Erasmus Policy statement: our strategy

The objectives to be achieved, which are part of our HEI’s internationalisation and modernisation strategy, are:
  • To promote consciousness of Europe and to make the population of La Palma (which is part of the Canary Islands, one of the EU outermost regions) more aware of their European identity, the European project and the values of the EU.
  • To improve the professional, personal and linguistic skills of our students, giving them the opportunity to learn abroad, through traineeships in enterprises and/or with studying periods at partner HEIs. The mobility activities will be compatible with the student’s degree studies and the learning outcomes will be recognized.
  • To support the professional development of our staff through training, teaching and/or job shadowing periods at partner HEIs or at relevant enterprises.
  • To welcome staff from enterprises and partner HEIs, for them to teach our own staff and students.
  • To act as a receiving organisation for students and staff from abroad, offering them study/traineeship/teaching periods.
  • To participate in transnational strategic partnerships, aimed to cooperate for innovation and the exchange of good practices.
  • To continue to improve our HEI’s management skills and internationalization strategies.
  • To revalue the higher vocational education and training studies, as well as our HEI itself; this will motivate the island’s population to improve their training and employability.
All these activities will help establish the European Education Area and follow its policy.

Our HEI will work towards achieving these objectives by participating in the following activities: 
  • Key Action 1 "Learning Mobility": The mobility of higher education students and staff. Our first objective when applying for the Erasmus Charter is to be able to continue offering our students the opportunity to carry out traineeships in enterprises abroad. However, taking advantage of the ECTS credits system, we would also like to open ourselves to the possibility of developing mobilities of students for studies. Secondly, and not less important, our HEI desires to go on developing mobilities of staff for training and teaching. These will make a great contribution to the training and experience of the staff involved and therefore, for our institution, benefits that we have already felt in the past with the Leonardo Da Vinci and the Erasmus+ programmes. Finally, we want to keep on hosting students and staff from abroad, offering personal enrichment for the visitors, the education community and the island’s society. The expected outcomes are detailed on the next section of this application.
  • Key Action 2 "Cooperation among organisations and institutions": Partnerships for Cooperation and exchanges of practices; Partnerships for Innovation. Though we were awarded with the ECHE 2014-2020 five years ago, getting involved in a KA2 project is one of our HEI’s pending tasks. We would like to improve our transnational alliances in order to exchange of experiences and develop projects to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, employability, knowledge exchange and/or multidisciplinary teaching and learning.

IMPACT ON STUDENTS
- During all their studies, it will be a motivation to obtain better grades and improve their language level in order to be selected, which will optimize their preparation as future professionals.
- After the mobility, they will have improved their professional skills, their language skills and other basic skills such as flexibility, teamwork, tolerance, maturity, etc. All these advances will enhance employability and improve career prospects.
- The lived experience will allow them to reduce their feeling of insularism, open their horizon and appreciate the benefits of traveling. Learning about other cultures will overcome prejudice and lead to the acceptance of diversity.
- It is undeniable that a stay outside of Spain is the best way to motivate students to value the need to continue training in language learning.
To evaluate this impact, we will take into account the opinions and evaluations of the students, which will allow us to check the degree of achievement of the projects’ objectives. The indicators will be the answers to the EU Survey and the interviews with the HEI’s Erasmus+ Commission on their return. In the long term, an attempt will be made to contact the students to find out what percentage of them is: working, continuing their professional training, learning languages. We will also check how many of them have travelled abroad again. IMPACT 

ON STAFF
The staff mobilities will give them the opportunity to learn how training is organized in other European countries, learning new management systems, tools and methodologies, which will improve their work and satisfaction in the future.
Erasmus+ mobility will motivate staff towards language learning and will encourage them to continue opening their horizons and discover other cultures.
The participation of mobilities will also favour the involvement of a greater number of staff members in the direct management of the HEI's Erasmus+ projects, which will gain in quality and diversity.
To evaluate this impact, we will take into account the opinions and assessments of the participants. The indicators will be the responses to the EU Survey, the interviews with the HEI's Erasmus+ Commission on their return, the percentage of participants who continue to learn languages and the number of staff members involved in the management of future Erasmus + projects

IMPACT ON THE HEI
By participating in European projects, we expect to continue improving the HEI’s management skills and internationalization strategies. The key objective is to continue participating in the Erasmus+ program and to expand the variety of activities carried out, such as acting as a host institution for a greater number of participants and developing cooperative projects within Key Action 2.
As staff mobility are an integral part of professional development, after the mobility, the participants will share the results with the rest of staff, promoting possible improving by structural reform.
The results of the experience will be published through social networks, on the HEI's website and in the media. In addition, at the end of every academic course, an "Erasmus+ Conference" will be organized, which will help revaluing the higher vocational education and training studies, as well as our HEI itself in the medium term.
As indicators there will be:
 - Number of student applications in the following years.
 - Number of staff requests to participate in the program.
 - Number of granted mobilities per project.
 - Number and diversity of partners, such as HEIs and enterprises.
 - Number of European students and staff hosted at our HEI.
 - Data corresponding to the evaluation of the dissemination (visibility on social media, number of published press releases and their repercussion, number of attendees at the Erasmus+ Conference, number of participations in public events, etc.).