Colleagues will be interested to know that at the next HE Seminar on PHE of the European Association of Insitutions in Higher Education (EURASHE) in Warsaw there will be a showcasing of benefits of stakeholder cooperation for regional development.

I will be attending and will make a further presentation of the PUMR case study of UC Leuven-Limburg that I will be also presenting at the 12th PASCAL Conference in Catania.

Michael Joris

Innovative PHE: New Trends for the Future

Professional higher education as a sector keeps growing in Europe, as a result of a growing demand for profession-orientated higher education programmes that support students in acquiring skills and competencies fitting with labour-market needs. EURASHE’s mission is to strengthen our sector further, profile institutions and programmes, and support their development. In this regard, EURASHE is organising its annual seminar on professional higher education (PHE) titled ‘Innovative PHE: New Trends for the Future’. The seminar will take place in Warsaw (Poland) on 14 and 15 October 2015, and will be co-organised by the Conference of Rectors of State Schools of Higher Vocational Education in Poland (KRePSZ). This year’s seminar will develop 3 hot topics in professional higher education.

The economic crisis has made the higher education sector rethink its financing capacities and different European countries have shown various approaches to diversifying financial sources. The seminar will present best practices and discuss what is the role of the world of work in supporting PHE institutions in this regard.

Students are the central focus of higher education, and PHE institutions continue developing tools for student development. The second day of the seminar will focus on prevention models for student drop-out and tools for ensuring access to higher education for underrepresented groups. While PHE institutions cooperate with the world of work, and especially in establishing placements and internships for students in order to apply theoretical knowledge in a working environment, this seminar will look into the quality of such placements and internships in order to increase the student experience.

Finally, we will look more closely into regional cooperation, and how the engagement of different stakeholders ensures that PHE institutions also support regional development. In this regard, the seminar will bring together regional representatives, the world of work, chambres of commerce etc.

With a more practical approach, this seminar intends to bring together practitioners in order to further strengthen the capacities of PHE institutions. World of work representatives and regional stakeholders will on the other hand benefit from developing ties with the PHE sector, and the networking opportunities will support the establishment of cooperation among seminar participants.

For more information, please see the conference website...