INTENSE is a 36 months (2017-2020) Erasmus+ Capacity Building in the field of higher education project (K2) that addresses such root causes of environmental problems in Mongolia (MN), Ukraine (UA) and Vietnam (VN), as poorly formulated policies, inadequate selection of management actions and the lack of suitable technology, by building capacity for academic excellence in doctoral training in environmental studies in PCs (and beyond). It aims:

(1) To improve the practice of doctoral training and professionalise its governance by integrating PhD programs dealing with environmental policy, management and technology in 7 PCIs to 3 nationwide integrated doctoral schools (INTENSE NIDS), based on common Code of Operational Practices & research framework (COP & RF), and consolidating these schools into the INTENSE International Network.

(2) To enhance doctoral training provision by integrating and upgrading existing learning contents that can be used for doctoral provision (total 80 ECTS by M36), infrastructure for accessing the courses and setting&monitoring flexible research training trajectories and their progression (INTENSE open education platform, including sustainable mechanisms for its development and maintenance) and shared access to research facilities.

INTENSE will offer PhD students customized training trajectories and options to enrol on the courses, which will contribute to the progression of PhD theses; the IT infrastructure will provide access to the e-courses (including MOOCs) collected from all the PCIs belonging to INTENSE, from the full range of disciplinary fields related to environmental policy, management and technology, and to eScience modules creating individual learning portfolio.

(3) To build the capacity of PhD students to improve their published output, through a strengthened multidisciplinary approach to doctoral training, aided by facilitating access to global and EU research networks (including facilitation of academic mobility), development of transferable skills, promotion of joint research/supervision arrangements & interdisciplinary & practice-oriented thesis topics.

Project partners:

Ukraine

• Odessa State Environmental University, Odessa
• Kharkiv V.N.Karazin National University, Kharkiv
• Institute for the Carpathians’ Ecology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Lviv

Mongolia

• National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar
• Khovd University, Khovd

Vietnam

• Hanoi University of Science and Technology
• Ho Chi Minh University of Natural Resources and Environment

EU

• Estonian Life Science University, Tartu, Estonia – the project coordinator
• University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria
• Latvian National University, Riga, Latvia

Erda RTE will lead and co-lead WP2 and WP4, and specifically contribute to:

• Conducting in-depth survey of end-users and the institutional contexts
• ToRs for the development of learning and institutional infrastructure
• Lead the work on modernised research agendas and revision of “passports of PhD specialisations”;
• Launching national INTENSE schools and the International INTENSE Network
• Development of eLearning modules and MOOCs
• Development of transferrable skills courses and learning materials
• Training events
• Day-to-day management, communication, reporting to EACEA