Beyond Borders: Enhancing intercultural and interdisciplinary competences through the promotion of cultural diversity awareness within HEI’s

The European project Beyond Borders seeks to recognise interculturality as a central pillar of higher education, fostering inclusion and diversity in universities in Poland, Spain, Greece and Germany. To this end, it proposes the creation of the “Beyond Borders Academy”, an online Intercultural Training Academy for leaders, academic staff and administrative personnel, the implementation of intercultural pilots in each partner university, and the organisation of an international conference in Greece.

During the duration of the project, the Beyond Borders team have created a compilation of good practices in interculturality and inclusion from the participating universities, a benchmark report on best practices in interculturality and inclusion in HIgher Education Institutions and three Tailored Strategies (one for each partner university) with recommendations and actions to implement.  In addition, Backslash has delivered internal training on the project to more than 30 university leaders and staff members, who will continue collaborating and implementing the next project activities, as well as to more than 40 students and representatives from the UW and the UMA.

The next steps will be the creation of the Beyond Borders Academy, an online e-learning environment for all the university staff and members to increase their knowledge on interculturality and inclusion, and how to make Higher Education Institutions more inclusive and open.

The ultimate goal is to transform universities into more inclusive and culturally competent institutions, able to integrate students from diverse backgrounds and drive structural changes in their policies and programs.