„BlendED“ Blended Mobility Educational Program

BlendEd is an international cooperation of 17 institutes and departments from different universities worldwide. Each year, international student teams are challenged by a company with a real-world problem to develop an innovative, interdisciplinary project. Projects include topics such as: measuring reaction time via a virtual reality game, integrating sensor technology in agriculture, digitizing shipping, or creating a plug-in site for real estate platforms.

The students come from various disciplines, such as business development, management, tourism, electronics, IT, and design. Over the course of a semester, the students worked together virtually in international teams and met physically twice for a week at the beginning and end of the project work. This year, meetings were held at Université d‘Orléans in France and the Hellenic Mediterranean University in Heraklion, Greece.

The short in-person sessions are cost-effective, making them accessible to students with limited financial resources. At the same time, the mainly virtual cooperation allowed universities with comparatively weak infrastructural connections from rural regions to become part of international networks. The project was thus in many respects an inclusive and at the same time innovative international educational offer.

The project aim was to prepare the students for their future field of activity in transdisciplinary and intercultural teams with international clients. The students‘ social transversal and professional competencies were promoted through intercultural cooperation on complex tasks. Additionally, the teachers benefited from the project by establishing important contacts for their universities in the academic field and with emerging and already-established companies.