The partnership aimed at developing common standards for the integration of students with a refugee background at the partner universities and, in the long-run, also in the European labor-market. It addressed and aimed to solve two societal issues: first, the slow inclusion of highly skilled migrants and refugees into European society and labor market and second, the demand for STEM and IT-professionals of the increasingly digital labor market.

The project addressed these issues, looking at the associated challenges from different angles and by producing diverse outputs. The working packages of the project included:

1. Onboarding
2. Language Learning
3. Training for Employability
4. Job-Matching
5. Staff Training

The Academic Advising Service of TU Berlin led the working package on onboarding and TU Berlin's Modern Language Center led the working package on language training.

The working package of onboarding had the goal to develop common standards for the advising and support of students with a refugee background based on the experiences and best practice examples from the partner universities. For that reason we first analysed the situation in the partner countries and found what common challenges were in terms of working with students with a refugee background. Different best practice examples pointed out that the (re)-integration into academia with help of low-threshold measures and intense support and advising as well as cross-institutional cooperation and flexibility are important components when working with this group of students. These findings can be transferred to the work with other so-called 'atypical' student groups and are, together with the common standards and guidelines, part of the handbook. 

In addition, various staff trainings have been offered for people working at institutions of higher education. These staff trainings discussed findings and shared experiences covering the different topics of the IncluSTEM project. Related to the topic of onboarding, the integration of students with a refugee background into the university system as well as the access to higher education for refugee students were part of the staff training series. The recordings of these staff trainings are available at the IncluSTEM project website.

At the final conference in Stockholm, taking place on August 29 and 30, 2023 the experiences and findings of the IncluSTEM project have been discussed and shared with a broader audience.

More information about the IncluSTEM project is available on the project website.