The project entitled. "Innovative competence in on-line higher education" (InCompEdu), which aims to develop a methodology and international tools to support online education, was on the list of projects co-financed under the Erasmus+ Programme. The leader of the project is the University of Gdańsk, and its manager is dr Olga Dębicka from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Gdańsk.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a major challenge to higher education. The sudden shift to online teaching puts the infrastructure of universities to the test. It is also a challenge for academics who have no experience of working in such a setting.

- 'There was a need to master new IT skills, but also to develop a methodology for creating and delivering online courses. Since not all universities met these challenges equally, it is necessary to share the knowledge or experience that universities gained during the last academic semester,' - says dr Olga Dębicka from the Faculty of Economics UG, the project manager. - 'Developing tools and methodologies to support online education has become a necessity nowadays. We want to create them so that classes are conducted interestingly, engaging students as much as possible.'

Many European universities are working to implement online learning solutions on a fast-track basis, relying only on their efforts. Given that the mobility of both students and teachers is also more limited to online mobility, including the creation of e.g. virtual mobility within the Erasmus+ programme, it is advisable to develop common, universal solutions for online curricula and IT tools for teaching that could be used not only within one university or country, but internationally.

The project assumes that educational technology experts from different countries will share their most successful ideas and experiences that can be adopted/adapted by other academics.

The project consortium, apart from the University of Gdańsk, consists also of the University of Turku (Finland), University of Primorska (Slovenia), University of Alba Iulia (Romania), University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy).

The budget of the two-year project (2021-2023) is nearly EUR 250 000.