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There are 65 found practices.
To read more about the the practices in this table, click on Description tab above. To review the personnel efforts, time and cost for implementation of the found practices, click on Implementation tab above. To find out all details of the selected practice, click on its title.
Title Category Target group
Labour market information for spouses Social Integration & Daily Life Family Matters Profesional & Academic Development Internationals spouses/family members
Labour market preparation for spouses Social Integration & Daily Life Language Support, Language Policy Family Matters Profesional & Academic Development Internationals spouses/family members
Academic skills training for international PhD students/researchers/academics Profesional & Academic Development PhD student/Early career researcher R2 - R4 researchers
Interdisciplinary summer schools Profesional & Academic Development Promotion & Visibility PhD student/Early career researcher
Institutional small grants available for international PhDs/junior academics Profesional & Academic Development Institutional strategy PhD student/Early career researcher
Career promotion criteria published in English Profesional & Academic Development PhD student/Early career researcher R2 - R4 researchers Lecturers (incl. Language Teachers)
Induction trainíng program for new support staff Institutional Processes Capacity Building of Support & Management Staff Administrative staff
Checklists for internal support processes Administrative & Legal Support Institutional Processes Administrative staff
Inter-institutional events/study visits/job shadowing for support staff Capacity Building of Support & Management Staff Administrative staff Management staff
Top management leadership development and induction scheme Capacity Building of Support & Management Staff Management staff
Study/networking visits for top managers Networking Capacity Building of Support & Management Staff Promotion & Visibility Institutional strategy Management staff
Collaborations facilitating social integration (e.g. administrative procedures, accommodation, language, family issues, socialising) Social Integration & Daily Life Language Support, Language Policy Family Matters Profesional & Academic Development Networking Administrative & Legal Support Accommodation Safety, Healthcare & Wellbeing Social security, Health Insurance, Taxation Institutional Processes Promotion & Visibility Visa, Residence & Work Permit Institutional strategy PhD student/Early career researcher R2 - R4 researchers Lecturers (incl. Language Teachers) Internationals spouses/family members
Promotion via collaboration with professional networks (e.g. EURAXESS World Wide, consulates, alumni network) Promotion & Visibility PhD student/Early career researcher R2 - R4 researchers Management staff
International scientific committee Profesional & Academic Development R2 - R4 researchers
Online mobility management App Administrative & Legal Support PhD student/Early career researcher R2 - R4 researchers Lecturers (incl. Language Teachers)
Central IT mobility system/database Administrative & Legal Support PhD student/Early career researcher Lecturers (incl. Language Teachers) Administrative staff
Institutional fellowships to attract/retain international talent Profesional & Academic Development R2 - R4 researchers Lecturers (incl. Language Teachers)
Workshop on career planning for international PhD students Profesional & Academic Development PhD student/Early career researcher
Academic mentoring programme for international PhD students Profesional & Academic Development PhD student/Early career researcher R2 - R4 researchers
Career support for international PhDs and junior academics Profesional & Academic Development PhD student/Early career researcher
There are 65 found practices.
To review the personnel efforts, time and cost for implementation of the found practices, click on Implementation tab above. To find out all details of the selected practice, click on its title.
Title Description
Labour market information for spouses

Employment is one of the ways to facilitate the integration of foreign academics’ family members. This service will help the target group to acquire basic information about the labour market quickly. As a result, they will maintain continuity in their professional activity and improve their professional portfolio. This may also increase the financial stability and comfort of the researcher's spouses during the mobility.

Labour market preparation for spouses

This practice aims to establish additional services and more systematic assistance for better integration of the spouses of international researchers for medium or long-term stay.

  • Especially in countries with a permanent shortage of skilled workforce, the spouses can benefit from interesting job offers.
  • The international experience and background of the spouses can be highly ranked even for temporary job positions.
  • Active networking with key stakeholders in the labor market can contribute to better services.

An integral part of the preparation of the accompanying spouses for the local labour market are local language courses or foreign language courses, in general as well as voluntary activities that could help expecially at the beginning of stay.

