Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi was represented by Lecturer Claudiu Romila at the events held in Barcelona during 15 – 17 November 2023, under the framework of the project SMILE – Social Meaning Impact through LLL Universities in Europe, coordinated by European University Continuing Education Network – EUCEN.
Lecturer Claudiu Romila presented the results of our University’s work as a partner in the project for Pillar 3, “Low socio-economic status students”, within the panel session “The three SMILE pillars: Singularity and intersectionality”.
The Smile Final Symposium “Diversity in modern society – Making inclusion a central strategy in our universities” and #eucen Autumn seminar were held during these days.
Themes as “How does theory compare to reality at diversity and inclusion level? How can research help practice and how can practice feed research?” created interesting debates between participants. Workshops, keynote speaker presentation (held by Professor Matthew Weait, Director of the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford), dialogues between researchers and practitioners, parallel sessions, World Café activities and Smile award ceremony completed the activities of the event.
On Wednesday, 15 November, a final full partners meeting was also held for this Erasmus+ KA3 project, carried out for four years, during December 2020 – November 2023.
The main objective of the project was to promote inclusive education by developing, testing and implementing innovative tools that improve the way higher education institutions deal with diversity and social inclusion. The project focuses on three main areas of inequality and disadvantage in higher education: migrant background, women leadership, and low socio-economic status students. Joining 5 universities and 4 civil society organizations, TUIASI is proud to be a partner in this project, coordinated by #eucen. The Smile project outputs (resources and literature, audit model, CPD courses, policy recommendations) were further discussed during the following days.
