With a large partnership for better visibility of European Territorial Cooperation

As a member of an international consortium, CESCI takes part in the development of a so-called ’Massive Open Online Course’ (MOOC) aimed at popularising the European Territorial Cooperation policy of the European Union. The tender was published by the European Commission and won by the 6 membered consortium led by the University of Strasbourg.

Regardless of the total sum of more than EUR 30 billion spent for territorial cooperation so far, the EU citizens rather lack the knowledge of the existence of the second objective of the Cohesion Policy, namely the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC). In order to widen the scope of the target group of the policy, the European Commission published a call for tenders with the aim of enhancing the Europeans’ knowledge on ETC and involving academic institutions in research activities related to the topic.

The consortium selected for contract is led by the University of Strasbourg (FR) and includes the University of Thessaloniki (GR), the University of Artois (FR), the Euro-Institut of Kehl (DE), the Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière (FR) and CESCI (HU). Within the framework of the mission, the partners are assigned to develop an online educational material (Massive Open Online Course, MOOC) which, based on everyday cases and examples, give a comprehensive overview on the objectives, history, achievements and impacts of ETC on border people’s life and, more broadly, on the European integration process.

According to the schedule of the project, the first version of the MOOC will be published and tested at the beginning of 2022. The testing will be followed by a monitoring phase when the partners will develop the material further and test the second version in the summer of 2022. The aim is to develop an educational material which can be applied in tertiary educational institutions.

CESCI takes part in the development and testing of the MOOC and coordinates the partners’ activities related to assisting the users’ participation in the course.

The project of a total value of EUR 80,000 started with the kick-off workshop on July 7.