Universidade Católica receives Good Practice Award in Erasmus+ Project
The Universidade Católica Portuguesa received the Good Practice Award for the results obtained in the 2019 Erasmus+ project, in the "Higher Education" category. The award was presented to the Vice-Rector, Isabel Vasconcelos, at the event "Good Practices 2022", which took place at the Municipal Auditorium of Figueira da Foz, on 16 December.
The awarded project took place during the initial period of COVID-19, so in the evaluation report, the Erasmus+ National Agency for Education and Training (ANE) highlights "positively, how UCP faced the adverse conditions imposed by the pandemic, adapted the execution and managed to maintain a very significant number of IN student mobilities, surpassing the contracted number in the OUT student flows", obtaining a total execution of 533 outgoing mobilities, compared to the 449 planned, that is, 118.7%.
"We were impacted by the pandemic, but we did not let that dictate the failure of the project," explains Sofia Florentino, one of the people responsible for coordination at UCP. "We managed to have several success cases, which were an added value, such as the total integration of a student with special needs", she adds.
Aspect that ANE also refers in the report, highlighting the "inclusion of students with special needs or situations of economic disadvantage with the attribution of complementary grants from the DGES, the flexibility and adequacy of the management" of the project.
This is the case of Diana Silva, student of the Braga Regional Centre of Católica. "Mobility is not always easy, being in a wheelchair," she shares. But thanks to integration efforts, the participation of Diana turned out to be very positive. "The experience was good for my resilience, and to affirm, without a doubt, my autonomy, I felt much braver," she recalls.
Along with this success story, the efforts of the Universidade Católica ensured that all 32 mobilities cancelled due to force majeure were deferred, thus not penalising the participants.
The ceremony in which the good practice award was handed over to UCP was also attended by the Director of the agency, Cristina Perdigão, and the Director of ANE+JDCES, Luís Alves.
See the testimonials in full: