A digital platform developed at UVic-UCC will help students to carry out a degree final project that solves real needs in the health field

The EHECADI (European Health Care Final Dissertation) project, led by the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), has been launched in order to help university students prepare their degree final project (DFP) starting in the first year, giving them a more pragmatic approach and an international perspective aimed at solving society's real needs in the health field (Science With and For Society). This Erasmus+ project will develop a digital platform which unlike existing platforms will be innovative in that it will be co-created between students, professionals and teachers.

This platform will be fully operational in the summer of 2023, and will enable teachers and students from all over Europe to share useful tools for carrying out the DFP. The resources available on this digital platform will include be a virtual practicum community in which students from the various countries can interact. Students will also be offered training courses so that they can acquire various cross-disciplinary competences (on communication, interculturality, bioethics, sustainability, etc.) and practical support guides will be published, containing project materials adapted to the subjects in the health sciences bachelor's degree programmes.

The participants in the EHECADI project include the UVic-UCC research groups TR2Lab (Tissue Repair and Regeneration Laboratory), M₃O (Methodology, Methods, Models and Outcomes of Health and Social Sciences) and GREAF (Sport and Physical Activity Research Group), and the Faculty of Health Sciences and Welfare (FCSB). The lead researcher is Ester Goutan Roura (TR2Lab) and the members of the research team coordinating the project are Judit Bort Roig, Elisabet Dachs Cabanes, Javier Jerez Roig, Marta Otero Viñas and Montse Romero Mas.

According to Goutan, this project "aims to be very inclusive and reach as many students as possible, especially those who want to do an international DFP and who cannot access international mobility." The project's lead researcher also emphasises that the aim is for "students to benefit from this digital platform from the first year of the degree onwards" and that based on the results obtained, it could be useful for other universities and in other areas apart from healthcare.

Six European universities

The project, which began in January, will last three years, ending in 2024. The first working meeting between all the participating institutions will take place in a virtual format on 24 and 25 February. In addition to UVic-UCC, the other European universities working on this research will be Odisee (Belgium), Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu Oy (Finland), the Waterford Institute of Technology (Ireland), Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa (Portugal) and European University Cyprus (Cyprus) , which teach bachelor's degree programmes in the field of health, as well as members of the research staff in the COHERE network (Consortium of Institutes of Higher Education in Health and Rehabilitation in Europe). Both the digital platform and the training courses and guides will be co-created by students and faculty at these universities.

Two non-university institutions will also be involved in the EHECADI project: the Fundació TIC Salut Social (Catalonia) and the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities (Belgium), which will help to identify and align the universities' knowledge with the real needs of European citizens. According to Goutan, "coordinating a consortium like this is a great opportunity to share broad-based and intercultural experiences and expertise, which can add a lot of value for more comprehensive training of our students."

The budget for this project is 368,429 Euros, and it is funded by the European Erasmus+ programme within the KA2 Cooperation partnerships in higher education. The EHECADI project entered an Erasmus call which received submissions from 110 projects, of which only 34 were selected and receive funding.

The roots of the EHECADI project

The EHECADI project originates in TR2Lab's strategy of enabling bachelor's degree students (Biotechnology, Nursing, and Human Nutrition and Dietetics) to carry out their DFP in the context of a research project. TR2Lab has been the backdrop for 32 DFPs since 2015, and three have been won prizes: Maria Rovira (the Teniu Talent Prize in 2019), and recently, Júlia Piqué and Ruth Vilardell (the Vicenç Fisas Prize). The AQUID 2017 grant led by Ester Goutan consolidated this area of work, and as Goutan says, "showed that a research group is a good environment for practising and acquiring cross-disciplinary and research skills, which are very useful for future professionals."

The COHEHRE 2019 conference was the driving force behind the internationalisation of the health field, with the start of a collaborative research project between students from two universities: UVic-UCC and Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa. This project was a very positive experience, not only from a research point of view but also from the perspective of the students' participation, as it enhanced the FCSB's interest in the internationalisation of degree final projects and became the seed for this more ambitious project, which has obtained funding in this Erasmus + KA2 call for Cooperation partnerships in higher education.