The Euro-Project Training Unit at VIU through the Covid-19 crisis has transformed its curriculum in an innovative way while maintaining the quality standard of the courses.
The participants responded splendidly and actively to test and evaluate this new model in order to create an interactive community of trainees dialoguing intensively with the course organizers and trainers.
The lessons learned are that in online professional training the key to success is to intensify the so-called subtle relationships, those that make us feel close to our community of reference and that allow us to exchange informal information; a tool for communicating empathically with the certainty of being able to get feedback from our reference groups as if we were in our classroom or in the hallway having coffee, chatting about this and that.
In these subtle relationships, the part of the community that lasts over time is developed; from there, sustainable relationships that will continue after the course itself are created.
VIU is committed, beyond the provision of training, to maintaining this important part of the relationship by increasing the service offered in terms of active and immediate response to the needs of participants.
The response to this effort has been astounding: in 2020, the number of courses offered and participants have increased dramatically, and the will to build a community has helped the process of maintaining the quality standards offered.
The Europelago Foundation supported by AICCRE, the Italian division of CEMR - Council of European Municipalities and Regions, has been collaborating for many years with VIU in promoting advanced training programs on grant-seeking from the European Union institutions.
Since 2010 VIU and Europelago have been jointly managing the Euro-Project Training Unit at VIU which provides training in project, financial and operational management of EU-funded projects. Core courses are offered recurrently during each year together with other training initiatives that are specifically designed on a request basis.
