CASE in Brussels for the Kick-Off Meeting of SHIFT, an Erasmus+ Project

CASE was in Brussels on November 27th and 28th for the Kick-Off Meeting of Strengthen Higher-education through Innovative Financial Tools (SHIFT), a Project co-founded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Commission, Key Action 2, Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education.

SHIFT is implemented by a Consortium of 7 partners from 4 European countries (United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and Poland). SHIFT will develop and validate an innovative financial model to support Higher Education students in Europe.

The Consortium kick-started the Project implementation by planning activities of Intellectual Output 1 to map financing dynamics of HE students in the EU and selected Member States.  Then, partners outlined the work under Intellectual Output 2 by discussing the preliminary design of the SHIFT innovative financial model, which will be clearly defined according to IO1 findings.

The Kick-Off Meeting also represented a great opportunity for partners to agree upon the project logo and the web domain, in order to foster project visibility and to launch dissemination activities.

CASE’s experts work in this project on an innovative financial model to guarantee sustainability and effectiveness in the use and management of public resources devoted to financial inclusion of Polish students to eliminate financial barriers for their participation. This should also contribute to an innovative Public Private Partnership model that secures financial commitment from both public and private sectors. The impact of the project will materialise also way beyond the lifetime of the project. The benefits of SHIFT are manifold: efficiency and sustainability of public resources devoted to HE, a system to mobilise private funding for HE students, a PPP model conducive to improved HE quality, relevance and access.