The Euro­pean Mas­ter in Active Age­ing and Age-friend­ly Soci­ety (EMMA) is being devel­oped by researchers and edu­ca­tors from high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions in Fin­land, Aus­tria, Greece, Ire­land, Por­tu­gal, and Slove­nia. Our goal is to devel­op an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary, future-ori­ent­ed, inter­na­tion­al master’s pro­gramme pro­vid­ing a wide range of pro­fes­sion­als with tools for sys­temic active age­ing pro­mo­tion for the continent’s ben­e­fit. This project is sup­port­ed by fund­ing from Eras­mus+.

About EMMA

The EMMA project address­es the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of the age­ing pop­u­la­tion in Europe by devel­op­ing an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Euro­pean Mas­ter in Active Age­ing and Age-friend­ly Soci­ety. The master’s pro­gramme will enable future grad­u­ates to broad­en their knowl­edge and devel­op skills for cre­at­ing an inclu­sive soci­ety and mean­ing­ful active age­ing pro­mo­tion.

High­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions in Fin­land, Aus­tria, Greece, Ire­land, Slove­nia, and Por­tu­gal com­plete the inter­na­tion­al and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­sor­tium. With exper­tise from the fields of psy­chol­o­gy, tech­ni­cal sci­ences, social work, geri­atrics, phys­io­ther­a­py, and relat­ed sub­jects, our con­sor­tium works to cre­ate knowl­edge and inno­v­a­tive good prac­tices both for and with­in the master’s pro­gramme. Stu­dent intake is to com­mence in 2023.

Objective

In cre­at­ing this pro­gramme, the project aims to iden­ti­fy the nec­es­sary com­pe­tences for pro­fes­sion­als while using the con­cepts of healthy and active age­ing and age-friend­ly soci­ety. The inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty of the project team will be reflect­ed in the cur­ricu­lum of the master’s pro­gramme, which aims to cre­ate com­pe­tent pro­fes­sion­als able to inno­v­a­tive­ly solve the chal­lenges of age­ing and age­ing soci­eties, at local, nation­al and Euro­pean lev­el. It is our inten­tion to cre­ate a long-term, suc­cess­ful, and wide­ly recog­nised master’s pro­gramme with a diplo­ma recog­nised and signed by all part­ner insti­tu­tions.

The EMMA master’s will be flex­i­ble as it will be deliv­ered sole­ly online. It will be designed with applic­a­bil­i­ty and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty in mind, to allow pro­fes­sion­als from many fields who recog­nise the need for exper­tise in healthy and active age­ing and age-friend­ly soci­ety to get involved.

Activities

The process of cre­at­ing this pro­gramme is guid­ed by a series of intel­lec­tu­al out­puts, each build­ing on the process and results of the last: 

Output 1

The needs analy­sis focus­es on poten­tial stu­dent learn­ing needs and rel­e­vant poli­cies in healthy and active age­ing. The knowl­edge gen­er­at­ed is gath­ered by scop­ing review and sur­vey of the broad range of stake­hold­ers, as well as estab­lish­ing a pol­i­cy repos­i­to­ry rep­re­sent­ing 10 EU coun­tries. 

Output 2

The cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment estab­lish­es the frame­work and learn­ing approach­es of the EMMA master’s pro­gramme. This involves con­sul­ta­tion with Euro­pean, nation­al, and insti­tu­tion require­ments and col­lec­tion of best prac­tices from the lit­er­a­ture and part­ner insti­tu­tions.

Output 3

The devel­op­ment of the core mod­ules relies on the results of the needs analy­sis and takes place in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the next intel­lec­tu­al out­put. Struc­tur­al details (e.g. ECTS) will be derived from the results of the cur­ricu­lum frame­work.

Output 4

The elec­tive mod­ules take a sim­i­lar devel­op­men­tal route to the core mod­ules. The needs analy­sis and con­sor­tium-wide dis­cus­sions helps to deter­mine whether top­ics are deemed core or elec­tive. 

Output 5

E‑learning plat­form and tools is the basis for mod­ule devel­op­ment by cre­at­ing a sol­id, sys­tem­at­ic, clear, flex­i­ble, and trans­par­ent frame­work. There is care­ful explo­ration of cur­rent prac­tices and use of e‑learning plat­forms, and the skills and com­pe­tences of online teach­ing in each part­ner insti­tu­tion.  

Output 6

The cre­ation of the val­i­da­tion and qual­i­ty assur­ance frame­work includes the devel­op­ment of ref­er­ence qual­i­ty indi­ca­tors, a method­ol­o­gy for review­ing edu­ca­tion­al con­tent and process, and a tool kit for inter­nal and exter­nal review of the pro­gramme. 

Output 7

The joint degree and accred­i­ta­tion frame­work is cre­at­ed in close con­sul­ta­tion with the Euro­pean Approach for Qual­i­ty Assur­ance of Joint Pro­grammes (EQAR). The con­sor­tium col­lab­o­rates to col­lect com­par­isons of expe­ri­ences and poli­cies, review nation­al legal accred­i­ta­tion frame­works, and agree on def­i­n­i­tions of the organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture and respon­si­bil­i­ties. The final out­put being a pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tion on the accred­i­ta­tion of online joint degrees to inform leg­is­la­tion at nation­al and EU lev­el. 

