“Erasmus+60” is a highly innovative project focusing on a particular age group that has not been sufficiently considered in the development of HEI activities and framework programmes like Erasmus+: European citizens aged 60 and above.
Started: 2022
Funding: Erasmus+ Key Action 2 – Cooperation partnerships in Higher Education
Length: 3 years
Partners: 8
With life expectancy increasingly growing and given the fact that one citizen in three is expected to be over 65 by 2060, the need for studying and training opportunities grows correspondingly. Studies are not only of benefit to the mental and physical health of senior citizens, but they are also important in view of late career development and professional activities during semi-retirement and beyond as well as personal development of senior citizens including critical thinking as well as language and IT skills.
The offer of lifelong learning and third-age universities is far from homogeneous in the EU and the current situation may not always reflect diversity of citizens over 60 sufficiently. For retired academics or soon-to-be, it is arguably easier to access such offers, including online courses offered in English, but IT skills and foreign languages are still be a challenge for many other citizens aged 60 and above. It also appears obvious that there is a need for European platforms of Third-Age Education with academically sound and internationally shared content that could eventually reflect or even be a part of European University Alliances. We therefore need to develop higher education offers that are systematically more inclusive and reflecting diversity among citizens over 60.
Erasmus+60 project objectives are:
- taking stock on a large scale of existing Higher Education offers for citizens aged 60 and over in relation to the issues of inclusion and diversity;
- developing pilot courses contributing to the aim of building inclusive higher education systems that contain adapted offers to citizens over 60, including student life activities to maintain one’s health;
- promoting inter-connected higher education systems in Europe by providing a pilot platform for an online offer of shared courses as well as intercultural learning activities for citizens over 60.
- developing policy recommendations that will draw on the project results in order to highlight the urgent need to open new and more systematic educational perspectives for senior citizens of the EHEA.
Partners: University of Porto, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, University of Split, University of Latvia, Eötvös Loránd University, European University Foundation, Mendel University in Brno, University of Zurich.