17 June 2024 – A Networking Activity was presented on 13 June 2024 by some of the partners of the NEMOS Consortium at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
The aim of this Networking Activity was to transfer the lessons learnt in the NEMOS project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, which are contained in the Methodological handbook in food sustainability through service learning. This is intended to be a practical tool for teachers helping them to provide students with the skills necessary for addressing sustainability within the curricula, to other subject fields and educational levels.
Also, some NEMOS case studies were shown, along with a short project video and the Methodological Handbook (translated into 5 languages) as a quick practical guide for integrating sustainability competences through service learning in a systematic way throughout the degrees. The onsite moderators (Maria J. Cantalejo, the main coordinator of the NEMOS project, and Sami Ghnimi, one of the local partners from ISARA-Lyon) and an online moderator (Maite M. Aldaya from UPNA-Spain) enabled the exchange of ideas and discussion on different implementation options and collaborations for improving the Methodological Handbook in the future. The feedback and implementation interest from the participants were collected through direct inputs and through a Google Form. The impact was measured in terms of the number of participants interested in implementing the Methodological Handbook, the number of different educational fields and levels covered, and, after the Activity, the number of participants implementing in practice the Methodological Handbook.
In the case of ISARA-Lyon, the renewal of the accreditation DD&RS (Sustainable development and social responsibility) is one of its main outcomes in recognition of the improvement achieved thanks to the NEMOS project. ISARA got the renewal of DD&RS accreditation and is progressing in this strategy and moved from level 2 (initiation) (at the beginning of the NEMOS project) to level 3 (conformity) (during the NEMOS project) and still more challenges to be addressed to reach the level 4 (mastering). According to Sami Ghnimi, they are applying now to achieve this level and level 5 (Excellence) in the coming years.
About the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress
Since 2021, the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI) has united global leaders in research, government, civil society, and business to meaningfully advance progress towards sustainability. The SRI Congress has offered an exceptionally inclusive and inspiring global platform for co-creating state-of-the-art solutions and innovations and building a coalition of the willing to achieve a sustainability transformation. In 2024, SRI was organized in collaboration with Sustainability Science Days (SSD), which for over six years has been the largest sustainability science conference in Finland (source: sricongress.org).
About the NEMOS Project
The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.
More information at www.nemosproject.com
