The BOOST project primarily addresses the overarching priority of ‘Digital Transformation.' At the same time, the project touches ‘Sustainable Growth and Jobs’ and ‘Migration and Mobility’ with both capitalizing on the main overarching priority of Digital Transformation. Ukrainian universities located in remote towns, who are not able to compete with top educational establishments, face multiple challenges ranging from low technical capacity to falling behind the latest approaches in learning and to underdeveloped soft skills of both staff and students. This is primarily the result of being located outside of central cities and having a limited scope of communication. At the same time, their survivability is vital for their communities as the local universities keep/push the general level up. This project undertakes an ambitious aim to support remote universities that have never enjoyed international project experience. The project will enrich the participating universities with simple tools to increase their performance in different areas ranging from capacity to internationalization. In this proposal, we use the term local university for a university located in a remote area, far from the capital and center of its region.

The BOOST concept can be described as know-how sharing “from a local university to a local university.” The following facts explain the project rationale:

1) local and central universities face different educational challenges and perform different community roles.

2) local universities are often disregarded as potential international cooperation partners.

3) international cooperation at the level of the same size ensures easier experience exchange, particularly for newcomers as the educational entities of the same level understand each other better.

This rationale has given rise to a project idea that local EU universities can share know-how with motivated local universities from Ukraine who have never experienced international cooperation. The partnership includes 3 EU universities and 6 UA universities. This is their first international project for 5 UA universities and 1 EU university. The BOOST partnership also includes a relocated university (BE 005) that in 2014 had to start its educational activity from scratch due to the warring activities happening in Makiivka (which is not under the rule of Ukraine/Kyiv now). Having BE 0005 in our partnership means engaging a socially and financially disadvantaged partner, disadvantaged teachers and students. Our EU team has several people who speak Russian or Ukrainian. It means that participation in some courses, development teams, and a study trip to Estonia can be offered to the participants with limited English abilities. We hope that this opportunity will encourage them to improve their language skills in the future and apply for opportunities which are beyond their capacity now.

The partnership has EU partners from Estonia, Poland, and Slovenia. We believe this cooperation will help the participating Ukrainian universities comprehend what and how it was done when these countries joined the European educational space and how the system of education had to change. The gained experience can later be developed into a Roadmap for Local/Remote Universities so that other first-timers or local universities can save resources and adapt this experience to their needs. BOOST will progressively increase the technical and IT capacities of the Ukrainian first-timers, improve digital and blended learning formats practiced at the UA partners, deepen the introduction of studentcentred learning, promote the professional development of the teaching and administrative staff, and expand international communication and internationalization of the Ukrainian institutions involved. Due to the limited previous international cooperation experience, the project will likely become an eye-opener for the UA partners, who are predominantly newcomers. This project is also an easy case for the EU newcomer who has rich experience in IT, tech, and applied sciences but has never participated in any activity. It will be a perfect opportunity for the Polish university to develop their Erasmus+ KA2 capacity. The straightforward plan of the project with three focuses will help ensure the smooth running of the project purposefully developed for inexperienced participants:

Focus 1: boosting hardware and software capacity

Focus 2: boosting student-centered blended learning capacity

Focus 3: boosting international cooperation and grant capacity

We expect that the project activities will bring rich fruit. During the zoom sessions that Lead Partner had with UA partners to discuss the project issues, they expressed willingness and interest in the future development that they will receive, which is, unfortunately, out of reach without of this project. The BOOST project primarily addresses the overarching priority of ‘Digital Transformation.' At the same time, the project touches ‘Sustainable Growth and Jobs’ and ‘Migration and Mobility’ with both capitalizing on the main overarching priority of Digital Transformation. Ukrainian universities located in remote towns, who are not able to compete with top educational establishments, face multiple challenges ranging from low technical capacity to falling behind the latest approaches in learning and to underdeveloped soft skills of both staff and students. This is primarily the result of being located outside of central cities and having a limited scope of communication. At the same time, their survivability is vital for their communities as the local universities keep/push the general level up. This project undertakes an ambitious aim to support remote universities that have never enjoyed international project experience. The project will enrich the participating universities with simple tools to increase their performance in different areas ranging from capacity to internationalization. In this proposal, we use the term local university for a university located in a remote area, far from the capital and center of its region.

We expect that the project activities will bring rich fruit. During the zoom sessions that Lead Partner had with UA partners to discuss the project issues, they expressed willingness and interest in the future development that they will receive, which is, unfortunately, out of reach without of this project.