Charles University, Pedagogická fakulta UK (Faculty of Education) was a host of the HERE Annual Conference, with the aim of showing HERE Activity Report 2018 and presenting of activity results from 2019, to understand better the design and implementation of the social inclusion policies and practices at the University level and to share the best practicies that promote inclusive approaches and schemes of the international mobility of diverse students.

The conference drew 95 participants – academics, administrators and policy makers. Of these, 73 came from 24 partner countries. Seven EU Member States were represented, five ministries representatives attended, incuding one member of Parliament, from HERE countries. Twenty NEO attended, as well representatives from the Czech National Agency. On the side of the European Commission, both DG EAC and DG employment attended, as well colleagues from the EACEA who manage the SPHERE action

The 2019 HERE Annual Conference had the dual purpose of: a) Addressing the umbrella topic of social inclusion, around which SPHERE events for 2019 were structured, and framing the lessons learned from these different activities; b) Introducing the new umbrella topic for 2020, “Higher education responding to changing skills needs.” and giving HERE a voice in the programming of activities for 2020. Exploring this topics was essentially to prime current, pressing policy issues in Partner countries, as a means to prepare a more needs-relevant SPHERE programme for 2020.

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from Conference „From social inclusion to skills: Pressing themes in higher education policy making“:

Conference was interactive and it engaged different staff members and students from the institution and also provided various national perspectives. Despite the fact that higher education participation numbers have been increasing in the European Union and in partner countries, the questions and challenges of social inclusion are still very present. In addition, the conference allowed important initiatives to be show-cased and promoted (the inclusion and ICM study) and for the European Commission to share important information regarding the future of the Erasmus+ programme, which frames the HERE activities.

HERE Annual conference „From social inclusion to skills: Pressing themes in higher education policy making“ helped us to understand better the concept of social inclusion, the process of defining and implementing university strategies for social inclusion and the national policy that shapes it in the higher education, and about forthcoming Erasmus+ program. We find HERE Annual conference „From social inclusion to skills: Pressing themes in higher education policy making“ very useful in our efforts to improve educational systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly to improve issues regarding social inclusion, by sharing and discussing views, ideas and experiences of policy-makers from the Study visit with policy-makers at our universities.

More information about this HERE Annual Conference:

https://supporthere.org/prague2019/page/documents-11