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Tempus Projects

Fostering Academic International Relations in Israeli Academic Colleges – IRIS

Tempus IRIS is a three-year project, 2012-2015, uniting nineteen Israeli and European partners. Israeli partners include peripherally and centrally situated academic institutions, engineering and social sciences colleges, educational training colleges and Arab colleges. The IRIS project’s objective is to promote international and intercultural policies, skills and culture in Israeli public academic colleges.

The participating Israeli academic colleges are: ORT Braude College of Engineering (coordinator), Ort Hermelin Academic College of Engineering and Technology, Sapir Academic College, Kaye Academic College of Education, Beit Berl Academic College, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, and Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education. Our partners also include: The National Union of Israeli Students, the Committee of College Presidents, and Tel Aviv University.

Our European partners are: University of Bristol (UK), Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), Pedagogosche Hochschule Karnten (Austria), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy), the Centre for Higher Education Development (Germany), the European Foundation for Management Development (Belgium), Università Carlo Cattaneo (Italy), and the European Association for International Education (The Netherlands).

English as the Cornerstone of Sustainable Technology and Research

The TEMPUS ECOSTAR project, coordinated by the English Studies Unit of ORT Braude College of Engineering, aims to standardize the teaching of English for Academic Purposes in higher education in Israel. In collaboration with our European partners, ECOSTAR will build a framework for tertiary level English which will conform to European standards while satisfying the requirements of the Israeli Council for Higher Education. As part of the project, learning packages comprising classroom activities and materials (standard, online and mobile) which promote the development of the 4 language skills – reading, writing, speaking and listening – will be developed and piloted. The project also addresses English Medium Instruction, where content courses are taught in English.

The consortium solidifies ties between members of several Israeli and EU institutions who collaborated in the EFA project, and introduces new partners all of whom are experts in the field of language learning and assessment. The Israeli partners in ECOSTAR are ORT Braude College of Engineering, the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Tel Aviv University, the Open University of Israel, Sami Shamoon College of Engineering, Nazareth Academic Institute, the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation, the Inter-University Computing Center, and the National Union of Israeli Students. The European partners are the University of Leicester, UK, the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, l’Università degli Studi, L’Aquila, Italy, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Romania.

Visit Tempus-Ecostar website

English for All in Academia

The Tempus EFA project brought together 19 partners from Israel and the EU to foster teaching in the English language in higher education. The project ran from 2010 until 2013 during which time new courses were developed and piloted with students in Israel and in Europe. As part of the Development of Thinking Skills course, students participated in two international conferences, one held in Wroclaw in Poland, and the other in Nicosia, Cyprus. The Applied English course, developed by the English department at ORT Braude College to enhance students’ speaking skills, was taught in the Israeli partner institutions and is currently being adapted for teaching in Poland.

EFA was the first Tempus project to be coordinated by an Israeli partner, Sami Shamoon College of Engineering. The other Israeli partners were ORT Braude College of Engineering, the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Sapir Academic College, Holon Institute of Technology, and representatives of each college’s Students’ Union. Other Israeli partners included the Young Entrepreneurs of Israel, the iCon Group, SIT, and the Council of Higher Education. The European partners were the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, l’Università degli Studi, L’Aquila, Italy, the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, the University of Leicester, UK, and the Pyramid Group, Germany.