Executive Summary

The present publication presents the main results and findings of the eMundus project, an activity conducted during the period 2013-2015 with the support of the Erasmus Mundus programme of the European Commission. The project involved an international consortium coordinated by SOPHIA R&I (Italy) with the Open University of the Netherlands (NL), the Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (Spain), the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Mexico), the Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics (Russia), the OER Foundation (New Zealand), Athabasca University (Canada) and the Universitas Siswa Bangsa Internasional (Indonesia).

The aim of eMundus was to strengthen cooperation among European Higher Education Institutions and their strategic counterparts in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Canada and New Zealand, by exploring and mainstreaming the potential of Open Education (OE) approaches to support long term, balanced, inter-cultural academic partnerships.

This report presents a brief overview of the main results and messages of eMundus:
• First, some considerations are presented from the fact-finding reports drawn to identify patterns of collaboration enhanced by open education approaches, MOOCs and Virtual Mobility in the eMundus countries, specifically Brazil, Canada, Europe, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand and Russia.
• Second, the eMundus online Atlas is described, as a way to identify successful patterns of OE-enhanced international collaboration by gathering and analysing interesting and inspiring international OE practices.
• Third, the eMundus Exploratorium is introduced, a platform to foster sharing of Open Education approaches and tools through an online repository based on scenarios of use designed on the needs of Higher Education stakeholders.
• Fourth, the report presents the six new forms of international collaboration fostered by Open Education approaches that have emerged from the eMundus work.
• Last but not least, the recommendations resulting from the eMundus experience are presented, targeting university leaders, executives, international relation officers, academic networks and policy makers in charge of Higher Education.

eMundus has been working – in a rather pioneering way - to explore and promote the potential contribution of Open Education to XXI century academic cooperation, encouraging and supporting the transfer to universities of the best practices of world leaders in the field, especially to those which are starting to adopt strategies such as OER, MOOCs and Virtual Mobility for their internationalisation. During the project, the eMundus tea, has presented the project messages in more than 120 events worldwide, and more than 500 institutions have been engaged in one way or another with the project activities. Still, the way to go to promote Open Education as a catalyst towards inclusive, intercultural and effective international cooperation among universities is long and much work remains to be done. The present publication aims at providing a “snapshot legacy” of the work done, so that others can further explore the relation between Open Education and internationalisation, for the benefit of universities around the globe.

Keywords

Brazil · Canada · eMundus Atlas · higher education · Indonesia · Mexico ·  · New Zealand · OER policy · Russia