpreters with only little training. If training is available, it is still often offered outside a higher education context and in heterogeneous, often short-term training formats. Students and graduates of traditional higher education interpreter training institutions often have little insight into this field and are sometimes ill prepared for the ethical and professional challenges arising in such contexts. Recent geopolitical developments, that have resulted in mass migration, have made the need for overcoming language barriers in a humanitarian and migration context and in social service settings even more prevalent in many countries along European migration routes and host countries. Research has helped to shed light on the challenges and ethical dilemmas in high-stake encounters over the last two decades, yet the challenges of interpreting in a humanitarian and migration context still often remain undiscussed or under-represented in higher education classrooms, which is also the case in the projects partners’ countries which lie along migration routes and have served as reception and host countries. The overarching aim of this project thus is to raise awareness among interpreting students, as well as teachers of interpreting at higher education institutions for ongoing geopolitical developments and how these impact interpreting in both an inner-social and specifically transnational/transborder context. The project will address the needs of those working in such fields and make students and teachers in a higher education context understand the challenges of not only mediating in such a context, but also of the need for adequate management of language service provision and ensuring the facilitation of access to information resources for stakeholders and refugees. By giving voice to stakeholders (interpreters, institutional representatives) and those in need of information (migrants and refugees), and drawing on their ample individual experience, we aim to shed light on the most prominent issues pertaining to this domain. We will develop a range of sustainable, easy-to-use digital training material that is based on the authentic experience and insight of both those working in the field (interpreters, institutional representatives) as well as refugees as those who are most in need of information delivered through the services of interpreters. Based on a survey-based needs assessment in reception centers and transit zones, as well as interviews with stakeholders, we will produce a range of sustainable training materials (vod-/podcasts, user training videos, game-based simulations) that will complement existing resources and be available for students and teachers on a training platform. Students and teachers will be involved early in this process, both in the production of the planned material and the review and feedback process.<< Objectives >>The aim of this project is to raise awareness for the issue of interpreting in a humanitarian and transborder migration context among students and teachers of higher education interpreter training facilities and contribute to the diversification of didactic materials by developing a range of educational tools. These tools will be made available in a sustainable digital format; they will complement existing resources and can be disseminated and utilised in a higher education context but may also be used in other training environments. By incorporating a game-based element to the development of the training materials the project also will provide an innovative asset to any training format. By giving stakeholders in the field (refugees, lay interpreters with a migration background, institutional representatives) a voice and by including and integrating their individual perspectives the project seeks to promote access and inclusion and aims to provide a forum for exchange between higher education interpreters facilities and actors in the field. All materials will also be available to these secondary target groups.Higher education facilities with a focus on translator/interpreter training, both in the project partners’ countries and other countries, will benefit from the project by having unlimited and sustainable access to digital training materials that can be used for making students and teachers aware of central issues, pertaining to a very specific domain of interpreting and mediation which has a high social relevance, and by custom-tailoring training to these current needs. The project seeks to make graduates and teachers of higher education institutions aware of the communicative and translation-specific challenges present in a humanitarian transborder migration context to help prepare them for the changing landscape of interpreting and translating in a rapidly changing geopolitical arena. By making this topic more visible, establishing a stronger cross-sectoral exchange between higher education institutions and users of interpreters and non-trained interpreters, and by including the perspectives of actors in the field we hope to ultimately also contribute to a long-term common European solution for increasing the quality of communication in a humanitarian context and refugee transit zones. The project will also foster cooperation among the involved universities and through its dissemination activities will additionally establish an exchange with other higher interpreter training institutions. This will allow the project partners to build a stronger network among staff of higher interpreter education facilities in their countries, which have been impacted to a great extent by the mass migratory movements of the past years. Ultimately, the project will also highlight the need for more exchange between students, teachers, stakeholders, and practising interpreters working in the field. The tools that are developed in the project are also intended to serve as a support for institutional representatives as well as lay interpreters working in the field, who generally often lack access to specific training.