Introduction
For at least two decades the workflow of higher education (HE) institutions in Europe has been driven by the project approach. The European Union (EU) supports HE financially and aims at maximal internationalization and cooperation among European countries.
The European Universities Initiative (EUI) was established in 2017. Its ambition is to strengthen strategic partnerships across the EU between higher education institutions by building networks of universities across the EU. In 2019, EUI opened its first call for HE institutions’ alliances. At the end of 2022, 41 European University Alliances were already gathering 340 HE institutions (European Education Area, n.d.).
Rationale
Members of such alliances are forced to change a lot in their daily work practice and acquire specific project knowledge and skills. For the majority of libraries as members of those alliances, this is the first time they have participated in joint, international (so also multicultural) projects with specific requirements, terminology, and workflows driven by grant agreement requirements and expected outcomes.
Methodology
An in-depth analysis of the skills and competencies rooted in information literacy (understood here as an umbrella concept, thus gathering many related ‘literacies’) needed for successful project management was conducted. It was based on 1) a review of literature on knowledge and project management (e.g., Bartlett, 2021; Mounir, 2018) and on new job requirements for librarians (e.g. Wojciechowska, 2018) as well as 2) the work experience on the TRAIN4EU project, co-lead by the academic librarians from the University of Warsaw Library (Poland), run by 4EU+ universities in the framework of Horizon 2020 (4EU+, n.d.).
Outcomes
The analysis resulted in a map of competencies that are useful and needed to work on international projects funded by the EU. The analysis showed that the skills traditionally associated with librarians’ and information professionals’ jobs, such as fluency in metadata, information literacy, information management, or research data management are crucial while working with EU-funded projects. Hence, on the one hand, librarians and academic professionals may already become important actors on the scene of a project-based workflow; on the other hand, there are some competency gaps that should be filled not only to support the researchers comprehensively but also to be able to conduct projects independently. The map of competencies may be useful not only for the staff of European University Alliances but also for other librarians and information professionals who would like to become members of project teams and for the library management who hire them.
Reference
- Bartlett, J. A. (2021). Knowledge management. A practical guide for librarians. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
- European Education Area (n.d.) Factsheets on the 41 European universities. Retrieved November 25, 2022 from https://education.ec.europa.eu/european-universities-factsheets
- Mounir, A. (2018). Project management between waterfall and agile. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group.
- Wojciechowska, M. (Ed.). (2018). Multibibliotekarstwo. Warszawa: Wydaw, SBP.
- 4EU+ (n.d.). 4EU+ Alliance. Retrieved November 25, 2022 from https://4euplus.eu/4EU-1.html
Zuza Wiorogórska
University of Warsaw, Poland