Laying the Groundwork for Successful Collaboration: The EMBRACE Project

Building a strong consortium is at the core of every successful international project. The Education Modernization Brazil, Colombia, Europe – the new era of digital higher education cooperation (EMBRACE) project illustrates how trusted partnerships and carefully selected new collaborators can create a solid foundation for high‑quality results.

As a project specialist, I have the privilege of working on several international projects involving partner organisations from various continents and countries as well as designing new project applications in collaboration with organisations. After seven years of coordinating international projects, there is one thing I consider most important to focus on when designing a new project application for successful implementation – the partners.

It is said that a team is as strong as its weakest player, but how much playing time can you afford or are you willing to give away with little to no results? Hero (2019) highlights that while “new networks and team multidisciplinarity activate learning” (p. 85) and innovation, too much newness in a team can lead to conflict and decreased motivation if not properly supported (pp. 85–86). This supports the idea that it is beneficial to put together a project team combined of well-known trusted partners and new partners from other networks when planning a new project application.

The foundation of a quality project implementation

Project planning can begin through organisational collaboration or through expert collaboration. Research shows that “for a project to be successful, comprehensive planning is necessary” (Irfan et al., 2021, p.4). No matter how organisational collaboration begins, we must consider: How well do we know the organisation involved? Do we know the way they work and is the organisation management committed to the project and its quality implementation? One aspect, which is not considered enough, is how vulnerable the organisation’s contribution is to staff changes once project application gets funded. If the organisation is a trusted partner dedicated to the project goals and we know they have several high-level experts from the field needed for the project implementation, it is worth the risk to initiate the collaboration. This is dependent on receiving quality input during the planning stage. If we are not familiar with the organisation, there is a high risk that staff changes can negatively effect the quality or the completion of the project.

Normally collaboration begins with ideas from experts and their networks who have a willingness to collaborate. For an expert, issues worth considering before starting new collaboration efforts are the partners’ level(s) of expertise in the subject matter and their responsibilities in the project. When the partner and the way they work are unfamiliar, there is a higher risk of not being able to meet project goals in the set timeline. However, new partners can also bring unexpected value and unconsidered viewpoints to enrich the project.

This is what happened when writing the EMBRACE project application. EMBRACE is an Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education project co-funded by the European Commission (EMBRACE, n.d.). It aims to develop and implement institutional reforms to modernize higher education in Latin America with the involvement of teachers, students and managers from partner Higher Education institutions in Colombia and Brazil.

Previous experience guiding collaboration

The Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK) has had the privilege of working with Brazilian teachers for several years now, for instance, through the VET Teachers for Future programme for Vocational Education and Training (VET) that was implemented in collaboration with the Brazilian and Finnish governments between 2014 and 2016 (Mahlamäki-Kultanen, 2015), and through the Finnish Teacher Trainer Diploma Program (FiTT) in 2017. Moreover, some Brazilian teachers have completed HAMK’s International Professional Teacher Education programme or worked at HAMK as postdoctoral researchers for an extended period.

Through this collaboration and network throughout the years, a consortium of three Brazilian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) was formed in collaboration with HAMK to plan a project that responds to the development needs of teachers in Brazilian higher education. After an unsuccessful first funding application in 2021, a more in-depth needs analysis was conducted, and the consortium was completed with two additional Colombian partners and one Portuguese partner. After the second funding application submission, the project was finally funded.

Even though HAMK and the Brazilian partners had worked together previously, HAMK as the coordinator had little knowledge of the Colombian and the Portuguese partners. The new partners were introduced to us through our trustworthy earlier partners and because the new partners’ expertise matched our needed criteria, we were happy to include them in the final consortium. During the application period we held several online meetings with the entire partner consortium as well as bilateral meetings in the partners’ languages in order to make sure we all understood each other and were committing to the same goals. In-depth discussions were held to determine each partner’s strengths and responsibilities in the project. Even though this preparation required much work and resources, it proved invaluable for the implementation of the project and for ensuring the high quality of the project results.

At a very early stage, we found that our partner organisations were dedicated to the project goals and the sustainability of forthcoming project results. The partners all have unique strengths and resources which has made the division of roles and responsibilities clear. Most importantly, all the experts involved in the project are motivated to develop their skills and passionate about sharing their expertise with others, facilitating collaboration with experts from different cultures and backgrounds.

The impact of collaboration

As the project is now concluding and the project team has held the final seminar in São Paulo, Brazil, it is valuable to take a look at the achieved impact. Project outputs included training 25 institutional developers in five partner institutions from Brazil and Colombia. In addition to many other activities, the training included constructing three MOOCs that concentrate on developing teachers’ digital and pedagogical skills. The MOOCs were launched in May 2025 and now, one year later, have over 1,300 teachers enrolled. In addition to creating the MOOCs, the institutional developers trained over 75 teachers in their organisations, involving them also in the MOOC piloting process. The second major output of the project was the eBook Teachers’ Digital Competency Development Guidelines (Sá & Laurikainen, 2025) that describes frameworks steering digital competency development for higher education teachers. This publication presents five examples of strategies and implementation plans developed by educational institutions with the goal of strengthening teachers’ digital skills. It also discusses the key factors that educational institutions should consider when promoting professional learning and digital pedagogy in various contexts across Latin America. In addition to making the eBook, thematic workshops were held for the managers of our partner HEIs to develop their competencies. The third output of the project was the enhanced collaboration between partner HEIs and the industry. During the project, the project partners also developed their learning and innovation ecosystems as well as piloted new models for academia–industry collaboration (see Barbedo et al., 2026).

In addition to the formal deliverables, the partners of EMBRACE ended up providing more impactful results than we predicted during the application phase, and they will continue to do so even after the project has ended. The project results were planned to be implemented in a sustainable way where project partners will continue to develop their own competencies as well as scale the project results in their organisations. These sustainable results were made possible by including persons from all organisational levels in project activities, through collaboration, trust and a shared passion for high-quality education. Although the project ends with the current EMBRACE consortium, the cooperation continues with the partners with new contracts, applications and mobility actions.

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