News

The new Intercultural Preparation Module is here: it is a short, practical, and adaptable module that helps outgoing students reduce culture shock, build confidence, and develop essential intercultural competences before departure.

Culture is much more than what we see on the surface. Just like an iceberg, the deeper layers – values, norms, worldviews, and hidden biases – shape our interactions and perspectives.

Final touches on the preparation for intercultural competences, new steps toward post-return reflection, and a renewed focus on the role of credible trainers: the PADMICA project team gathered in Versailles to advance and refine its training modules.

PADMICA at the Erasmus Generation Meeting 2025: students were invited to reflect on how intercultural preparation can shape more meaningful mobility experiences, and they also responded very positively to the demos of both the online and in-person parts of the preparation module.

The intercultural preparation module has been successfully tested across all partner institutions. With engaging case studies, personal examples, and interactive elements, the module will help students make the most of their mobility experience by fostering the development of their intercultural competences.

The meeting gave us the opportunity to review the current status of the project. We tried out some exercises from the intercultural preparation module that is being tested, analysed the feedback from the first participants, and discussed technical issues and the next steps.

Our recently published report maps existing measures for intercultural intervention, whether before, during or after mobility. It identifies good practices and common pitfalls and makes recommendations for the development of comprehensive, mixed intercultural preparation and follow-up modules.

Good practice mapping – Intercultural interventions before, during, and after the study abroad experience are crucial for the learning and development of students. Despite this, only a limited number of HEIs have adopted these valuable practices.

In the review we aim to introduce relevant literature on the adaptation of international students and intercultural competence. The document concludes with recommendations for planning and implementing intercultural interventions.

We talked about the PADMICA project live to a larger audience for the first time! The project was showcased in the poster corner at the EUF Open Space event in Murcia, in the last week of May 2024.