The Inclusive Uni project consortium is absolutely delighted to announce a truly significant milestone in our journey toward fostering a more inclusive and welcoming higher education environment. Our dedicated partners have successfully completed every single task under Work Package 2 (WP2) and have now officially begun their crucial work on Work Package 3 (WP3). This pivotal transition marks a major step forward, laying a robust foundation for the project’s training initiatives and affirming our collective commitment to creating more equitable and accessible campuses for everyone.
The Successful Completion of Work Package 2
The successful completion of WP2, titled “Face-to-face training programs for academic staff on inclusion and diversity,” was a monumental undertaking that required meticulous planning and close collaboration. This phase was about far more than just ticking boxes; it was about building a strong, evidence-based foundation for all future training efforts. The journey began with the project’s lead partner, Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi (NEU), who meticulously developed a comprehensive needs analysis survey. This wasn’t just a simple questionnaire; it was a carefully crafted tool designed to deeply understand the specific challenges, existing knowledge gaps, and pressing needs related to inclusion and diversity within the academic staff at our partner universities.
Once the initial survey was finalized in English, the project partners embarked on a crucial phase of localization. All consortium members took on the vital responsibility of translating the survey into their respective national languages. This painstaking process ensured that the survey was not only linguistically accurate but also culturally resonant, allowing us to gather broad and authentic data from a diverse pool of respondents. By making the survey accessible in multiple languages, we empowered academic staff to provide detailed and meaningful feedback without a language barrier, leading to a much richer and more accurate dataset. With the translations complete, the partners then meticulously implemented the surveys in their own local contexts, reaching out to at least 50 academic staff members at each institution. This extensive data collection process was vital to gathering a representative sample and ensuring that our findings accurately reflected the unique situations and needs within each country.
Following the successful collection of data, the entire consortium collectively engaged in the crucial work of analysis. All partners worked together to carefully examine the collected information, searching for key insights, recurring themes, and significant findings. This collaborative analysis ensured that the conclusions drawn were comprehensive and benefited from multiple perspectives. Finally, NEU took the lead on the culminating task of WP2, which involved compiling all the findings into a detailed and insightful report. This document, based entirely on the hard data collected, was then shared with all the partners, serving as a roadmap for the subsequent work packages and providing a clear, evidence-based understanding of the needs that our training programs must address.
Looking Ahead to Work Package 3
With the valuable insights gleaned from this exhaustive needs analysis now in hand, the project is enthusiastically transitioning into its next major phase: Work Package 3. This new work package shifts our focus to an equally important group of university personnel. The goal of is to develop and implement a two-module training program specifically tailored for administrative and other non-academic staff. These are the individuals who are often the first point of contact for students and visitors, and by empowering them with the right knowledge and skills, we can create an even more welcoming and inclusive campus environment. This upcoming phase promises to be just as impactful as the last, building directly on the successes of WP2 to further our project’s overarching mission.
Stay Connected and Follow Our Journey!
Stay up to date with all the latest news, project milestones, and exciting developments by following us on our official website: https://inclusive-uni.eduproject.eu/