 

Academic skills training for international PhD students/researchers/academics

By offering a wide range of possibilities for helping international research staff (in addition to local staff), including PhD students, develop their professional knowledge and skills higher education institutions enable them to fulfill their potential as researchers, make their stay more meaningful professionally and academically and thus contribute to their professional integration in the institution or the national labour market.

Interdisciplinary summer schools

Interdisciplinary summer schools are a rather efficient way of universities and their faculties to introduce international PhD students and academic staff members to the fields of study they could offer. These summer schools could also offer a great opportunity to international PhD students and academic staff members to extend their knowledge on certain topics, introduce them to new ways of teaching certain fields of study as well as to meet new colleagues, and potentially establish connections within academic circles.

Institutional small grants available for international PhDs/junior academics

Many universities already have a fund for small institutional grants to support their local PhD students and young researchers in developing various transferable skills (e.g., writing a project/project and financial management of own project), and in preparing future interdisciplinary, international, or cutting-edge projects. Such grants can be used to cover e.g. travel costs, attendance fees for conferences, extra publication, dissemination and science popularisation costs, extra fieldwork, extra lab costs/consumables, individual trainings, etc. Those grants could be offered also to international PhD students and young academics under the same conditions as their local peers.  Information on grants should be available in English and easily foundable on the institutional website. The information could be part of the welcome package.

 

Career promotion criteria published in English

Allotting a space on the institution's website for the list of career promotion criteria could greatly contribute to foreign researchers seeking a more permanent involvement at the welcoming institution. Career paths should be structured, transparent, and clear for foreign researchers.

 

Induction trainíng program for new support staff

The main benefit of this practice is that this kind of training improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the support staff work. It also increases the levels of satisfaction of the end-users such as researchers in mobility, international PhD students and academic staff.

This training should be offered to all newcomer staff. It will enhance the procces of introduction to the newcomers and shorter the time for their integration.

As a result the newcomers will be able to engage in the process faster and deliver high-quality service, improving their capacity for the job.

Checklists for internal support processes

The goal of preparing a check-lists of internal support processes is to collect and describe information in a user-centered manner.

  • This checklist can improve the understanding of the most common service delivery paths across the whole organisation.
  • It can be designed for several users' scenarios, facilitating service delivery description and visualisation.
  • It can improve understanding of the services provided by every department and the organisational capacity to support researchers' needs.
  • It can facilitate the training of the newly appointed staff. 
  • The checklist can improve service delivery, easily orientating visitors about specific service paths across different departments.
Inter-institutional events/study visits/job shadowing for support staff

Such events are an efficient way for professionals from different HEIs to share their knowledge, exchange their experience and challenges and build contacts and trust, in other words, a community of experts. Better informed support staff, with well established professional networks, inspired by good practices of other colleagaues can provide more professional and motivated guidance.

The events may also include some training part to enhance their competencies (soft skills, intercultural, unbiased communication style), or hands-on activities how to create more internationally friendly institutional environments. The events may include several sessions where support staff participants can collaborate on small tasks and jointly innovate various services (e.g. Orientation week), and suggest new channels of communication, or define practical guidelines

A very effective way of experiential peer learning activity through observation and exchange of knowledge is represented by study visits or job shadowing. They can typically have a cross-border character and lead to further intensification or introduction of new services at the home institution resulting in the high-level provision of assistance to mobile academics and building up professional networks.

Top management leadership development and induction scheme

Leadership development schemes vary from induction workshops for newly recruited academic staff to mentoring schemes for doctoral candidates, courses in project management, MBAs, job shadowing, general leadership development programmes to more established programmes in higher education. Prior research revealed that offering leadership development opportunities is closely linked to a wider culture of continuous professional development and to existing national legislative frameworks on work environment (Louisa Bunescu & Thomas Estermann, EUA).

The reasons for setting up leadership development and induction schemes can be diverse.

First, such professional development opportunities increase the level of preparedness of executive leaders at universities. Institutional induction schemes ensure continuity and a smooth handover of responsibilities.  

Second, they help acquire specific managerial (e.g. financial, legal, entrepreneurial, intercultural, international) competences while on the job and build confidence.

