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Support for comunity engagement
A growing network of universities have already applied the TEFCE Toolbox and we are eager to support new institutions wishing to enhance their community engagement through webinars, training and advice/mentorship in the TEFCE Toolbox process, as well as to explore options for peer-learning and new partnerships.
To enquire about support options, please contact us via the button.
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Management (partnerships and openees)
Management (policies and support structures)
Marina Sampayo is project officer at the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP by its Catalan initials) and at the Global University Network for Innovation.
At ACUP, Marina coordinates the „Plan for the international projection and global commitment of Catalan public universities“ and the Global University Network for Innovation activities. She has been involved in the edition and publication of the 8th GUNi Higher Education in the World Report „New Visions for Higher Education towards 2030“, which addresses the transformation of Higher Education Institutions in the light of major global changes, including the fields of public service and societal impact.
As for ACUP’s participation in SHEFCE, she has worked on drafting policy recommendations for the promotion of community engagement in Catalonia, carrying out a desk-research, working with experts in the territory and carrying out consultations with the main social agents, government departments, vice-rectorates and social engagement officies of Catalan universities.
Management (partnerships and openees)
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Thomas works as a Higher Education Policy Expert at the Institute for the Development of Education in Zagreg, Croatia.
His main area of interest and expertise is the social role of higher education, with a special focus on community engagement in higher education. He has led two international EU-funded projects to develop tools and methdologies to better support community engagement in higher education (the ‘TEFCE’ and ‘SHEFCE’ projects). He is the lead author of TEFCE Toolbox: An Institutional Self-Reflection Framework
for Community Engagement in Higher Education (2020) and of the European Commission report Community Engagement in Higher Education: Trends, Practices and Policies (2020).
Management (partnerships and openees)
Management (policies and support structures)
Silvia Llach is an Associate Professor at the Department of Specific Didactics of the University of Girona, and Vice-Rector forTerritory and Social Commitment since December 2017. In addition to her teaching and research career, her professional profile has been specializing in university management.
Her Vice-Rectorate fits perfectly with the idea of community engagement. Its function is to connect the university with non-university agents and to dynamize this contact with new initiatives and projects., like SHEFCE project. The Vice-Rectorate team also manages the 46 territorial chairs of the Udg.
In addition, she is responsible for the social commitment of the university, working with the team of the office called Unit of Social Commitment, which deals with: gender equality, inclusion, sustainability, health promotion, volunteering, university cooperation for development, and training of seniors.
Teaching and learning
Research
Edgar Iglesias Vidal is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pedagogy of the University of Girona.
He has a background in community education and educator with youth and social services of local government before joining the University. Nowadays he is the Pedagogy Degree Coordinator at the UdG from the 2022.
His teaching and research focus on social pedagogy through community development: bolstering educational ecosystems for the connection between schools and the learning oportunities of the community (cultural, sports, and education).
As a a researcher he has participated at SHEFCE project as part of UdG team within they appled TEFCE to improve UdG community engagement. For further details please visit his profiles on academia.
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Pere Soler-Masó is an associate professor at the Department of Pedagogy of the University of Girona and co-director of Liberi-Research Group on Childhood, Youth and Community at the Institute of Educational Research at the same university. He is the coordinator of the Interuniversity Master’s Degree in Youth and Society and member of the University Network for Teaching Innovation in Service-Learning.
His areas of teaching and research are social pedagogy, community development, youth policies and youth programs. In all of them the community and transfer dimension is present. He has participated in the SHEFCE project as part of the UdG team and he has also applied TEFCE to improve community engagement at the UdG. For more information: www.udg.edu/personal/pere.soler.maso
Knowledge Exchange
Management (partnerships and openees)
Jaume Feliu, professor of the Department of Geography at the University of Girona (Catalonia, Spain).
His research is focused on the role of local actors in the process of local development. This topic has been applied in different territorial contexts as medium-sized cities, cross-border regions or mountain regions. Last research is more interested in the role of local actors in the governance for landscape protection and environmental change, especially in coastal regions of the Mediterranean Sea.
Management (partnerships and openees)
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Carolina Martí is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, and Rector’s Delegate for Territory and Sustainability since 2022. She was Director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Girona (2018-2022). Her research focuses on coastal landscape transformation, integrated coastal zone management and sustainable tourism strategies of mature coastal destinations.
