AEC-SMS (2017 – 2021) – Creative Europe Network

International Relations Coordinators (IRC) Working Group

Objective

• Help music students and teachers to internationalise their careers and activities

Outputs

Annual Meetings for International Relations Coordinators

The International Relations Coordinators (IRC) Working Group has organised, between 2018 and 2021, 4 editions of the AEC Annual meeting for International Relations Coordinators. These meetings, involving around 200 participants each year, brought together a growing community of international relations coordinators (IRCs) composed of administrative or teaching staff members from HMEIs who deal with international relations and European programmes (such as ERASMUS), as well as from institutions not familiar with these programmes, but with an interest in becoming involved. These meetings have been important for networking, exchanging useful information and developing partnerships.

Reference documents

As an outcome of the discussions taking place during those meetings, the group published the following reference documents for the IRCs community of the AEC:

• Reflection Paper on the AEC Annual Meeting for International Coordinators 2018 – Looking back at the past while imagining the future of internationalization of Higher Music Education
• The 2020 Manifesto of the AEC International Relations Coordinators Community and related Video

• Articles on Internationalisation and Transnational Mobility on the SMS website
  • Students’ shifting towards Chinese Higher Education Institutions: A pivotal change in the traditional setting
  • Being International at Home by Integrating Other Cultures at Local Level
  • The Future of Employability in Music
  • Huis clos (“No exit”) – International music students during the pandemic
  • Building a shared roadmap for Sustainability
• Call for Flexibility related to the consequences of the Pandemic on the new academic year for international students
• How Institutions Reacted to the pandemic: some experiences from the IRCs
• Contribution to the Erasmus 500 Campaign
• Contribution to the Erasmus University Charter – available upon request

The IRCs have been monitoring the online tools developed by the AEC for supporting mobility among HMEIs: the AEC website database, the AEC Job Vacancy Platform and the European Online Application System for Mobility EASY.

In particular, the EASY system grew sensibly in the 4 project years, going from 67 to 125 institutions joining the system as internal institutions, with about 6.000 applications exchanged within the system in the last academic year. The existing functionalities of the system have been improved to meet the needs of the users, EASY has been opened to other artistic disciplines in addition to music, a consistent body of User Support Material (manuals and webinars) has been developed and made available to all users and, finally, the connection to the Erasmus Without Paper ecosystem has been established.

Working Group members

EASY Task Force

Hear it from the AEC members!