GOOCZ – Getting Out of the Comfort Zone
Getting Out of Comfort Zone (GOOCZ) – an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Higher Education – addresses the need to bridge the gap between academia and industry through transnational, interdisciplinary, practical staff development.
GOOCZ objectives are to:
- Enhance academics’ understanding of industry work environment, challenges and unmet skill requirements
- Develop relevant learning and teaching to prepare graduates for current and future work
- Connect universities across borders, strengthening cooperation between academia and industry
Outputs and outcomes
GOOCZ’s outputs and outcomes:
- Capacity building and competence
- Relevant, responsive, change-oriented higher education curricula
- Sustainable staff development programmes
GOOCZ high-quality, state-of-the-art pedagogical development to achieve its objectives:
Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
This is a unique 5 ECTS interdisciplinary pedagogical development company attachment programme (IO1). Working with industry partners in Finland, Germany, and Lithuania, academics get out of their comfort zone, to experience and reflect on the challenges of industry in a turbulent world as a basis for developing relevant learning.
Get Your Curricula Out Of Comfort Zone
This is a 3 ECTS interdisciplinary pedagogical development programme (IO2). It acquaints academic staff with advanced pedagogical practices and digital tools to help develop innovative learning and teaching curricular for contemporary and future industry and societal challenges. It builds on IO1’s learning.
Getting Out Of Comfort Zone case-book
An edited volume featuring industrial experience, case and reflective studies on contemporary curriculum development and academia-industry cooperation, co-authored by project participants and external contributors.
Activities and participation
GOOCZ invites as participants to their activities:
Junior and senior faculty; Members of staff actively engaged in curriculum development and enhancement
About the project
Project period
- 2025-01-01–2027-12-31
Project Leader
- Main Project Leader: Romeo V. Turcan, Aalborg University
- Local Project Leader: Per Servais, Guest Professor
Other participating researchers
Collaboration partners
- Aalborg University (coordinating university)
- University of Oulu (Finland)
- University of Siegen (Germany)
- Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania)
Financier
- The project is funded through the Danish Erasmus + National Agency with the budget of 400,000 euros.
Disclaimer
The project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