In addition, she is responsible for the territorial commitment of the university through the 46 UdG chairs, and for the sustainability of the UdG, working with the Vice-Rectorate for Territory and Social Commitment.
Management (partnerships and openees)
Management (policies and support structures)
Alicia Betts leads international strategic projects at the Universitat de Girona in Catalonia, Spain since 2020. Alicia graduated from the Universities of Oslo (Norway), Tampere (Finland) and Aveiro (Portugal) with an Erasmus Mundus Master’s degree in Higher Education Policy and Management.
Previously she worked for over a decade at the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) and was responsible for its joint internationalisation strategy. She was also Project Manager at the Global University Network for Innovation between 2014 and 202 where she participated in the coordination of the worldwide GUNi Reports and international conferences, in addition to leading the conversations and activities of GUNi regarding SDGs and higher education and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and participating in the TEFCE project.
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Anna Planas is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pedagogy of the University of Girona. She has a background in community development and worked in the voluntary sector and youth and cultural services of local government before joining the University. She has been the Social Education Degree Coordinator at the UdG between 2014 and february 2023. Since february 2023 she is the vice dean of practicum and mobility of the Faculty of Education and Psycology.
Her teaching and research focus on social pedagogy through community development, assessment, participatory evaluation, and youth and cultural policies and programs. AS a researcher she has participated at SHEFCE project as part of UdG team within they appled TEFCE to improve UdG community engagement. For further details please visit his profiles on academia.
Research
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Knowledge Exchange
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Supportive peers
Linde Moriau has expertise in intercultural studies, transdisciplinarity, engaged and co-creative research and education, and collaborative curriculum innovation. Over the past years, Linde has been coordinating strategic projects aiming at university-wide development and embedment of engaged pedagogies and research practices. She has been facilitating a Learning Community bringing together interested academics, community partners, policy makers and students.
The aim was to share experience and ambition with community engagement, explore relevant research findings, policy frameworks and networks, and develop an innovative engagement offer allowing students, academics and extra-academic parties to collaborativly tackle urban issues. Building on these activities Linde gained insight in strengths and pitfalls of co-creative pedagogies and research practices.
Together with her colleagues, she developed a toolkit and professionalisation offer supporting interested parties in (re)designing their engagement offer building on both strengths and needs of the Brussels environment.
Knowledge Exchange
Management (partnerships and openees)
Management (policies and support structures)
Nino S. Schmidt is the founder of the Institute for the Development of Education in Zagreb, Croatia, where he served as Executive Director since 1999. His main expertise is in community engagement and the social dimension in higher education, institutional governance and strategic management of higher education.
In 2018-2024, he is co-chairing the Pan-European Bologna Follow-up Working Group on Social Dimension in higher education that created the strategic international document “Principles and Guidelines for Social Dimension” (with one principle related to the community engagement) to help 49 countries in the European Higher Education Area improve social dimension policies.
He has repeatedly served as consultant and expert in international projects on community engagement (SHEFCE, TEFCE, etc.) and in prominent organizations like the Council of Europe and the European Commission. He is the author and editor of numerous professional and scientific publications on higher education policy development.
Teaching and learning
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Emma is a lecturer and researcher in the School of Hospitality Management and Tourism lecturing on a variety of modules including entrepreneurship, digital marketing and communications. Community engaged research and learning is a key focus of Emma’s teaching and research and she has a keen research interest in the engagement between universities and their communities.
Emma is the lead collaborating author on the following journal articles related to TEFCE and university community engagement:
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Bojana works as a Full professor at the University of Rijeka (UNIRi), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Education. Her research interests lie at the intersection of engaged university, engaged teaching and learning, engaged research and youth civic education, while her teaching follows community-engaged pedagogy. At UNIRi she initiated policies related to service-learning and was engaged in creating the University Charter on Formal Recognition of Students’ Competences Gained Through Community-Based Engagement. She is one of the experts that contributed to the development of the TEFCE Toolbox and coordinated its piloting at the UNIRi. She is a member of The Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship (ACES), European Association of Service Learning in Higher Education, Central and Eastern European Network for Service-learning. She received several awards for significant contributions made to the university-community collaborations. She is a Fulbright alumna.
Students
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