SOLVINC

SOLVINC - Solving intercultural conflicts with international students - is a 2 years project lasting from November 2018 to November 2020, developed within Erasmus + Program Key Action 203: Strategic Partnerships for higher education.

SOLVINC strengthens conflict management and communication skills by engaging with real-life cases of intercultural conflict, proposing possible solutions and thus alleviating experiences of discrimination for HE students. Within the project, we collected and analyzed real experiences of intercultural conflicts, devising negotiation and conflict management strategies as well as training material for HE staff to better deal with an increasingly diverse student population. Also, formats of intercultural learning between international and local students were implemented at partner universities in order to facilitate the development of intercultural skills among all students.

The strong partnership consists of four large universities with a high percentage of international students and experience on research on intercultural learning as well as an NGO specializing in intercultural training on the critical incident methodology by Cohen-Emerique.

Project partners:

SPOŁECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK, Poland - coordinator
UNIVERSITAT WIEN, Austria
ELAN INTERCULTUREL, France
JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAT MAINZ, Germany
UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO, Portugal

Context

In the wake of growing nationalism and anti-immigrant attitudes institutions of Higher Education are called upon to facilitate the development of “inclusive societies” (European Commission 2017). While internationalisation constitutes a top priority for most HEIs, its implementation in practice in the sense of ‘internationalisation at home’ remains lacking. Only rarely institutional practices are put into action aiming to further development of intercultural skills of students and staff or the strengthening of intercultural dialogue in the institutions.

Innovation

In order to generate sustainable processes of intercultural learning, the SOLVINC project transfers the proven methodology of critical incidents by Cohen-Emerique (2015) to the Higher Education context. By collecting and analysing first-hand experiences of international students, the project will compile a broad knowledge base from which strategies for conflict negotiation and resolution are developed as well as training material for Higher education staff to be better equipped to deal with an increasingly diverse student population.

Aims

SOLVINC aims to facilitate the development of intercultural and conflict management skills among international students, local students and HE staff and to further the implementation of intercultural student encounters in HEIs, thereby contributing to the promotion of inclusion in practice.

Project partners

The Solvinc project’s partners are five organisations from different EU countries:
SPOŁECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK

SPOŁECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK

Poland
UNIVERSITAT WIEN

UNIVERSITAT WIEN

Austria
Elan Interculturel

Elan Interculturel

France
Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz

Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz

Germany
Universidade Do Porto

Universidade Do Porto

Portugal


This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This communication reflects the views only of the authors and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.