CROSSCOMP project represents a common initiative from three technical universities from the cross-border area, the result being a coherent, coordinated action plan in order to jointly address the multidimensional task of increasing the quality of academic educational process in the field of automotive engineering sector in the region. CROSSCOMP Work plan is composed of 4 Groups of Activities (GA).
GA0. Project preparation. The activities that were undertaken for CROSSCOMP project preparation consisted of a series of face-to-face and online meetings between the involved staff of the three partner universities (TUIASI, TUM, and UASM).
A01. Meeting in Iasi for project ideas identification and prioritization. The three involved partners undertook a prior project ideas collection process within their own institutions, addressing several commonly identified problems, for several priorities of the call. The resulted project ideas were presented, discussed, and prioritized. CROSSCOMP project was selected as most suitable for the “Institutional cooperation in the educational field for increasing access to education and quality of education” priority. Each partner designated its respective project design team.
A02. Stakeholder meetings. The 3 university project teams identified and discussed with the potential project stakeholders, in order to establish the best way to address their expectations from project content.
A03. Online meeting for identifying the problem and establishing the project objectives. The scope of the videoconference was to clearly identify the target group and its main problems to be addressed by the project. Project general and specific objectives were established.
A04. Meeting in Chisinau for activities design and budget preparation. The project design team held a face-to-face meeting in Chisinau and established the 5 types of solutions to address target group needs, the action plan was drawn and the activity groups were defined. Subsequently, the necessary costs were estimated and the project budget established.
A05. Weekly on-line meetings for financing application form writing. The progress of the application form design was assessed in a series of weekly videoconferences, the project preparation team identifying the necessary inputs and examining the bottlenecks.
A06. Application package preparation. Each university realized its own application package, ensuring the eligibility checks and filling the required documentation. Individual packages were centralized by the project preparation team coordinator, in order to be uploaded in the EMS system.
GA1. Project management. The project management of CROSSCOMP will be carried out with the objective to ensure the successful implementation of the project, meeting the objectives set within the foreseen time-schedule and leveraging all available resources.
Activity 1.1 – Kick-Off Meeting. The purpose of this activity is to organize the Project Team and the Specialists Team to ensure that the bureaucracy is eliminated and the project’s effective control is taken from the first month, aiming at optimizing the exchange of information, knowledge and experience among the collaborators involved.
Activity 1.2 – Reporting. Reporting activities under the ACCESS2020 project will address: Details of the obtained results; Relevance of the project; Objective’s achievement; Stakeholder’s involvement; Advantages obtained by the beneficiaries of the project; Highlight of the encountered obstacles; Identification of unplanned results; The added value of the project.
Activity 1.3 – Progress Meetings. At the meetings of the Management Board , progress and outputs will come under close scrutiny, and necessary steering action will be implemented in coordination with the coordinator of each GA responsible beneficiary. The following aspects will be analysed: Partners collaboration; Charts and plans realised vs. proposed; Human resources; Technical aspects; Goods and services purchased or in the process of being purchased; Payments; Current and anticipated problems.
Activity 1.4. – Financial management. Each partner will undertake the management of financial resources based on the preparation, execution, reporting and control of the respective Financial Plan (FP), to ensure the use of the financial resources for the proposed purposes, in order to achieve the established objectives of the project.
GA2. Information and Communication plan. The objective of CROSSCOMP information and communication plan is to reach and engage stakeholders, including the public, throughout the course of project, in order to ensure that the results of the project are applicable and appropriate to stakeholders and to raise their awareness regarding the findings of the academic offer improvement activities of the partnership.
Activity 2.1. – Project website. The project website is one of the main sources of information about the project available to most stakeholders. CROSSCOMP website will be established immediately at the start of the project and will be maintained after the project ends.
Activity 2.2. – Public events. Over the course of the project, CROSSCOMP will organise two events to bring together policy makers, students, academic staff, local stakeholders and industry to share information on the implementation of measures for the increase in quality and accessibility of the education programs available in the eligible area, and to foster dialogue and engagement.
Activity 2.3. – Information products. CROSSCOMP materials will be made available to participants at the two public events, at the cross-border regional conference on automotive engineering academic teaching, and at the automotive international summer camp. The information products will be distributed to participants at other automotive industry related events organised by the three partners.