<< Implementation >>The project foresees different phases (work packages, WPs), with different activities in each phase, involving students and teachers of higher interpreter education facilities as a main target group, as well as stakeholders (institutional and NGO representatives, refugees) and interpreters working in the field. These different phases are strongly interconnected, with content from earlier phases being used and integrated in the activities and results of the later phases. WP1 foresees a survey on the challenges of communication in a transnational migration context (refugee reception and transit centers) in the project partners’ countries. For getting in touch with actors in the field, all project partners will make use of their existing contacts and networks. The survey will be published in a report, which may also be used as classroom material. WP2 foresees vod-/podcasts based on interviews with interpreters and other stakeholders. All partners will be involved in this WP. The interviews will be conducted and, if necessary, also subtitled by students. Translations needed as basis for English subtitles will also be produced in class. Vod-/postcast-production will be professionally accompanied by the drama and arts faculty of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University. WP 3 addresses the institutional representatives’ perspective and foresees the production of user training videos and educasts to make students, interpreters and interpreter users more aware of the dynamics of interpreter-mediated communication, issues of cooperation, and the specific challenges arising in the field. The videos will be based on the interviews of WP 2. Students and teachers will be involved in the scripting and shooting of the videos. They will thus be able to expand their existing knowledge. To make these videos more accessible, audio descriptions are to be produced by students under supervision of teachers from the University of Maribor. The survey data, the interview material, the vod-/postcasts and the user training material, will finally be used to produce game-based simulations of interpreting situations which will be implemented in WP4. In interpreter training there are hardly any game-based approaches. Students will be involved in scripting and designing the simulations. This WP also foresees a high degree of interdisciplinarity: the simulations will be produced in an interdisciplinary course, involving both students and teachers from interpreting and from game studies and media education. The implementation of this game-based approach will also be analysed in at least one co-supervised master thesis. In this WP a project platform and a community tool for interpreters will be developed. The purpose of the platform is to disseminate the training materials developed in the project on an open source basis. It allows for a greater degree of accessibility, sustainability, and transferability for different training environments. To ensure exchange between interpreters, stakeholders and project team members, including students, a community tool will be set up based on an existing communication software.Students and stakeholders will be invited to provide feedback in the different stages of the development process and on the final products of WP4. Also non-trained lay interpreters and stakeholders, whose experiences will be included in this project as a major source of inspiration for the design of the training materials, will benefit from the project. By making their voices heard they will be made more visible and receive greater recognition for their work. This will allow for more cross-fertilisation between the higher education sector, who are often left with very little quality training opportunities. Multiplier events and dissemination activities will help to promote the project results. A lecture series will serve as a forum for exchange and provide additional insight into current challenges for students and teachers.<< Results >>The first project phase (WP1) foresees a survey among public service institutions as the end users of interpreting services and other involved parties in the project partners‘ countries (Result 1: survey). The implementation and results of the survey will be documented in a corresponding report (Result 2: survey report). This survey will provide information on the situation and challenges of interpreting in a humanitarian/transborder context including the perspectives of actors in the field, whose voice is often unheard. The results of the survey will feed into the production of the results to be produced in the later WPs and will help to raise awareness among higher education students and teachers. In the second phase of the project (WP2) a series of vodcasts and podcasts will be produced (Result 3: vod-/podcasts) focusing on the demands of interpreting in a transnational border context, the skills required and the challenges for interpreters, which will be offered as open-access tools on an open-source platform and can be used as teaching material for different types of interpreter training (e.g. university courses as well as trainings organised by public services and other institutions). The pod-/vodcasts will also serve as tools for raising awareness and capacity-building among higher education interpreting/translation students/teachers. The implementation of this WP will again be documented in a report (Result 4: report on pod-/vodcasts).In the third phase of the project, the consortium intends to produce educasts (educational videos) and user training videos on diverse aspects and challenges of communication and interpreting in a super-diverse, translational border context (Result 5: Educasts/user training videos). The selection of topics to be tackled in these videos will be based on the results of phase one and two (Results 1-4). The educasts/videos can be used for different types of user training as well as interpreter training and serve as an additional tool for raising awareness and building capacity among higher education interpreting/translation students/teachers. An evaluation report drawing on students’ and user’s perspective will complete the third project phase (Result 6: Report on educasts/user training videos). The last phase (WP 4) consists of four results, which include setting up a project platform and a community tool (Result 7.1: project platform, and Result 7.2: community tool) where all project activities and results will be made easily accessible; the community tool will also serve to strengthen exchange between universities and stakeholders and can be used as an information outlet. Result 8 (game-based simulations) includes the production of topic-specific games with a focus on individual interpreter decisions in specific situations, and the effects and impact of the players' actions, which can help students of interpreting as well as interpreters in the field with no training to autonomously develop awareness for interpreting in this context. This result will be reached through a jointly organised interdisciplinary course (interpreting, game studies, media education) in which students from both fields produce topic-specific games, drawing on the previous results from WP 1-3 and existing training material. Result 9 (MA thesis) is an interdisciplinary/co-supervised master’s thesis outlining the challenges of this field and steps in the development of a game-based (transferable) training approach for such a context and may be used as classroom material. Result 10 (lecture series with accompanying book) consists of a series of lectures on the topic and the publication of a collective volume on the subject. Both the lecture series and the accompanying textbook outline current challenges of the field. The lecture series will serve as a forum of exchange and the accompanying collective volume may serve as classroom material.

