- Posted 19-Apr-2022
University of Nicosia is a Partner in the CRISIS Project
The ERASMUS+ project aims to provide a holistic approach for the professional development of Smart City Resilience Officers
The University of Nicosia is a partner in the recently launched CRISIS project, which aims to develop a new job profile for Smart City Resilience Officers (SCROs) and to design, develop and deliver a pilot training programme to certify the first cohort of SCROs. The two-year ERASMUS+ Project is being coordinated by the University of Thessaly, with partners across Europe, namely: the Hellenic Open University (Greece), the University of Nicosia (Cyprus), the University of Minho (Portugal), and FernUniversität Hagen (Germany). It officially kicked off last week (7-8 April 2022).
As Panos Fitsilis, Professor at the University of Thessaly and Coordinator of the CRISIS Project emphasised, “Research on smart cities infrastructure has been a focal point for the scientific community; however, less attention has been given to targeting the human resources who are going to support the smart cities at the strategic, tactical and operational level”. The CRISIS Project proposes a holistic approach for the professional development of trainees, envisioning to enrich their portfolio of competences and increase their employability on the basis of analysis for the actual competence gaps.
Moreover, the Project purports to address the situation brought on by the COVID-19 crisis, which has heavily impacted education by accelerating the need for individual flexibility and the ever-increasing demand for digital skills. In this vein, the CRISIS project will design and implement a learner-centred curriculum, an objective that will be better achieved through flexible learning journeys enabled by the curriculum’s modular structure.
Overall, the main objectives of the CRISIS Project are as follows:
- Provide in a structured and systematic way a framework for educating smart cities staff on resilience, a need that was recently proven of paramount importance
- Develop an innovative curriculum for SCROs (currently there is none available)
- Provide innovative learning tools
- Close the competence and skills gap for municipalities officials
- Promote the European Collaboration on smart cities’ education
- Increase the awareness of the Member States, Local Authorities, Municipalities and of various stakeholders that resilience of smart cities is a complex and difficult to acquire competences
- Build upon important work delivered by previous ERASMUS+ projects undertaken by the partners, such as the SmartDevOps Project. In line with that, the CRISIS Project will focus on implementing trans-disciplinary approaches and novel pedagogical models, including contemporary approaches such as concept mapping and problem-solving, as well as group-based, project-based, peer, and participatory learning, in order to engage, inspire, motivate, and stimulate learners throughout the learning process.
For her part, Professor Angelika Kokkinaki at the University of Nicosia pointed out that the CRISIS project will open up other interesting educational opportunities for both smart cities officers as well as the general public. “Our University is proud to support the CRISIS Project through its School of Business, building upon its already pioneering output in the field of smart cities competences, including that undertaken as part of the now completed ERASMUS+ Sector Skills Alliance Project”.
Source: University of Nicosia (https://rb.gy/lozlgf)