University of Bologna:

The University of Bologna was founded in 1088 and is considered to be the oldest university in Western Europe. Nowadays, it still remains one of the most important institutions of higher education across Europe with around 85.000 enrolled students, 11 Schools, 33 research departments, 3000 academics, and 3000 administrative staff. University of Bologna is a comprehensive Higher Education Institution located in the Emilia-Romagna region, in the centre-north of Italy. It is located in 5 Campuses, the main one being in the city of Bologna and 4 additional campuses are located in the Romagna region, in the city of Forlì, Cesena, Rimini, and Ravenna.

University of Bologna is today the most internationalised of all Italian universities. The number of foreign students regularly enrolled is around 6000, while another 2000 arrive every year on international mobility programmes such as LLP/Erasmus, Overseas, and Erasmus Mundus Action II. The number of students of the University of Bologna who go abroad on exchange programmes or on study grants is more than 2,000.

The academic offer of the University of Bologna is composed by around 100 Undergraduate programmes, more than 100 Master programmes, 25 of which are completely taught in English or in another foreign language, and more than 90 Doctoral Programmes.

The University of Bologna, based on the experience and results obtained in the period 2007-2013 in the internationalization of education, has recently developed its new Internationalization strategy named “ALMA GLOBAL 2020”, which is also summarized in the ECHE 2014-2020. The medium term strategy identifies a list of activities and targets which are strictly correlated with the objectives of this project such as:

1. Learning Mobility for study and placement (target: incoming and outgoing students at all cycles; mobility for placements, especially at 2nd cycle, International degree seeking students, especially at 2nd and 3rd cycle; International and local students enrolled in Joint Programmes especially at 2nd and 3rd cycle);

2. Teaching and technical staff mobility and international recruiting (target: academic and administrative staff of different units to enhance their internationalization competence and foster the involvement in the international agenda as a basic requirement for modernization and for external outreach);

3. Mobility windows: development of study programmes containing mobility windows open to a wide range of activities abroad aimed to the achievement of well defined learning outcomes;

4. Summer Schools and Intensive Programmes (target: perfect integration of SS and IP into existing BA, MA and PhD Programmes)
5. Joint Programmes and Programmes with enhanced International outlook at BA, MA, PhD level (main target 2nd and 3rd cycle).

Wider expertise in the development and management of JPs is internationally recognized to UNIBO. JPs continue to be a core tool for internationalisation within ALMA GLOBAL 2020;

6. Development of innovative multilateral projects: Fostering the participation in multilateral projects both at academic and organizational level to enhance the quality of the education and research and their translation into practice and impact, to strengthen the cooperation with industries, to remove barrier to mobility, to improve services and provision for disadvantaged groups. Capacity building and collaboration with civil society, governmental actors and NGOs  are prompted.

Specifically, the Department of Psychology of the University of Bologna are involved in this project. The Department of Psychology consists of over 60 staff members representing all the different psychology fields (general psychology, neuropsychology, psychometrics, developmental and educational psychology, social psychology, work and organizational psychology, psychodynamic, and clinical psychology). The Department of Psychology is among the top departments within the University of Bologna in terms of scientific evaluation and research impact as indicated by international rankings such as the QS University Ranking by Subject and the CWTS Leiden Ranking based on bibliometric indicators (e.g., Web of Science 2009-2012). Importantly, the Department of Psychology is also consistently rated as the best Italian department of psychology in terms of teaching quality.

For more infomation please visit https://www.unibo.it/en

 

TEAM:

Activities and Experience of the University

The University of Bologna is one of the European leading universities in the management of international cooperation projects and mobility projects. Bologna is one of the first universities in Europe for participation in the LLP Erasmus Programme (for number of incoming and outgoing students) and Erasmus Mundus Action II projects for the management of mobility flows of students within large EU – non EU consortia. Since the beginning of the Erasmus Mundus Action II Programme (2007) UNIBO has been involved in 51 consortia (Lots) exchanging and managing more than 500 students and scholars. Placement for undergraduate and graduate students is a core internationalization activity offered to all UNIBO students. Each year, through the Erasmus Programme, the University of Bologna offers around 200 placement scholarships to students enrolled in first and second cycle degrees.

In the last 5 years Bologna has been selected as coordinator and partner in many EU projects (Erasmus+, LLP Multilateral projects, ALFA, Tempus, Edulink, VII FP, Horizon 2020, Atlantis), in order to foster  internationalization of education through activities such as the creation of joint programmes and modules, the organization of mobility flows, the creation of mobility windows within study programmes and the development of special services for international students. Specifically regarding the last year Erasmus+ calls, we have been selected for 2 Joint Master Degrees, 5 Consortia, 1 KA3, 5 Capacity Building Projects and 18 Strategic Partnerships (SP).

The sectors of the selected SP projects were: Higher Education, School Education, Adult Education and also a cross-sectorial Strategic Partnership for Higher Education and Adult Educati o.

Skills and expertise of the key persons involved in the project

In this project, members of the SociaLab (Laboratory of Social Psychology) of the Department of Psychology are involved.

The team consists of:

Prof. Monica Rubini: Full Professor in social psychology

-Head of the SocialLab for the Study and Reduction of Social Prejudice  and Coordinator of the PhD Program in Psychology

-Member of the Executive Committee of The European Association of Social Psychology

-Permanent Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Bologna

 

Prof. Silvia Moscatelli: Associate professor in social psychology

Her research has mainly focused on intergroup discrimination. In particular, she is expert in the linguistic transmission of prejudice, and has

conducted several studies on the antecedents of linguistic ingroup bias and outgroup derogation.

 

Dr. Michela Menegatti: Lecturer in social psychology

She has studied how teachers use language as an implicit means to compose unfavorable evaluations of immigrant students.

 

Dr. Elisabetta Crocetti: Resercher in social psychology

she is focussed on the interplay between personal and social identity of immigrants.

 

Dr. Francesca Prati: Post-doctoral fellow in social psychology

Her main research interests concerns social and cognitive strategies to reduce intergroup discrimination (i.e., multiple categorization, counter-stereotypic categorization, intergroup contact, imagined contact, social identity complexity)

Dr. Flavia Albarello: Post-doctoral fellow in social psychology  She has widely studied how to reduce dehumanization of immigrants throup multiple categotization

This team has a consolidated expertise in basic and applied research focused on the key topics of the current project. More specifically, core lines of research conducted by team members include:

(a) Studies on the effects of social identity complexity. Experimental studies are conducted to examine the beneficial effects of social identity complexity (referring to the awareness of belonging to multiple social groups) on reasoning (cognitive flexibility and creativity) and on reducing de-humanization (one of the most serious forms of social prejudice because it is based on the conception of others as less “less human”) of disadvantaged social groups.

(b) Studies on the effects of interventions that stimulate people to think about others in terms of counter-stereotypic (e.g., woman mechanic, immigrant-manager) as a basis for reducing the emotional prejudice, linguistic discrimination, and dehumanization.

(c) studies on intergroup contact as a context in which intergroup discrimination can be hindered.

The members of the team have widely published in international high impact journals of these topics

For the implementation of the project team members  supported by the International Relations Division of the University of Bologna.