AGILE - Higher education resilience in refugee crises forging social inclusion through capacity building, civic engagement and skills recognition

Summary

AGILE paved the way for European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to develop context-sensitive approaches to welcoming students in exile and responding to current and future refugee crises. It contributed to building more inclusive HE systems by promoting civic engagement, social participation, and the recognition of skills acquired throughout refugees' learning pathways. Particular emphasis was placed on developing a common strategy for language learning to overcome language barriers, which are often considered a key obstacle to integration.

“My participation in AGILE [...] taught me that education and academic initiatives are powerful tools for social change, enabling refugees to rebuild their lives and integrate into new societies.” 

Topic(s) addressed

• Sociolinguistic inclusion for refugee students and students in exile in Higher Education Institutions 
• Language learning 
• Skills recognition 
• Microcredentials, Open badges 
• Civic engagement 
• Social participation 

Target group(s)  

• Students in exile, already enrolled in Higher Education Institutions in Europe (400 students). 

Methodologies used

The innovation in the AGILE project's teaching and learning approaches centers on moving refugee education away from existing, isolated "language-only" training towards a dynamic, holistic, and community-integrated model that places a strong emphasis on a bottom-up approach. It is designed around a core three-level intervention framework:  

• Blending language acquisition directly with academic culture, critical thinking, and civic engagement; 
• Using participatory practices to make HEIs places for social participation through activities in academic libraries and citizen labs; 
• Developing digital tools that enable the recognition of the hard and soft skills of students in exile through new micro-credential systems.

Innovation environment

Due to the diversity of its partners, the AGILE consortium implemented its activities across a wide range of innovative learning environments. These environments fostered innovation by transforming conventional academic spaces into fluid, community-driven hubs. The AGILE project combined formal and non-formal learning through workshops, masterclasses, hackathons, FabLabs, citizen labs, film screenings, and a summer school. A key objective was to develop learning formats that resonated with students in exile. Consequently, many of the workshops were designed and facilitated by students in exile for other students in exile, including public talks that encouraged peer-to-peer learning and exchange. 

Teachers’ role

Teachers and trainers in the AGILE project developed interdisciplinary best practices that enabled partners to build cultural bridges. They drove the innovation process in three primary ways: 

• Adopting holistic methods by using creative practices (such as theatre and Visual Linguistic Autobiographies) to blend language learning with emotional processing and social support. 
• Fostering co-designed activities by working alongside refugee and local students, guiding them through iterative design thinking and project development during hackathons and citizen labs. 
• Recognising soft skills by assessing and validating student’s informally acquired skills, digital literacy and resilience through alternative digital micro-credentials (Open Badges). 

Impact and output

The impact of AGILE’s activities and methods is twofold: systemic institutional change and greater inclusion of refugee students in higher education and wider society: 

• Socio-academic inclusion: AGILE's approaches significantly strengthened the emotional, academic and professional resilience of students in exile while reinforcing their sense of belonging, self-confidence, and participation in higher education. 
• Employability and skills recognition: The development of Open Badges translated informal learning, transversal skills, and hackathon experiences into recognised micro-credentials, improving the visibility of learners' competences and facilitating access to employment and further opportunities in higher education.  
• Institutional transformation: AGILE equipped higher education institutions with practical tools, transferable practices, and implementation frameworks to move beyond emergency responses towards more adaptive and resilient systems capable of responding to current and future refugee crises.

Learn more about the project