This is the Professional Development in Intercultural Competence in Higher Education Institutions (PROFIC) project in conjunction with 7 other European and Latin American Universities. The launch activity was held in Bilbao (Spain) on February 1 and 2. Members of the Pro-Secretariat for International Relations, which will be the executing unit of the Project at the UNC, were present at the meeting.
The Professional Development in Intercultural Competence in Higher Education Institutions (PROFIC) is a project funded by Erasmus+ that aims to promote the professional development of administrative and academic staff of Latin American higher education institutions. In this way, it seeks to facilitate work and collaboration in various cultural fields and with people who come from different contexts. This is the second initiative of the Erasmus+ program to develop intercultural skills and its immediate predecessor is the Erasmus Mundus Intercultural Competence (EMIC).
The launch meeting organized in the city of Bilbao was attended by the Glasgow Caledonian University-GCU (United Kingdom), who is also the coordinator of the project, the University of Deusto-UD (Spain), host of the meeting, the Guglielmo Marconi University (Italy) , the Don Bosco and Technological Universities of El Salvador, the Mexican Veracruzana and Guadalajara and the National Universities of Lanús and Córdoba (Argentina). The National University of La Plata is also part of the project consortium.
Dane Lukic (GCU) and Maria Yaroch (UD), authors of the project comment “cultural diversity, if not addressed correctly, can generate communication problems, conflicts, exclusion, delays and low quality results; but if managed well, an interculturally diverse environment can provide better and innovative results”.
The project reflects on the increase in diversity and internationalization that has occurred in the Latin American higher education system in recent decades. This has generated the need to develop professional skills in institutions and organizations that allow working in diverse fields and with people from different cultural contexts. To do this, you need a series of skills that allow you to study, live and work effectively, without cultural limitations. This set of skills is called Intercultural Competence.
The UNC will participate in the PROFIC through the design of a comprehensive study on the intercultural skills of university staff. It will then implement a series of measures to develop these capacities in various areas of our House of Higher Studies.