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Nora Fernandez Fernandez
After the initial meetings between the collaborating universities, the European Smart WB project is launched, of which the URJC is a part leading a work package.
The main objective of the project is to improve the skills and employability of students in the countries of the Western Balkans (WB) area, through innovative educational programs. The initial meeting, held on February 23 and 24, brought together 40 participants from nine different countries: Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Croatia, Norway, Germany, Austria and Spain.
According to Carmen de Pablos, professor of Business Organization at the URJC and main researcher of Smart WB from Spain, “the University of Montenegro is the general coordinator of the project. For our part, we are a benchmark when it comes to making teaching programs aimed at the employability of students, in addition to relating the study program to the theme of sustainable development and care for the environment. Other countries, such as Norway or Switzerland, are more focused on smart urbanism, and we lead the part that is more focused on social sciences”.
"Our purpose is, then, to help the WB universities to modernize their courses and curricula, improve the practices they develop... and for this we will give a training course of 20 courses here at the Rey Juan Carlos University", comments the professor.
This is a project that will last 3 years and will put 80 teachers from the Balkans (Montenegro, Albania and Serbia) in contact with innovative methodologies (gaming, flipped classroom) typical of other countries to guide them to smart urbanism courses .
As Carmen de Pablos explains, “for our part, the intention is to transfer our university-company collaboration practices to them so that students can complete their training with good agreements. We will also advise them on the purchase of software and laboratory equipment to develop their new programs”.
Specifically, the Rey Juan Carlos University leads Work Package 3, which hopes to result in modernized university courses, best practices for students in companies, and innovative methods for teachers when teaching classes.
To learn more about the Smart WB project, check the following link: https://www.smartwb.ucg.ac.me/
