National PHE Excellence Forum: Croatia

The Conference and a Round Table have been organized by Croatian Council of Universities and University Colleges of Applied Sciences (CCUUCAS) and Agency for Science and Higher Education, partners in PROCSEE Project. The conference was well attended, the info about conference was distributed by the Media and TV. Total of about 60 stakeholders attended the Conference including state secretary for science and higher education and representatives of local self-governing bodies.
The Excellence of Professional Higher Education in Central and South-Eastern Europe (PROCSEE) is a project aimed at strengthening professional higher education through the support of umbrella organizations representing institutions in higher professional education in central and southeastern Europe (CSEE) by supporting their work on developing education policies. Partners in the project were Slovenia, Romania, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The project focuses on education that offers a particularly intensive integration with the world of work in all aspects (including teaching, learning, research and management) at levels 5.6 and 7 of the educational qualifications framework in the European Higher Education Area.
From the thematic perspective, the project dealt with four areas of current policy issues in professional higher education:
1. Alignment of PHE with regional and local development strategies
2. *Promotion of PHE in responding to skill shortages
3. *Organizing and Monitoring Student Placements in the World of Work
4. *Personalized Learning Environments in PHE
Within the PROCSEE Process, recommendations and Policy Interventions in the area of PHE (Professional Higher Education) have been developed with the aim of building consensus around strategy and announcing steps towards implementation.
The main focus of the Conference was to:
• review the challenges that stand in the way of excellence in professional higher education in Croatia;
• Discuss possible policy interventions to respond to the challenge;
• Discuss what policy interventions could be most useful in Croatia and how they can be implemented.
List of recommended actions was presented and accepted as a roadmap for continuing cooperation and efforts between CCUUCAS and stakeholders for next 3-5 years in order to improve Croatian Professional Higher Education.
Within the conference, a workshop titled “Designing innovative approach in connecting higher education and world of work, using design thinking and root cause analysis”, was created and moderated by Mislav Balković, Ph.D. At the end of the Conference a Round Table titled: Harmonization and Contribution of Professional Higher Education to National, Regional and Local Development Strategies (with a special focus on Depopulation Trend) Moderator: Elvira Marinković Škomrlj, spokesperson of the University of Rijeka.