4 September 2017

Staff mobility benefits students

Erasmus+

For ten years now, staff training has been an integrated activity in the Erasmus Programme. Training or teaching mobility supports individual professional development of staff, but as the cases of Sofie Holck and Francys Moreira show, it also strengthens the links between our institutions and directly benefits our students.

Get familiarised with the face behind the email 

Sofie Holck works at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and has done three outbound staff trainings during her employment with the University of Copenhagen. In June 2017, she attended a staff training week at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Working within Medicine where mobility can be complex and options for students can be limited, Sofie believes that learning more details about existing partners and potential new partnerships make her a better student advisor: “Knowing the face behind the email is important in maintaining a good partnership. And it engages you even further”.

First-hand knowledge of your int'l partners secures better counselling for your outbound students

First-hand knowledge of your int'l partners secures better counselling for your outbound students

Bringing back new perspectives and ideas

Assistant Professor Francys Moreira from the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil had an inbound staff teaching experience at the University of Copenhagen in July 2017. The dual purpose of the stay was to teach Ph.D.-students and post-docs on his current research; and also to build new potential partnerships: “Teaching in a foreign country was very challenging, but it was also a great opportunity to test myself and to improve my own skills”. Francys works on biodegradable polymers for food packaging – a sort of film to preserve food produced from food with added particles. “I was particularly interested in seeing how Danish society deals with food packaging, and I’m now able to use this comparison in my classes and research in Brazil”.

Encouraging mobility with Erasmus+

"The importance of staff being mobile should not be overlooked”, says Anne-Grete Routley, Head of the International Section at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. She is very supportive of staff doing training abroad, and is very pleased with the opportunities provided by the Erasmus+ Programme – “The close relations that we develop when sending staff abroad give important insights and a better understanding of our partner institutions, their course offerings and procedures. It also increases our opportunities to attract talented staff and students to Denmark”.

Again this year, the University of Copenhagen applied for funding via the Erasmus+ Programme, and was successful in receiving more than 75,000 Euros to support staff mobility for both University of Copenhagen staff and partners abroad.