Opening Universities for Youth in Europa
The Opening Universities for Youth in Europe (OUYE) strategic partnership in the field of higher education is presented by a consortium of 4 universities and 6 organisations from 4 countries (Finland, United Kingdom, Turkey and France).
The project is exploring by developing participatory action research methods in pairs (university/ youth organisation) what barriers young people from more vulnerable backgrounds may face in accessing higher education. The project use non-formal learning environments and arts-based methods. The project will run for three years, from 2021 to 2023.
Objectives
The OUYE project aims to create a common understanding of how to widen access to university for young people who are usually excluded, such as young people from minorities, those with mental health or neuropsychiatric disorders, immigrants or drop-outs. The local actions in the project are run by pairs of an university and youth organisation. The Finnish actions of the project is jointly run by Humak and the Valo-Valmennusyhdistys.
The OUYE project has all together a team of around 20 people representing all project country, made up of lecturers, researchers and youth workers from project organisations. In total, around 200 young people will participate in the whole project and benefit from it to build their own learning pathways.
The aims of the project are:
To identify together with young people the challenges that vulnerable young people experience when applying for higher education or studying there. The aim is to use experimental and participatory action research methods to generate insights into young people’s thoughts and experiences, using arts-based methods in non-formal learning environments.
The project will produce a European toolbox (IO1) of local artistic productions made by young people themselves, which in their own way illustrate their own experiences of the themes addressed by the project. The toolbox will also include materials for training and evaluations and feedback (IO2) produced jointly by the project. The OUYE project will also run a series of local seminars, which will be the subject of case studies. These case studies will be subject to a comparative research analysis. The results of the project will be available on the project website https://ouye-erasmus.eu/
The project will also organise joint training sessions, one in each project country. These will cover topics such as interculturalism and higher education and improving young people’s non-formal knowledge and skills. The training in Finland took place at Humak’s Kiljava campus and in Helsinki in June 2022.
The University of Rennes 1 in France is responsible for monitoring the project’s activities and as well for two international dissemination events (E1 – E6). In the other project countries, the university and the organisation will carry out the local activities of the project and a local dissemination event.
One of the project’s objectives is also to strengthen cooperation between and among universities and the local youth organisation. In addition, the project will strengthen the capacity of the actors, for example in non-formal education methods such as participatory action research.
| Duration (päivämäärinä): | 01.01.2021 – 31.08.2023 |
| Project manager: | Eeva Sinisalo-Juha |
| Email: | eeva.sinisalo-juha@humak.fi |
| Partners: | France: The University of Rennes 1, the leading partner The youth organisation Démozamau and the organisation CRIDEV UK: Manchester Metropolitan University The organisation RAPAR Turkey: Yeditepe University (Istanbul) The organisation ZDA Finland: Humak University of Applied Sciences (Helsinki) The organisation Valo-Valmennusyhdistys |
| Funder: | EU: Erasmus+, OPH.png |
| Budget: | Alle tai 50 000 euroa |
