How to get started

If you want to establish an overseas collaboration with a VET organisation in Canada or Europe, there are a few things you should take in consideration:

What are the goals we want to achieve?
- Establishing a collaboration is time consuming and traveling is expensive. Clear goals will help you to spend your time and money efficient.
Which region of Canada or Europe is most suitable to achieve our goals?
- The regions in Canada and Europe have different cultures and climates. Some desk research before you start to invest might be handy.
How and where do I find suitable and reliable partners?
- Visiting conferences where VET organisations meet and asking other partners (also for references) can help you finding reliable new partners.
Visit each other before you start cooperating.
- People are social species. Meeting and (if possible) liking each other is a huge factor in a successful collaboration

Bridge the Ocean project

Bridge the Ocean is a partnership project of the Erasmus+ program, which creates a model of global mobility and cooperation between European and Canadian Colleges.

The partners are four vocational education and training (VET) colleges from Finland, two from Canada and one from the Netherlands and Denmark. In the project, two European and one Canadian study units are planned, which will be piloted with a multinational group during the project.

The project is the first European Erasmus+ VET project that involves partners from outside Europe. The main goals of the Bridge the Ocean partnership project are to increase the number of global mobility of students and experts, teachers, and at the same time promote the development of both professional and international competence and key skills.

The project seeks visibility and interest in the internationalization of VET.

BIDS

Bridging Inclusion Digitalization & Sustainability
The BIDS project has three main objectives.

Building and strengthening partnerships to support the implementation and development of internationalization strategies.
Supporting the quality of staff and student mobility between two continents
Combining the previous two goals in such a way that we create a model of how the priorities of the Erasmus+ program, inclusion, digitalization, and sustainability, can be realized in the strategies of the VET providers.

The partners are four vocational education and training colleges from Finland, two from Canada, and one from Portugal, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The project will consist of three different modules: a Sustainability module in Nova Scotia Canada, a Digitalization module in the Netherlands, and an Inclusion module in Finland. These modules will be attended by students and staff from participating partner schools, representing a mix of different educational sectors. We believe that this diverse group will not only enhance students’ soft skills but also foster their international competences.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 2020-1-FI01-KA202-066653