The FinPal project team had its last online meeting on 27.5.2020 thus concluding the implementation of the eTraining FinPal project. The meeting included evaluation of the project outcomes and the reporting of the project achievements to the HEI ICI funding programme. The project team members discussed also their three-year FinPal partnership and the pedagogical network of academics created through the project activities.
The last Advisory Board meeting was held online on 2.6.2020. The meeting agenda focussed on the evaluation of the project, and its training and research activities. The external members congratulated the project team on a successful cooperation and the results achieved. After analysing the project’s activities outlined in the document “Project implementation overview“, the Advisory Board members agreed that the project was successfully implemented and that its achievements have great contributions to the quality of Palestinian higher education. The discussion also included the overview of a rich dataset that was collected during and after the project’s training (online teacher and student questionnaires, and teacher interviews). A preliminary data analysis has already been done by the Finnish-Palestinian research team and the research cooperation will continue after the project has ended.
The evaluation meetings were concluded with expression of commitment by IUG and TAU members to continue their collaboration and academic exchange beyond the duration of the project. The mobility cooperation that was established between TAU, IUG and Birzeit University (West Bank, Palestinian Territories) in 2018 will continue until 2023. The mobility is funded by the Erasmus+ ICM funding and it enables staff and student exchange between the three universities thus supporting the internationalisation efforts of the partner institutions. In addition, IUG and TAU prepared new collaboration proposals together with other Palestinian and European partners and submitted them to Finnish and European funding bodies; these proposals might yield new cooperation projects in the future.
The IUG-TAU project team would like to thank everyone who was directly and indirectly involved with the FinPal project. Special thanks to the Palestinian university teachers whose efforts and commitment were crucial for the project’s success.
