Project SHIFT Meeting in Warsaw

CASE hosted the 3rd Meeting of the project SHIFT (Strengthen Higher-education through Innovative Financial Tools) co-funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Commission, Key Action 2, Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education.

SHIFT is implemented by a Consortium of 8 partners from 4 countries (the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and Poland) and will develop and validate an innovative model to provide financial support to students. SHIFT is developing a fund that pools money from both public and private sectors, managing the finances to generate revenues to be redistributed to HE students in the form of grants and/or soft loans.

During the meeting, the Partners discussed the main findings of the report “SHIFT Innovative Financial Model for HE Students” and advanced implementation by fine-tuning the methodology for the validation phase of the project based on the next deliverable “Test and Validate SHIFT through Stress Testing”.

Partners also set the stage for the “SHIFT Implementation Package” that will include tools and documents for universities to implement the SHIFT Model, as well as a set of financial literacy tools and resources for students.

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.

For further information on SHIFT please visit http://www.project-shift.eu/