MUSICHILD raises early childhood music education (=ECME) to the status of a professional specialized subject in early childhood education and care, offering direction and order, flexibility and versatility in ECME and teacher preparation. ECME is fundamental in the psychokinetic, emotional, psychological, social, mental and imaginative development of children. Musical communication and development of musical processes in humans develop in parallel with language as fundamental parts of the human evolutionary potential for socio-cultural growth. Although there is unprecedented expansion of provision of ECME in kindergartens, early childhood care centres and afternoon music schools in Europe and recently in the Mediterranean the Need Analyses in our countries concluded that: there is a chaotic and unrelated offering of different programmes, official and unofficial, that are not adequately efficient and do not correspond to the cultural context, often disconnected from children’s and teachers’ musical abilities, interests and identities incorporating inappropriate material from teaching practices for older children from imported commercial ECME programmes from US and UK. Teaching practices are governed by western ethnocentrism and ideologies of musical talent that do not allow all young children to enter into meaningful musical discourses of participating and creating. Teacher training is very poor; Early childhood educationalists and musicians understand the importance of music but lack the proper pedagogical skills, knowledge and confidence to teach music to young children. MUSICHILD is a firm response to the above. It joins forces by acclaimed ECME specialists from Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain. It takes into account the voices of children, teachers, researchers, rich and diverse Mediterranean musical traditions and practices and international perspectives in ECME in order to establish multicultural and intercultural ECME curricula, methodologies and material and devise child-led, playful, music-centered, agency-focused, integrated and appropriate ECME. MUSICHILD's research, by travelling through all the steps of multiculturalism develops more global musically-oriented educational methodologies – the ways structured sounds have created musical meaning out of features of the culture from which music springs - to direct the content, structure and methodology of ECME. These all-encompassing methodologies aim for developing in young children intelligence of poly-musicality, multicultural confidence and deeper understanding of the sonorous expressiveness of music and how the musical experience is related to cultural values and experiences. MUSICHILD intercepts and connects with children’s creative processes, thereby allowing music education to advance and enrich children’s creative capabilities. MUSICHILD focuses on human agency in ECME teacher education as well and aims to bridge the gap between generalist and music specialists in teacher’s preparation. Therefore is extents a large ethnographic research on teachers’ identities and best practice in educating them. MUSICHILD will develop curricula, intercultural teaching methodologies and material, a 30-hour training course for 20 trainees (graduate-teachers, ECME teachers),4 workshops for 200 participants and an assessment and evaluation tool for 3 1/2 -6 ½ year old children’s music learning and musicality, final conference for more than 170 participants, e-book, on line music education manual with teaching activities and sound material, a website, leaflets and intense media social awareness activities, presentations and workshops in regional, European and International Conferences. Integration of the practical and theoretical knowledge emerging from this partnership in Mediterranean, European and worldwide graduate music education institutions’ and training centres' coursework and in-service training music education courses can provide opportunities to large numbers of professionals to gain skills and knowledge. This will transform their awareness about young children’s musical behaviours and learning as well as critical thinking needed now and in the future, thus improving their professional quality creativity and performance in early childhood music education; their future employability in formal, semi-formal or informal learning environments and educative contexts and activities. Hundreds of educationalists and stakeholders in ECME will be reached through diverse, multiple and systematic dissemination activities in local, European and International, via Music education associations (EAS, MERYC, ISME, ECME) and the formation of a Mediterranean forum and Euro-Mediterranean network with subsequent regular activities in order to impact thousands of children's music education at present and for forthcoming generations.

