IGNITION

The project "European Digital Literacy Coalition for Inclusion, Collaboration, and Innovation," or IGNITION for short, brings together the STARS EU partners Hanze Groningen (Netherlands, lead), Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal), and Hochschule Bremen (HSB), as well as the former ENGAGED partner Waterford Institute of Technology (Ireland). Funded with €385,000 from the Erasmus programme "Cooperation Partnerships in Higher Education," the group has until 2025 to implement a future-oriented agenda.

The needs addressed by IGNITION include improving digital competence and the related use of innovative pedagogy, methods, and digital tools. The target groups are teachers and students, including those in continuing education programmes (Lifelong Learning), as well as external individuals, particularly micro-enterprises and freelancers. The IGNITION project will enable them to consolidate and expand these relevant skills. The following measures will be implemented:

• Development of an IGNITION online awareness and self-assessment tool for digital competence, based on the DigCompEdu methodology;
• Establishment of a Community of Practice for teachers in the field of digital competence for inclusion, collaboration, and innovation;
• Implementation of IGNITION "Digital Challenge and Innovation Learning Labs" for international student teams, which will develop solutions for innovative challenges faced by micro-enterprises and freelancers using digital tools and platforms;
• Development of an IGNITION toolkit with new methods, digital media, and strategies for engaging external stakeholders: freelancers, professionals, active workers, and micro-enterprises.

Additionally, multiplier events are planned at each of the partner institutions to raise awareness of the development of these skills, which are urgently needed in today's global, digital world, beyond the project environment.

HSB will be primarily responsible for the work package "Toolkit for engaging external stakeholders: freelancers, active workers, and micro-enterprises," which will be implemented by Prof. Andreas Teufel, Faculty 4 Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and will also contribute partially to the other activities.

This is the second concrete project success involving HSB, following CONFIDENT, which has emerged from the collaborative work in the STARS EU consortium. Hochschule Bremen has been involved since 2019 in the European university alliance founded by its long-term partner Hanze Groningen, which started with six partner institutions under the name "European ENGAGED University" and was renamed STARS EU at the beginning of the year, expanding to eight partners. The goal remains the same: to establish a forward-looking cross-border university model that:

• educates a new generation of future-oriented students,
• provides innovative, flexible, diverse, and demand-oriented education and research systems,
• utilises synergies of interregional cooperation, and
• acts as a "change agent" for sustainable regional and European development.