How Long is Too Long

A main goal of Erasmus+ is to contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training, which includes making lifelong mobility a reality and improving the quality and efficiency of education and training. Institutions are increasingly pushing to internationalise and create more mobility opportunities for students. There are many reasons why students do not or cannot go on mobility, often due to working capacity issues, not knowing the benefits, or simply being intimidated by going to another country. Physical inability to go on mobility is an obstacle. There are also many cases where students are unable to go on mobility because of employment obligations or strict university programmes. With the implementation of the new Erasmus programme, there is the possibility to adapt programmes and practices of higher education institutions, including a variety of lengths and mobility types. Thus, the aim of the project How long is too long (hLitl) is to enable Higher Education leaders and Internationalisation managers to adapt and improve their mobility strategies, fostering mobility schemes with the greatest impact on key competences of students (multilingual, expression and digital competence as well as intercultural awareness, etc.), including mobility schemes mixing distant learning and physical mobility (blended learning) and broader mobility for all types of students.The consortium is constituted of 4 Universities, with diverse existing links between them, and too Institutions acting on the European level. The University of Versailles Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) is the coordinator and is working with the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE),the University of Porto (UPorto), the University of Lodz (UoL), the University of Marburg (UM), the European University Foundation (EUF) and the Erasmus Student Network (ESN).To implement the project, some actions and activities have been settled: first, a “Literary Review” will be written to study and analyse what is currently made at the institutional level and proposed at the policy level (ELTE). This will be completed by an analysis of the conditions of implementation of the different mobility schemes (technical, social, etc.) in order to have the largest patterns on our subject (UPorto). Surveys will also be implemented during the first and second year of the project (UoL). This step is crucial to better understand the students' needs and institutions' strategies for mobility. During the second year of the project, a testing phase will be settled to analyze the impact of such typologies of mobility on the students’ key competences, and see which one is the most efficient (UM). This will then be used for the development of institutional recommendations (in the form of toolkit implemented by EUF) and policies (ESN) which will make it possible to propose and improve good practices at European and university level.The main result of the project is thus to raise awareness of Higher Education Institutions about the previously mentioned students' Key Competences developed by international mobility and the efficiency of different mobility schemes. These findings will influence their mobility strategies by delivering substantial information on the following points: length of mobility, type of mobility, obstacles, diversification of mobility typologies, technicality and training of HEI staff.The project will have an impact on the Local, National and European levels. On the Local level: international influence of the universities developing innovative practices in mobility that attract more students and allow universities to develop their catalogue: internships, etc. Excellence of the universities of the Consortium will be recognized at the European and international level. On the National level: enhanced ability to design conscious internationalization strategies as well. Finally, on the European level: recommendations made to the attention of HEI to aware them about better mobility practices and enhance their ability to design conscious internationalization strategies. This awareness will enable a smoother transition towards the new program and the new mobility typologies that it will support.The diversification of mobility types will also attract an increased number of foreign students, especially coming from countries previously unwilling to send students, for economic reasons for example.The project will finally sensitize European people to new types of mobility and allow students distant from mobility to take part in an international experience.