Erasmus + project – ENTRANTS

4 partners are part of the new Erasmus plus project -ENTRANTS. The project started in October 2020 and will at increase student success for vulnerable student groups by developing measures to increase their sense of belonging at higher education institutions while at the same time avoiding the triggering of “Othering”-mechanisms of these groups.

The project will establish a Students’ needs assessment, a student experience platform, a community-building course and staff training. The outputs, or modular parts thereof, can be adopted easily by other higher education institutions or rolled out to a larger group of students at a later point.

At the moment, a lacking sense of belonging within higher education, both regarding connections to fellow students as well as the identification with the institution and academic life itself, represents one of the three major reasons students drop out and break off their higher education experience. This is the motivation behind this project.

The project will launch soon a pan-European survey to gather insights from first-semester students gauging their sense of belonging and possible difficulties in adapting to academic life. We encourage anyone wishing to contribute to stay tune to the survey details on the website. The ENTRANTS project comprises 4 partners from Europe and is coordinated by FHOÖ University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Upper in Austria.