Third, leadership development schemes are also an opportunity for higher education leaders to learn how to better tackle crisis management situations, like the Covid-19 pandemic or influx of refugee students.

Training programmes on leadership skills are also offered to emerging leaders in higher education, including doctoral candidates in order to prepare them for the challenging roles that they might take up in the higher education sector (Louisa Bunescu & Thomas Estermann, EUA).

Study/networking visits for top managers

Networking and study trips abroad provide an efficient tool to boost the overall visibility of a higher education institution, including various opportunities for study and work it may offer.

Participating staff members / managers act as ambassadors of their institutions abroad and also expand their own professional expertise and knowledge through the exposure to other institutions' good practice.

Prior research found that informal opportunities for learning sliding into the spaces around formal events were often responsible for unexpected and influential perspective transformations and that these opportunities for learning are often undervalued. It was also proven that international study visits where participants agree their own collective agendas and develop a trusted validating community group are more valuable than transmission models of leadership learning (Andy Cramp, University of Wolverhampton).

Collaborations facilitating social integration (e.g. administrative procedures, accommodation, language, family issues, socialising)

Social integration, in a narrow sense, may refer mainly to socio-cultural integration enabling the creation of personal connections/networking of international PhD students/researchers/academics, and their family members with their local and other international doctoral and academic fellows. In a broader context, it covers also other integration activities like finding a proper place for living, opportunities for career development, language learning, smooth access to the labour market and education to family members, access to health care, etc. However, also handling all the administrative issues related to relocation (residence permits, health/social insurance, tax, vehicle registration, pets, etc.) in smooth, clear procedures helps a lot for better navigation in the new setting. Being comfortable with the local environment may be substantial to the overall PhD/academics' performance.

Often international welcome centres or one-stop shops established by local/regional/national authorities or associations of several HEIs/research organisations in the city can take over many of the mentioned responsibilities, provide services in a structured manner for a critical mass of clients, promote the city/region efficiently, organise various events about life in the country/city, provide labour-market orientation and dual-career counseling services, offer domestic language courses, etc.

Here we focus on listing possible partners for collaborations to provide more advanced and higher quality services and a broader portfolio of them. Practical steps on how to establish them are also briefly drafted. Although establishing collaborations with numerous external partners might seem a laborious effort, such synergies might bring fruit in clearer/more detailed guidelines, databases, shared responsibilities, better information flow, and even saved human/financial resources.

Promotion via collaboration with professional networks (e.g. EURAXESS World Wide, consulates, alumni network)

Using professional networks could significantly facilitate promoting the host institution HEI as a study and academic/research destination, promoting its strength areas and funding opportunities, and fostering its global presence. This could substantially lead to attracting more of international talent.

 

International scientific committee

Transparency and reliability are one of the key factors of a successful scientific activity. The transparency can be achieved by establishing an international scientific committee responsible for supervision and verification of scientific work. Such committees can be established for the HEI’s projects or units. The committee’s work will  improve the HEI’s scientific staff competencies and will be an opportunity for exchange of experiences and knowledge between the engaged institutions. Working with experts from various countries and institutions will be a way to improve communication and cooperation between the engaged institutions and will also increase the HEI’s visibility. The committee members can also be engaged in scientific staff selection and evaluation processes. The experts selection can be based on the HEI’s international partnerships and HEI’s staff personal networks.

However, the existence of such committee(s) shall respect the relevant institutional regulations and project funding agreement requirements. Nevertheless, although similar bodies might exist as part of the instututional structures, the practice might provide some inspiration about the mandates it can have.

Online mobility management App

A simple online mobility management app enabling an inviting person/department to enter all the parameters on incoming PhDs/academics prior to his/her stay, sending out an auto-generated welcoming email (s) with information and access to all university services (online library, pass/card, other electronic services before their coming to the receiving institution.) easing thus the whole pre-arrival process immensely.
This should be done in cases of incoming PhDs/academics who already know that their mobility/ job position has been approved/confirmed. 


 

Central IT mobility system/database

IT mobility system/database is an important segment in organizing information regarding mobility. Each institution should develop its own database, and, if needs be, offer information from it to the other institutions. 

