The ‘EDIFY-EDU: Equality, Diversity, Inclusion For improving the qualitY of Management EDUcation, training and professions’ is a newly approved European co-funded project that addresses the skills gap in the sector of Management education in regards to the competencies on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), which are constantly in a higher demand in the present complex and digitally transforming society.

The project aims to facilitate the acquisition of EDI competencies and transversal skills for management students, who are the future managers, and actual managers in business, focusing on small and medium-sized companies which are the backbones of the economy, in order to respond to the current societal transformation. This will be achieved by setting up a system for skill assessment, learning offer (as micro-credentials), knowledge validation and recognition. Specifically:

• The EDIFY-EDU has already kicked off its activities on analyzing the training needs on the Management education and business sector regarding EDI in Europe.

• Following the analysis, the identified needs will be translated into a modular training Curriculum addressing EQF levels 5-6, that is based on blended learning principles and it will be realized within: a MOOC, of 6 to 8 weeks long); Specialisation Courses, of a maximum duration of 8 weeks, and Work-Based Learning (WBL) six-months activities in the participating piloting countries, including Greece. This modular training program will emphasize on the development of EDI skills as well as digital, green and social skills which are considered strategic for the new millennium.

• At least a hundred and twenty-five (125) trainees from five (5) EDIFY-EDU countries will be involved in the process and will transfer the acquired competences and skills to the real work environments, by strengthening the relation with the actual managers and applying a “flipped classroom” approach, i.e. trainees will familiarize the company managers with EDI skills and inadvertent unconscious bias in the workplace.

• The outer goal is to incorporate the Equality Diversity and Inclusion principles across all business management processes. Therefore, a diverse work environment and an inclusive workplace culture, in which the EDI principles are respected in the business policies and practices, will be promoted, in order to enable employees to feel valued and reach their full potential in their workplace.

The DAISSy Research Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) is the Greek Academic project partner and will be actively involved in all EDIFY-EDU deliverables. In addition, it will be one of the partners responsible for the development of the research methodological framework and tools and the conduction of the National and EU Report on the research findings, as well as the development of the Curriculum.

Furthermore, DAISSy, with its long experience, will be responsible for the whole Implementation of the Curriculum and in particular for the design, development and maintenance of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and e-learning platform, as well as the assessment and evaluation process of the training activities.

Lastly, taking into account its high-standard expertise, DAISSy will have a very active role in the standardisation of the Specialization courses and the conversion in ECTS credits, combined with the organisation of the WBL activities and the mobilities.

The EDIFY_EDU is a three-year project co-funded by the ERASMUS Lump Sum Grant of the European Union and is coordinated by the DUN LAOGHAIRE IADT-Institute of Art, Design and Technology (Ireland) with eleven (11) partners in six (6) EU member states (Ireland, Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Greece) and three associated partners in Germany, Italy and Belgium. The DAISSy Research Group of the HOU and the Achade-Achaia Chamber Development Entity are the two partners which will be thoroughly linked for the effective implementation of the project activities in Greece, embracing also a number of respective stakeholders aiming at the multiple exploitation of the project results and its impact.

For more information on the EDIFY-EDU project, and other activities of DAISSy:

• Website : https://daissy.eu/
• Facebook : @DAISSyResearchGroup
• Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/edify-edu/
• Twitter : https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram : @daissy_researchgroup
• Email : info@daissy.eap.gr