Project Partners

Kare­lia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, Fin­land.
Lead: Rai­ja Kuis­ma

Carinthia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, Aus­tria.
Lead: Andrea Stitzel

Nation­al and Kapodis­tri­an Uni­ver­si­ty of Athens, Greece.
Lead: Pana­gio­ta Sourtzi

Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Cork, Ire­land.
Lead: Suzanne Tim­mons

Uni­ver­si­ty of Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal.
Lead: Fáti­ma Bap­tista

Uni­ver­si­ty of Ljubl­jana, Slove­nia.
Lead: Jana Mali

Publications

Here you can find infor­ma­tion on all pub­li­ca­tions made dur­ing the the Eras­mus+ Project EMMA.

Articles

Stu­dent needs analy­sis in active age­ing: Progress https://ikanyt.karelia.fi/2021/02/18/what-we-need-to-know-about-ageing-an-update/

EMMA: Euroop­palaisen mais­terik­oulu­tuk­sen kehit­tämi­nen vauhdis­sa https://ikanyt.karelia.fi/2021/02/18/emma-eurooppalaisen-maisterikoulutuksen-kehittaminen-vauhdissa/

Academic papers

Post­grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion in healthy and active age­ing: learn­ing needs, cur­ricu­lum and expect­ed out­comes: a scop­ing review pro­to­col https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/4–120

Post­grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion in healthy and active age­ing: a sys­tem­at­ic scop­ing review of learn­ing needs, cur­ric­u­la and learn­ing impact https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02701960.2023.2187386

Learn­ing needs in healthy and active aging accord­ing to key stake­hold­ers: a multi­na­tion­al sur­vey https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02701960.2023.2252368

Conference contributions

AGen2021: 7th Asian con­fer­ence on Aging & Geron­tol­ogy: Euro­pean Mas­ter Active Age­ing and Age-friend­ly Envi­ron­ment (EMMA)

9th Sci­en­tif­ic Con­fer­ence: All About Peo­ple: Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion in Sci­ence, Edu­ca­tion and Arts: Home page (Oral pre­sen­ta­tion)

Finnish Nation­al Board of Edu­ca­tion: Spring Sem­i­nar – Inter­na­tion­al Activ­i­ties: Pro­gramme (Poster)

Soci­ološko srečan­je: Pan­demič­na druž­ba: Starosti pri­jaz­na druž­ba in aktivno staran­je:
pro­jekt EMMA

17th EUGMS Con­gress: Stu­dent learn­ing needs in healthy and active age­ing: a multi­na­tion­al sur­vey of poten­tial stu­dents, ace­demics and key stake­hold­ers (Abstract #562)

IGS: The Annu­al and Sci­en­tif­ic Meet­ing 2021 ‘What does “Active Age­ing” mean to you?’ A five-coun­try sur­vey of aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents, advo­ca­cy groups, and ‘expert’ old­er peo­ple and Inves­ti­gat­ing learn­ing needs, out­comes, and cur­ric­u­la in healthy and active age­ing: a scop­ing review and multi­na­tion­al sur­vey

11th Hong Kong Inter­na­tion­al Nurs­ing Forum: Euro­pean Mas­ter in Active Age­ing and Age-Friend­ly Soci­ety (Poster 6006)

Cohehre Con­fer­ence 2022: Pro­gramme (Pre­sen­ta­tion in par­al­lel ses­sions)

Forschungs­fo­rum der öster­re­ichis­che Hochschulen (FFH 2022): Pro­gramme Build­ing an online Joint Pro­gram Plat­form Archi­tec­ture for the “EMMA” Project (Poster)

Poster-EMMA_FFH-2022Down­load

8. kon­gres social­ne­ga dela (8th con­gress of social work): Home page (Oral pre­sen­ta­tion)

3rd Inter­na­tion­al Hybrid Con­fer­ence of Healthy Aging in Dig­i­tized Soci­eties: Active Age­ing and Age Friend­ly Soci­ety: Pro­gramme (Pre­sen­ta­tion)

From Mol­e­cules to Peo­ple: Pro­gramme (Poster)

13th Nation­al Con­fer­ence of Nurs­ing Stu­dents: Pro­gramme (Round Table Pre­sen­ta­tion)

Col­lege of Med­i­cine and Health Teach­ing and Learn­ing show­case: Inves­ti­gat­ing Learn­ing Needs, Out­comes, And Cur­ric­u­la In Healthy And Active Age­ing: A Scop­ing Review And Multi­na­tion­al Sur­vey

Poster-EMMA-UCC Learn­ing and Teach­ing Show­caseDown­load

21st Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Infor­mat­ics, Man­age­ment, and Tech­nol­o­gy in Health­care:
Sur­vey Results on Online Teach­ing and Learn­ing Envi­ron­ments in the Euro­pean EMMA Project