Short project description in English

LIPS aims to develop pilot measures to improve students' skills and competences for their successful completion of work experiences abroad (for example in an internship).
The project team will develop an online course (based on social software tools, such as Moodle, Podcast, etc.) which is based on key communicative situations; e.g. the first face-to-face meeting with the employer. The following three target groups will benefit from our project results:

• Students in Business Studies and related subjects
• Supervisors and in-service-trainers in companies
• Counsellors and language teachers at universities

Apart from the language and intercultural preparation, the students will be trained as "cultural brokers". This measure has been designed to raise the value of the interns for the company they will work for. In their respective home countries, the students should get in touch with companies similar to the one they are going to work for abroad. They should analyse the company at home in detail and be prepared to share this knowledge with the company abroad.
As a support to the online course we are developing different guidelines of good practice, such as:

• Guidelines for enterprise supervisors (in all project languages)
• Guidelines for international offices on how to implement an online course and how to provide course information (in English)
• Good practice guidelines for the students who go abroad in order to work for a
  company will complement the online course

The project consortium involves a research institute, universities, enterprises and transfer partners such as the umbrella association JEUNE from all regions of Europe (Northern, Southern, Western, Middle- and Eastern Europe) to ensure the linguistic and culturally diversity required by our project approach.

The academic team contains a mix of expertise in the area of language and intercultural education, curriculum development, E-learning, administration of student mobility and knowledge transfer between universities and enterprises. The project is especially a result of the experiences and needs identified by project partners in the area of student mobility and university / enterprise cooperation.
This project receives funding by the European Commission (Leonardo da Vinci programme).