GA3. Increasing the quality of the academic educational programs. CROSSCOMP intends to enhance the existing cooperation between TUIASI, TUM and UASM by transforming it into coordinated collaboration and by bringing it to the next level – a strategic partnership embracing the mission to increase the quality of the cross-border available academic educational programs in terms of accessibility, attractiveness, relevance, and practical dimension, in the context of labour market requirements of one of the most dynamic and promising industry in the region – the automotive engineering sector.
Activity 3.1. – Performing the SWOT analysis of the regional automotive sector. CROSSCOMP will carry out a detailed SWOT analysis of automotive engineering industry in the cross-border area, with particular attention to the demands placed on future engineers by the private sector. The aim of the report will be to draw a broad picture of cross-border area automotive industry – an overview of the sector and its sources of competitiveness, as well as the challenges it faces, in connection with the academic offers of the regional universities.
Activity 3.2. – Planning and development the joint educational and research strategy in the field of automotive engineering. The three universities forming the CROSSCOMP partnership will examine together the possibilities of alignment and integration of education programmes and curricula with each other and within the larger context of regional and cross-border development of the automotive engineering sector.
Activity 3.3. – Joint development of a new high-quality interdisciplinary study programme at master level. CROSSCOMP partners will jointly develop a new interdisciplinary master degree program “Hybrid and Electric Vehicles” (HEV) at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty of TUIASI. TUIASI will be responsible for the new master programme and will issue the degree diploma, having academic responsibility for the contents of the study programme. The course descriptions of HEV will have to be approved by TUIASI, and it will be responsible for assessing the basis for the diploma in relation to the descriptions of learning outcomes in the programme description, and for academic approval and for the quality of the programme.
Activity 3.4. – Regional conference on automotive engineering academic teaching. CROSSCOMP will develop a joint event to provide to the academic staff of TUIASI, TUM and UASM with the applied knowledge requested in curriculum design, project based-learning, new forms of peer and group assessments, regional networking, and teaching using the new technologies. The foreseen event will take the shape of a dedicated cross-border regional conference on automotive engineering academic teaching in Iasi, in order to provide tools and strategies to help faculty members become fully effective in automotive engineering teaching.
Activity 3.5. – Curricular improvement of automotive engineering related courses. CROSSCOMP dedicated specialists team will perform a joint design and upgrade of curricular content for disciplines of the actual study programmes with applicative component related to the automotive engineering sector. The courses will be upgraded in order to synchronize their curricula with the current level of innovation in the knowledge-intensive sector of automotive engineering, aiming to improve their quality and relevance, in line with the cross-border area automotive sector’s labour market needs, with the support of regional companies and through dialogue that can provide exchange of experience and examples of good practice.
Activity 3.6. – Automotive Engineering International Summer School. CROSSCOMP will develop a joint program of entrepreneurship education, in order stimulate creativity, innovation and active citizenship of the students from the three cross-border area technical universities. In this scope, an Automotive Engineering International Summer School (AEISS) will be organised, hosted by TUM, and involving the students from the target group coming from all the three technical universities partners in the project. The duration of AEISS will be of 7 days, focusing on current trends in car engineering.
Activity 3.7. – Webinars on automotive engineering modern topics and trends. The CROSSCOMP project also envisages a series of 5 web-based events, involving the students and the academic staff from all the three universities from the cross-border area, including but not resuming to the project’s target group. The webinars will host two types of invited speakers. There will be lecturers which are in key engineering positions at representative regional automotive companies. One the other hand, invited speakers from international academic partners of TUIasi in automotive engineering will be available for presentations and discussions. Each webinar will treat a major automotive engineering topic addressing the main innovations in intelligent efficient and safe mobility modern concepts.
Activity 3.8. – TUIASI academic infrastructure upgrade. TUIASI will upgrade 2 laboratories – “Testing and simulation of propulsion systems for hybrid and electric vehicles laboratory” from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and “Automotive electronics laboratory” from the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology (ETTI). ETTI Faculty will also upgrade the teaching and learning conditions in 3 of its amphitheatres, by integrating new teaching equipment compatible with the use of new technologies and will upgrade the IT infrastructure.
Activity 3.9. – TUM academic infrastructure upgrade. TUM will upgrade 3 laboratories – “Automotive electronic equipment laboratory” from the Department of Electronic Devices and Systems, “Dedicated Electronic Systems and Applications with Microcontrollers laboratory” from the Department of Microelectronics and Biomedical Engineering, and “Cars Diagnosing laboratory” – from the Transport Department.
Activity 3.10. – UASM academic infrastructure upgrade. UASM will upgrade 1 laboratory – “Auto Transport Engineering laboratory” from the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Auto Transportation