"<< Background >>Application and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) across different sectors is placing new demands on higher education, requesting significant changes in the approach to ICR education and learning outcomes in order to match the contemporary digital age and its rapid evolution. The role of higher education is to equip the student population (women especially) with skills in Data Science (DS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in order to facilitate not only their further educational careers, but also they employment after the study. As it is shown in the European Commission report on ""ICT for Work: Digital Skills in the Workplace"", digital skills are necessary in 93% of EU workplaces and are not only required for jobs in the ICT sector. This means that both education and labour market outside the ICT sector, require digital knowledge and skill in order to perform their regular tasks. Additionally, as European parliament published in its report from, information and communication technologies is a sector where women are under-represented and earn less than men. Women are not only less likely to take up studies in this field and but are also much less represented as a work force having skills in this domain for any other job type and position, especially in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence as ones of the fastest developing areas in the STEM field. This is why this project aims to develop short-cycle courses in the areas of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence for students of their last study year or recent graduates in order to bridge the existing challenge. In order to address this objective properly, this project will map and report on the state of the art in the area of DS/AI skills and competencies among students and recent graduates with a particular focus on women. An in-depth analysis will be to provide the full insight into the existing challenges and give the inputs for the development and implementation of the short-cycle courses.Based on the findings of the in-depth analysis, set of DS/AI courses will be developed to fill in the gap between current know-how and skills and requirements for DS/AI skills and knowledge over different sectors. Developed short-cycle courses will be piloted at participating universities, focusing on areas of Data Science, Machine learning, Virtual neural networks, Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things, Bioinformatics, Business Intelligence, Decision Making.In this way, the project will enable students and recent graduates with much needed DS/AI skills that can be applied at their further pursuit of studies and also career in STEM field. Women in particular need a boost in their academic journey, since they are underrepresented in the field of STEM.<< Objectives >>By innovating the offer of courses at five partner higher education institutions, the project seeks to build the capacity of students and graduates (women in particular) to continue their education or pursue their business careers in the fields that are not DS/AI sector but require certain DS/AI skills to perform everyday tasks. In that way, the institutions will have a new generation of students who can, e.g. enroll their Master or PhD studies, without being hampered or left behind due to the lack of digital skills. The main objective will be achieved through the set of specific objectives, such as:Specific objective 1: to map and report on the state of the art in the area of DS/AI skills and competencies among students and recent graduates with a particular focus on women. An in-depth analysis will be conducted by all universities to obtain the latest data on the labour market.Specific objective 2: to jointly single out and develop DS/AI courses that would best suit the market needs of all partners in the consortium.Specific objective 3: to teach courses to bridge the gap between formal education skills and DS/AI-related competencies required for contemporary business practices<< Implementation >>In order to achieve the set of objectives defined here, the Consortium defined the three activities/results to be developed throughout the project, in such a way that each objective correspond to one result planned in this project. At the beginning of the project, all project partners will conduct an in-depth analysis of the specific requirement for DS/AI skills at their institution in order to provide answers to the questions such as: what are the careers that require DS/AI skills, what DS/AI skills are required, what are the open positions on the labor market, what profile of experts are required, how many women are pursuing careers in STEM area, at what level women are using DS/AI knowledge in their studies, etc. Based on the findings of the analysis, project partners will develop the short-cycle courses to equip the students with DS/AI skills necessary for better studies at next education levels (master and PhD) that will lead to better education and creation of highly skilled work force. The program will cover a variety of topics (challenges) such as data science, machine learning, virtual neural networks, big data analytics, internet of things, bioinformatics, business intelligence and decision making which have a very broad application in HE, even in areas outside of STEM, and also on the labor market.The program will include also the necessary elements such as course objective, expected results, course format, materials, syllabus, course schedule, target groups, lecturers, joint certificates, reviews and feedback after the course, etc.<< Results >>The project will be implemented around three main parts designed as separate project results. PROJECT RESULT 1 (PR1) – Report on in-depth analysis of the state-of-the-art in the area of DS and AIIn-depth analysis will be conducted by all universities to obtain the latest data on DS/AI skills and competencies of students and recent graduates who wish to develop their careers in STEM, with particular emphasis on women. This analysis should provide information about work positions in STEM that require DS/AI skills, currently sought positions in these areas on the labour market and map STEM professional profiles where women are less included. The report primarily aims to provide the initial fact-based inputs for the development of DS and AI courses at participating universities.PROJECT RESULT 2 (PR2) – DS/AI courses developedThe DS/AI courses will be designed with the aim to equip students and graduates, especially women, with DS/AI skills necessary for career in STEM-related disciplines. The DS/AI courses will cover different topics (challenges) based on the needs identified in PR1. Based on the experience and lessons learned from in PR2, it will be updated/improved by the end of the project.PROJECT RESULT 3 (PR3) – DS/AI courses realisationThis phase refers to the realization of developed DS/AI courses for the first time in a real-world setting. The main target group of the will be final-year students and recent graduates, with the majority of female participants that want to pursue career in STEM.Realisation of courses in practice will show the advantages and disadvantages of the developed courses and, accordingly, provide inputs for the PR2 update. Once PR2 is finalized (improved), developed courses can be fully applied at any institution and for any target group."