Institutional fellowships to attract/retain international talent

One of the most frequent obstacles is the lack of human resources to participate in different types of research projects in the country. Attracting and retaining highly skilled researchers may help to bring new expertise and skills and also to create and maintain research and business relationships. Promoting international mobility of researchers is for the host institution and inevitable part of maintaining them later in the country which may result in overcoming labour shortages and boosting entrepreneurship in knowledge-based sectors in the host country.

Workshop on career planning for international PhD students

Short interactive workshop to familiarise PhD researchers with basic career planning methods and tools and introduce them into the job search strategies and tools for researchers (in both local and international labour market).

By the end of the workshop participants should:

  • Understand the key steps of career planning process and know the basic tools to support to support it;
  • Be more aware about their skills and capabilities they have and need to develop and how these are linked to different career paths in academia and beyond;
  • Be more aware about the various career paths for researchers;
  • Be more knowledgeable about the local and international labour market for researchers and main job search tools and strategies;
  • Be able to formulate a personal action plan to follow up after the workshop.
Academic mentoring programme for international PhD students

Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be (Eric Pasloe).

A dedicated mentoring programme for PhD students allows institutions to encourage students to progress with their thesis, connect PhD candidates with alumni and local peers, support academics in their professional development, and build a vibrant academic community at the institution.

International PhD students can particularly benefit from their engagement in an institutional mentoring programme by expanding their professional network in the host country, gaining knowledge about local academic culture and traditions, gain tangible academic/professional experience (e.g. workplace visits, shadowing, interview experience, placements, a graduate job), develop written and verbal communication in the local language. Academic mentoring programmes therefore greatly contribute to the professional and social integration of early-stage international scholars.

Career support for international PhDs and junior academics

Career development support for PhDs and junior academics is an important part of preparation for future employment. The main aim of career development support is to help PhD students and early career researchers:

  • Understand the specifics of job search in the labour market for researchers
  • Explore career opportunities within and beyond academia
  • Navigate them in terms of decision making of their future job and
  • Develop their skills to match the requirements of potential employers.

If there is career support service for researchers at your institution, make sure that it is also available for international PhD students and researchers and that it takes their specific needs into account.  As they probaly have neither knowledge of local labour market nor strong professional network in your country they might benefit from availibilty of career advice a lot.

Ensuring accessibility of career advice to international PhD students and researchers might help you to:

  • Increase the attractiveness of your institution for international talents as they see that the support for their next step will be available to them
  • Retain international researchers (and your potential collaborators) in your region
  • Develop collaboration with local employers who gain an access to wider pool of highly skilled candidates.

Final output: career support services available to international researchers and PhD students.

Major activities: Examples of such services might include professional career coaching, individual career counselling, interactive trainings, workshops, online navigation tools etc.

There are 65 found practices.
To read more about the the practices in this table, click on Description tab above. To find out all details of the selected practice, click on its title.
Title Importance Scale of change Setup cost Setup time Setup personnel Delivery cost Delivery time Delivery personnel
Labour market information for spouses Nice to have
Labour market preparation for spouses Nice to have
Academic skills training for international PhD students/researchers/academics Important to have
Interdisciplinary summer schools Important to have
Institutional small grants available for international PhDs/junior academics Important to have
Career promotion criteria published in English Important to have
Induction trainíng program for new support staff Important to have
Checklists for internal support processes Essential to have
Inter-institutional events/study visits/job shadowing for support staff Important to have
Top management leadership development and induction scheme Important to have
Study/networking visits for top managers Essential to have
Collaborations facilitating social integration (e.g. administrative procedures, accommodation, language, family issues, socialising) Important to have
Promotion via collaboration with professional networks (e.g. EURAXESS World Wide, consulates, alumni network) Important to have
International scientific committee Important to have
Online mobility management App Important to have
Central IT mobility system/database Important to have
Institutional fellowships to attract/retain international talent Essential to have
Workshop on career planning for international PhD students Nice to have
Academic mentoring programme for international PhD students Important to have
Career support for international PhDs and junior academics Important to have

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