D-TRANSFORM

About us

The goal of D-TRANSFORM was to implement a training program for leaders of European universities (presidents, vice-presidents) focusing on the major role played by digital technologies and Open Educational Resources (OER) in the necessary transformation of their institutions. The premise is that e-education (digital pedagogy and training) can become a strategic tool for European universities, enabling them to be pedagogically more effective, more cost-effective, more attractive and able to meet the needs of the professional world with regard to youth training and life-long learning.

Why?

EU higher education systems are operating in an increasingly fast-changing and competitive environment. They have to tackle key issues dealing with massification, career guidance, cost-efficiency, international attractiveness, student mobility.

At a more operational level, digital practices and technologies support the change of several aspects of higher education institutions and new players providing expertise and methodologies undermine the classical model of university as a leading knowledge producer and disseminator.

Such major transformations require modern governance arrangements and dynamic leadership. As outlined in the EU Modernization Agenda of higher education (2011), the major bottleneck found is the staff competence and preparedness, more specifically at the institutional leadership and executive management level. The issue of the modernization of Learning in the 21st century has been often addressed by foresight studies, such as VISIR project (visir-network.eu) and its Multi-Stakeholder Consultation activities.

In this framework, some European initiatives - i.e. the MODERN platform – or some European projects -i.e. the La Manche project – have been launched to respond to the need to promote leadership skills and the culture of streamlined change management in academic settings.

So far, these initiatives are generally focused on operational (managerial) aspects, D-TRANSFORM is the first European-funded project focusing on the fundamental strategic aspects of digital innovation of Higher Education. Through leadership schools, its goal is to help university governing bodies to define their own digital strategies and coordinate them with public policies defined at the European/national level; and finally, to plan e-education according to the university needs and profile.

How?

D-TRANSFORM was the first attempt to set up a "University Leaders Program" at the European level on the role of e-Education in shaping university strategies. Like the OLC consortium or the UPCEA, D-TRANSFORM focused on the necessity of visionary leadership and on its impact on university senior management, on policy and programs to effectively shape and support successful implementation of online, blended, and technology-enhanced initiatives.

According to the D-TRANSFORM agenda, each partner leveraged its specific competencies in order to lead the implementation of three "Intellectual Outputs”:

• the University of Lorraine (with the contribution of Sero Consulting Ltd) leads Output 1, whose goal is to draw up guidelines with recommendations for university strategies based on the use of e-education;
• the Open University of Catalunya leads Output 2, whose aim is to implement two leadership schools for university governance;
• the Politecnico di Milano-METID coordinates Output 3, whose goal is to implement an online training kit.

Moreover:

• the Foundation Maison des sciences de l’homme is the coordinator of the D-TRANSFORM project;
• the Budapest University of Technology and Economy leads the Internal Quality Task;
• the European Distance and E-Learning Network – EDEN leads the Dissemination task.

Contact

Angela Procoli, PhD

Head of International Partnerships at FMSH and coordinator of the D-TRANSFORM project

Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme
190 avenue de France
FR-75648 Paris Cedex 13

procoli@msh-paris.fr
Tel: +33 1 49 54 20 67

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