Seven exploratory visits were carried out by academics from programme country universities between March and September 2018. The aim was to further enrich and elaborate on the state-of-the art in the teaching of European studies. The visits included the following activities: reviewing existing needs analyses of the state-of-the-art in the partner country HEIs, studying and benchmarking the existing curricula, the teaching modules and courses on EU topics, identifying potential students to be trained in the field, complying bibliographical data on EU studies and teachings in IN and CH, evaluating the effectiveness of past and current EU academic collaboration projects in the partner countries, engaging interested stakeholders beyond academia in IN and CH (such as business circles, local and central authorities, NGOs, media, etc.), summing up of the overall preparation and development of the project working program and forming the different project teams.
The representatives of EU universities met institutional and external stakeholders during the exploratory visits – from Heads of key departments, Deans and Deputy Deans of the faculties involved in the project and other faculties at the same institution to Directors of different study centres and teachers who were willing to develop courses in EU Studies and students. They were introduced to the EURASIA project and took part in discussions about the place of EU Studies as an important area of teaching and research.
