The ERASMUS+ project NEXUS ‘Promoting the nexus of migrants through active citizenship’ main objective is to empower students to defend their rights, uphold human values, contribute positively to their society and the global community, and as such, become more active European citizens.

NEXUS has aimed, therefore, at innovating the civic educational process resulting in increased participation of students in their communities. This aim focuses on the role that higher education institutions have in promoting the civic and social responsibility of students, with an emphasis on including students from diverse backgrounds (e.g., migrants) in such initiatives. Another secondary objective has been to explore how meaningful civic learning is undertaken in online environments using technologies that are familiar and appealing to younger students. NEXUS based its approach to civic education on audiences that favour more personally expressive or self-actualizing politics often expressed in peer-to-peer networks.

There are four KEY RESULTS:

• A series of civic education micro-learning units were produced and fashioned into a MOOC on civic education (“Active citizenship and participation in the digital age”). More information can be found here
• As a follow-up to the MOOC, a knowledge-sharing platform (“NEXUS4Civics Community”) was built for a learning community of educators and students with a diverse background and interests in active citizenship and participation in the digital age. It contains a collection of resources created by the NEXUS team, or shared by the project community, related to a variety of topics such as digital civic engagement, digital identity, digital footprint and online privacy, public policy, monitoring, accountability and transparency, advocacy, etc. Access to the platform can be found here 
• Community engagement and service-learning guidelines were developed for HEIs. A policy document was also prepared, which focussed on the implementation of service-learning as a pedagogical method for HEIs. The policy document was included as part of an UNESCO initiative. The document can be found here 
• The notion of Civics has been re-written to version 4.0., connecting students to institutions in the digital age by combining three elements (available here):

1. An inventory of digital tools for open democracy and digital citizenship education
2. A handbook for educators on civic education for a digital age
3. Student training in civics as an illustrative process.

Finally, you can find here a brief list of our webinars, presentations, and publications.

Please take a look at these results and don’t hesitate to get in contact with the NEXUS team if you have any questions or would be interested in using any of the outputs from the project.

Get in Touch with the Project Team