Advanced training on sustainable management of pastoral systems

The project was designed to tackle dry grasslands conservation in Europe, in the face of climate change and of the current decline of pastoralism in the EU, which especially affected mountain area...

The main objective of the project was to develop an innovative, trans-disciplinary educational approach, combining academic knowledge and local actors’ experience in a real-world setting, to build a professional figure able to address in a multidisciplinary way the sustainable management of European pastoral systems. Specific project objectives were: i) defining shared guidelines and strategies for sustainable management of grasslands and farming valorisation; ii) defining teaching methods and strategies for stakeholder engagement in the teaching/learning process; iii) transferring knowledge to HE students on the complexity of grasslands management, including planning sustainable productive chains based on high-quality products, and the management of bottom-up processes. These objectives did not change during project implementation.

As originally foreseen in the application form, the Consortium carried out the following activities: - Joint definition of shared guidelines for the sustainable, participatory management of grasslands, and of a common teaching method involving local stakeholders as both trainees and trainers (R1) - Mobilisation of local communities and establishment of a collaborative environment between the academic and the extra-academic world, through the creation of local Green Teams gathering experts, local actors, lecturers, researchers and students from partner HEIs, who collaborated in the production of Project Results; - Teachers training workshop in Romania (C1), organized by UBB, during which teachers/researchers from partner universities, students and stakeholders from the local Green team shared and validated the first contents of the methodology and started to define structure and contents of a teaching toolkit (R2) accordingly. - Hands-on training workshop in Greece (C2), organized by UTH, aimed at refining the contents of R2 and defining the structure of R3. - Creation of OERs on the project topics, and of instructions for their use, collected and organized into a Toolkit (R2) and an online modular course (R3); - Joint intensive course in Italy (C3), organized by UNICAM, which served as the final test bed of the methodology (R1) and of the educational materials (R2, R3) developed by the project. The course was preceded by an online preparatory session on concept mapping (not initially foreseen), aimed at training students on the use of c-maps for organizing knowledge on project topics; - Integration and refining of the project methodology according to the results of the workshops; - Communication, dissemination and networking activities carried out throughout the project duration, and targeting research institutions, public bodies, and the agricultural and breeding sectors; - 4 national multiplier events in Spain, Italy, Romania, and Greece, for disseminating project approach and results; - a final multiplier event, organized by UCV as an international conference in Valencia (ES) to present and disseminate project results; it embedded a hackathon, involving national and international experts, local students and stakeholders, in outlining joint recommendations for the transferability of project results and a replicability plan, which were eventually collected in a final document (R4).

The main concrete output was the “package” (available on the project webpage and uploaded in the E+ Project Results Platform) formed by: - Methodological guidelines for implementing and teaching participatory grassland management (R1); - Sustainable Grassland Management Teaching Toolkit (R2), collecting OERs to support teachers in involved HEIs and other EU universities to carry out lessons, discussions, practical works and case studies analysis on project topics. It is complemented by the “Rangeland Ecology and Management text book”, not initially planned, but conceived to further facilitate the teaching of sustainable grassland management; - Modular online course on sustainable grasslands management (R3), which will remain freely available to HEIs and other institutions, also for extra-academic training programs and existing e-learning platforms; - Recommendations for transferability and replicability plan (R4). Other relevant results: - 32 students from partner HEIs (as planned) participated in the Joint Intensive Course C3, and a wider number (around 40) joined the Green Teams and participated in workshops, meetings and events held in their region, thus improving their skills by experiencing a real-life management planning process in a stimulating, international and trans-disciplinary learning environment; - 14 Teachers/researchers from partner HEIs were involved as staff or participants, improving their ability to integrate experiences and knowledge by testing a teaching approach they can replicate in their courses; - more than 20 Local stakeholders (consistently to what was planned) were involved as members of the Green Teams and as hosts of study visits during LTTAs. All gained awareness on the complexity of grassland management, getting insight into the planning and implementation of sustainable management activities. Their involvement also gave them the opportunity to share with the academic world their practical knowledge, objectives and methodologies, thus reinforcing linkages between HEIs and the labour market; - more than 12.000 persons were reached by communication and dissemination activities (counting only participants in multiplier events and social media interactions, but not considering the much wider outreach of media and other channels, such as partner universities’ websites and internal newsletters), resulting in a more widespread awareness on project topics.