On 13 December 2023, the ISIC Association took part in the online kick-off meeting of EDU-Home, a new Erasmus Plus project financed under the KA2 Cooperation partnerships in Higher Education and coordinated by the Italian Fondazione EDUCatt. The project officially started on 1 November 2023 and will end on 31 May 2026, for an overall duration of 30 months.
All core partners, from all over Europe, participated in the kick-off meeting: besides the International Student Identity Card Association – ISIC (Denmark) EDUCatt, the Association of University Residences – ACRU (Italy),), the University of Dubrovnik (Croatia), the Student Support Services – Studierendenwerk – of Karlsruhe (Germany) and Rivensco Consulting (Cyprus).
EDU-Home aims to develop a platform for dialogue and cooperation among housing and mobility stakeholders, guaranteeing transparency, reliability and timeliness, as well as to address the asymmetries that currently make housing a great barrier to mobility. Finding adequate, sustainable and economically accessible accommodation represents an essential element both from a practical, emotional and psychological point of view. In this way, the ambition of EDU-Home is to enhance inclusivity in Higher Education Systems, reduce housing-related mobility barriers, support International Mobility within the European Education Area and involve stakeholders, and enhance housing offer presentation.
By creating a system of dialogue and feedback between supply and demand, the project aims to develop a “virtuous” mechanism where stakeholders are encouraged to accredit themselves and effectively present their housing offers; provide a feedback system that supports trustworthy housing providers and showcases specificities and value-added services; and promote a diverse range of housing choices, emphasizing unique characteristics and supporting the well-being of individuals.
The kick-off meeting gave the partners the opportunity to have an overview of all the Work Packages contents, the tasks and the next steps to take straight away to get the project actually started.
During the meeting, the partners also had the chance to discuss the impact and dissemination topics, as well as the main administrative, financial, and organizational aspects of the project, which recently went through some significant innovation.
